Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts and it concerns his declaration during question time on 12 May in relation to logging activities in New South Wales Central Murray State Forests. He stated:

It is particularly important for me to confirm to the House that no stopwork order has been issued by the department.

Is the minister aware of this letter from the assistant secretary of his department dated 1 May 2009 to Forests New South Wales clearly stating that by 31 May there must be:

… cessation of all harvesting operations in the Central Murray State Forests Ramsar site until further advice from this department.

Can the minister explain the inconsistency between his statement and his department’s actions?

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. It astonishes me that the honourable member has not been following this debate more closely since that article was first produced, and in fact since that correspondence was first issued. What we have said—and this is the case—is that we will continue negotiations with the New South Wales government on those matters that have been identified in that correspondence. I am happy to report to the House that those negotiations are ongoing. I also want to make it perfectly clear to the honourable member opposite that no stopwork order has been issued. This is correspondence between the department and the New South Wales government and on that basis negotiations are underway between those two governments.