Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I'll rehash some figures I mentioned before my speech was interrupted. I do support the Illegal Logging Prohibition Amendment (Strengthening Measures to Prevent Illegal Timber Trade) Bill 2024. I think we all in this place want to see the end of illegal logging because we know that those logging practices, domestically or internationally, are not sustainable, unlike the native hardwood industry not just in New South Wales but in other states and territories, with the exception of Western Australia and Victoria, which I'll speak about in a moment.

These are the facts that people need to listen to. In New South Wales alone there are 20 million hectares of state forest. Some 30,000 hectares are available for selective logging. That is less than one per cent or 14 out of every 10,000 trees. So these claims that there's widespread destruction with these sustainable logging practices are just not true. What we have seen in Victoria is the Victorian government decimating an industry overnight. My colleague and friend the member for Gippsland has for months and months and months fiercely represented his community and championed the sustainable practices that his local timber harvesters employ. But the Daniel Andrews government not only shut down that industry but brought forward the closure of that industry by a number of years, giving those in the industry, locals, mums and dads and business owners zero time to go out and plan for the future. Thousands and thousands of jobs were gone overnight. The member for Gippsland is out there fighting for them every single day. Given the opportunity—and I appreciate it was the state law in that case—we will work with any government to reinstate a practical, sustainable timber industry, but I expect that by then it will be too little too late.

They've tried it here as well in New South Wales. The North East Forest Alliance challenged the regional forest agreements between the Commonwealth and the states, trying to say that the agreements were not valid. So what they were doing was trying to take the first step to shutting down the industry in New South Wales. The industry in New South Wales is worth more than $1.8 billion to the economy—this is just in New South Wales, not across Australia—and employs 9,000 people, 5,000 of whom are in my electorate. Thank God for Justice Perry in the Federal Court. She vindicated the sustainable practices of our timber workers in New South Wales, and she found in favour of the timber workers and the forestry agreements. If she had taken the other view, then we would have seen 9,000 people out of jobs—instantly. As for the Environmental Defenders Office, we heard the opposition leader only recently, in the last budget reply, saying, 'We will defund them.' It makes absolutely no sense that the federal government gives an organisation money to sue the federal government. That's an absurdity in itself.

It is not in a logger's best interest to negatively impact their environment. How could it be? The creation and management of thriving forests is literally what keeps them employed and keeps them profitable, not just in the short term but for the decades and generations to come. Let's look backwards because we haven't seen deforestation and destruction, and we have been doing this for generation after generation since the early 1800s. I mention this with a particular focus on sustainable native hardwoods. Sustainable native hardwood practices are not deforestation. These practices are not land clearing. They are not irreversible. Our local native timber harvesters are positively impacting emissions through the planting of native saplings, and they are responsible for managing local forests and protecting them from pests and introduced species as they are contributing to biodiversity outcomes. A true environmental zealot would be screaming this from the rooftops, would be telling their communities how important it is to have native saplings that absorb the CO2, that improve the bushland, that improve the sustainability of our native hardwood industry.

So, I ask cabinet members to accept the continued offer from the member for Gippsland—and also from me—to come and see this for yourself: go down to Gippsland or come up to Dorrigo and have a look at these best and world-leading practices that are occurring right now—well, not now in Victoria, because they've killed it. But come up to Dorrigo and see what's on the floor in your house, see what is building the houses around Australia. I noticed today that a report came out saying that the timber hardwood industry can build 50,000 homes a year through sustainable practices. Why wouldn't you engage with them? Why wouldn't you say, 'That's fantastic; this is a great resource'?

Now that they've shut the industry down in Victoria, do you know where they get their hardwood from? The Northern Territory. They are taking the wood from the Northern Territory and importing it down to Victoria. That is madness. They had a perfectly good industry down in Victoria. They've killed it. And now they're taking it from the Northern Territory. Where are they going to go next, when the Northern Territory says, 'Sorry: we're building our own houses'? Do they then go overseas? Guess what? We are a net importer of timber, when we do not have to be. That's a disgrace. That is a national disgrace, that we are importing timber from other countries.

With that said, I will state that this bill does deliver important changes that the coalition had initially outlined prior to the change of government, and I thank them for that. I hope to be able to assist in any way that I can to ensure that our timber industry thrives and to make sure that illegal logging ceases.

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