Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kooyong, and I rise to speak in support of her motion on native forest logging. Australia's native forest are not only a national treasure, they are natural resource. They are not a resource in the sense that is traditionally understood but as a significant way of meeting the challenge of addressing climate change. As the member for Kooyong pointed out, 87 per cent of native forest logs are used for woodchips and paper production. A mere 7.5 per cent are used for sawlogs. Every year around two per cent of our native forests are logged, which the experts calculate results in 15 megatonnes of CO2. According to David Lindenmayer, the respected conservation biologist from ANU, who's been tracking this subject for years, and fellow researchers Brendan Mackey and Heather Keith from Griffith University, stopping the logging of native forests on its own would come close to enabling Australia to achieve its legislated target of a reduction of 43 per cent in carbon emissions by 2030.

Here's the argument. To get to 43 per cent Australia needs to reduce carbon emissions by around 15.3 megatonnes of CO2 over each of the next nine years. Ending native forest logging now would result in an annual reduction of around 15 megatonnes of CO2, not that w   e should be resting on that, because we all know that the 43 per cent target—good start that it may be—is not adequate to get to net zero by mid-century. Furthermore, native forest logging is highly destructive and unsustainable. It contributes to threatening species, contaminating water catchments and irreversible damage to ancient and unique forest ecosystems.

In my home state of Victoria the forests are home to the Leadbeater's possum, the state's faunal emblem. Logging over the decades has irreparably reduced and eliminated the possum's habitat to such an extent that Leadbeater's possum is now critically endangered. Imagine a state whose emblem is extinct—not a record anyone could be proud of; as bad as Tasmania's record with the thylacine, perhaps, although at least the citizens of my childhood home of Tassie never made it a state symbol. And it doesn't end there. The greater glider is vulnerable to extinction on both state and federal registers. In Gippsland in Victoria, the population has declined by 50 per cent. Victoria's mountain ash forests themselves are designated as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List.

It need not have been this way. The forests of Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales are subject to regional forest agreements, designed decades ago under shared management by federal and state governments. Unfortunately, these RFAs effectively exempt native forest logging from the environmental protection requirements of the EPBC Act. Other extractive industries, like mining, for example, do have to comply. Victoria is the most cleared state in the country and none of the five RFAs have met their environmental protection objectives. The independent review of the EPBC Act, conducted by Graeme Samuel, argued this was a loophole that should be closed. His report suggested that the federal government should require RFAs to adhere to the national environmental standards of the EPBC Act, which set benchmarks for effective environmental protection and management, as well as prescribing the baseline support needed to achieve the benchmarks.

And that's the intention of this motion proposed by the member for Kooyong: to ensure that native forest logging in RFA areas is subject to the same environmental laws as all other industries. It's not an oversight; it's a grievous error, which has had terrible consequences. It has not protected the forests, and nor has it really helped forestry. The industry is less and less profitable and in decline.

Communities also need appropriate management to assist this part of our climate transition. We need native forests in place to assist materially in helping us meet our climate change responsibilities. Many members of my community in Goldstein have raised the issue of decreasing biodiversity, and I stand here on your behalf today. I urge the government to act, and I will continue to advocate for what is left of these forests to be protected when the government updates the EPBC Act.

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