Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There are costs to my state. Indeed, the one-stop shops will provide efficiencies. It is unquestionably about the process for addressing and making sure that the environmental approvals, where appropriate, are conducted in a more efficient way that enables confidence and businesses to look at opportunities, done with the appropriate safeguards and checks in place. It is indeed important.

I remind the House that Tasmanians are truly proud. I, no less than anyone else, am truly proud of the estate. I have seen much of it. Many people who reside in Melbourne and Sydney who have very strong views about what should and should not be done in my state have never seen these places. I, for one, have walked these places. I have been and I have seen. I am proud that 50 per cent of my state is in World Heritage areas, national parks or formal reserves. That is something that I as a Tasmanian am justifiably proud of.

The threat to the World Heritage estate was raised by the Wilderness Society in 2009. They believed that forestry practices and forestry management in Tasmania were presenting a risk to the outstanding World Heritage estate in south-west Tasmania. In 2009 the Wilderness Society asked inspectors to come to Tasmania to view this. At the time Mr Garrett was the responsible minister. Once that information had been collated and the report was presented to Minister Garrett, he rightly rejected the extension of the World Heritage area at that time because it was not in any way under threat by the world's best forestry standards that are applied in managing Tasmania's working forests.

It beggars belief. Within the electorate of Franklin—and I say this with all due respect to the good people of the Huon Valley—I suspect they have a slightly different view of the world. The electorate of Denison effectively encompasses the capital city of Tasmania, Hobart. In the recent state election under the Hare-Clark system, which has multiple members per seat, 10 people were elected to represent the seat of Franklin and the seat of Denison. Five of them were Liberals, three were Labor and two were Greens. Basically, it was business as usual. In regional Tasmania—in the seats of Lyons, Bass and Braddon—it is not business as usual, because they are hurting, and that was reflected in the vote at the recent Tasmanian state election. Out of the 15 seats, 10 went to the Liberals, four went to the Labor Party and only one went to the Greens. As was the case in the federal election prior, we went clearly to the people asking them to respond to what had been a process that was, frankly, corrupt. They rejected this utterly.

It is also important to remember that the people who have this agenda will never be happy. They have an agenda to close down an industry that has for generations sustained communities, businesses and families. The political situation that occurred in the last few years has done such enormous damage.

I call on the World Heritage Committee, which is going to meet very soon, to consider the minor boundary adjustment that the federal government has recommended, which will remove 74,000 hectares from the 174,000 hectares proposed under the previous government. And I remind the House that it will add 100,000 hectares of Tasmanian forests to the existing World Heritage area. That is something that we should celebrate. It is something that as a state we should celebrate; it is something that as a nation we should celebrate. The environmental movement should cut their losses, move on and listen to what the people have said in the past eight months. They have utterly rejected this proposition, and I call on the World Heritage Committee to listen clearly to what the Tasmanian people did twice. They did it in September last year; they did it again in March this year: they utterly rejected this.

Our concern primarily is (a) communities that are affected the most by this listing were never consulted, which absolutely goes against the notion of community ownership of World Heritage areas, and (b) this outstanding estate, of which all Tasmanians and all Australian should be truly proud, is potentially being compromised. It is the Tasmanian wilderness World Heritage areas. These areas, by any definition of the word 'wilderness', are simply not wilderness areas. These have been working forests for generations. These are forests that have sustained communities in my electorate, and I call on the World Heritage Committee to utterly reject what was not based on science, what was not based on fact, but what was instead based on a political imperative and a political coincidence. Thank you.

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