Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have raised this motion to express my support for the ongoing deliberations of all the interested parties working to develop solutions to ensure the viability of the forest industry over future years while also dealing with such issues as climate change, biodiversity and economic change. I have been encouraged by the work of many of the interested parties to look at their operations, study how the industry works, and to consider current and future markets and how they can productively but sustainably use our beautiful timbers in Tasmania. Tasmania leads the way, but the process is just as important for the rest of Australia.

Our forest industry is something to be proud of. There is still great demand for timber and timber products. We only have to look at our own homes to see how timber is used and, further, how it is developing in new and varied ways. Yet we understand that change is inevitable, as with all things. As a product becomes scarcer it grows in value, and it is up to us to make sure that we do not sell our industry short and to make sure we get a good price for all our timber and wood products. It is better that we try to manage change so that the people who work in the industry, the people who make or use the products and the people who use the proceeds of the industry to undertake other work can grow with change. If we do not manage change and use the processes positively, many people will get hurt or be left behind and their businesses could fail.

We must ensure that change does not disadvantage whole sections of the community or economy. To ensure that the communities that have been part of the industry for centuries do not lose out, it is important to ensure that any process of restructuring includes a rethink of how things are done and who does them, and that criticism of the industry is constructive rather than destructive. I believe that this is what is happening at the moment, although I am not party to any of the discussions and nor, as far as I know, are any of my colleagues, state or federal. I believe that is as it should be, as we are the representatives of the people in this instance.

It was my good fortune to attend a small part of the Timber Communities Australia state conference in Launceston a couple of weeks ago, and it gave me heart to hear what the timber communities are doing and talking about. I was particularly interested in the work of one of the TCA members, Rodney Stagg, who comes from the Meander Valley—a long-term timber community. Rodney was curious to find out how much local timber was being used, where it came from and where it went, and how many people were employed. He undertook a survey of 10 businesses from the Yellow Pages in Launceston which receive timber from all over the state to make various sorts of furniture; internal and external doors; fittings for households such as vanity and kitchen units, built-in robes et cetera—lots of different fittings and household goods.

He then sought to find out where their products went—whether very local, to markets on the east coast of Australia, or overseas—and how many employees these businesses had. The minimum number of people employed in these 10 Launceston businesses was 84, and that did not include the auxiliary people who help to supply and transport goods, the sawmillers or all the other people who are employed because these businesses are there. Once you start adding the other involvement, including all the building and other businesses that use timber, you start running into hundreds of jobs just out of Launceston—around 800. If the process of sawmilling timbers is removed from this community, suddenly jobs will disappear.

Another story involves a small country sawmiller in southern Tasmania who was looking to find a sale for shorter lengths of sawn timber. He had been puzzling over this for some time and he came up with the solution of joining the short lengths together into longer, more usable timber lengths, using a sawtooth timber jointing machine. But this was big money for a small sawmiller. Fortunately, the Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement was providing assistance for value-adding projects in 2005. This sawmiller looked at that option with his family and realised that, with that assistance, they could do even more value-adding than was first thought. By adding a glue press laminator, they could produce beams up to 12 metres in length that were even stronger than the single piece that they had contemplated. Add to this a finishing planer that removes any surface glue marks resulting from the gluing process. This family is now producing highly sought-after beams of Tassie oak, often used as feature timber in buildings. So Ike Kelly and his family, down in Dunalley, can take a bow. They are leading the way for small sawmillers, taking up the challenge to develop businesses in new and exciting ways while employing local people and keeping their community viable.

I also attended two community festivals at the weekend, one in my hometown of Longford, the Longford Show—a very old show of 150 years plus—and another in Oatlands, another wonderful town right in the middle of Tasmania. I found that people were making practical goods for sale from all sorts of timber, including old pallets. The sorts of things being made were boxes, jewellery cases and picture frames. It was very saleable stuff and they were doing extremely well.

Change to the industry will have to be very carefully managed. Restructuring also includes re-evaluating markets, changing the harvesting and transport methods and reviewing the players in the industry—but in all this ensuring that there is a resource that will allow both traditional and new skills to be used in dealing with Tasmania’s timber. Some timber usage just does not work with young plantation wood, but the regrowth sector can still use the older and mature wood and it can be used without harming the overall resource or its biodiversity. By the same token, we need to be able to use all the wood that we harvest. That means that a pulp mill is not only an important downstream process but is vital to ensuring that our industry is properly sustainable and economically viable.

Transitions can be painful or they can be managed. I would like to see this approached with the agreement of all parties, both in the community and the industry, and with the involvement of everyone else who has concerns. It is necessary to secure the viability of forestry-dependent communities and to create well-paid, highly skilled jobs by value-adding to our natural resource. It can be done if everyone works together and we have sensible access to our resource. The resource has to be able to be used in a whole variety of ways. The young resource from plantation timber just does not cut it in the old sawmill industry. We have to make sure that there is a resource for the sawmilling industry of the future. I certainly wish the industry all the best. I wish all the best to all the people who have been meeting to discuss this issue over some months now. I hope that they can bring something together very soon for us all to give consideration to. I commend the motion to the House.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak tonight on the motion moved by the member for Lyons. I recognise his passion for the future of the sustainable forestry industry. In his address he referred to the impact of the timber industry on small regional communities and the importance of the timber sector right throughout regional Australia. I fear, however, that it is not a passion that is shared by many of his colleagues who have sat back at both the state and federal levels and allowed the death of a thousand cuts to be applied to the timber industry in regional Australia.

As we approach a state election in Victoria I have grave fears for the future of the timber industry in Gippsland if the Labor Party is returned in some type of coalition with the Greens. Labor and the Greens have talked a lot in the past and made a lot of promises about jobs we might have in the future in Gippsland, but I am fighting for the jobs we already have today, and that includes fighting for the future of the native hardwood timber industry in my community. I am talking about towns like Heyfield, Orbost, Bairnsdale, Swifts Creek, Nowa Nowa and Cann River, which have a strong dependence on the timber industry, from the people who work directly in the harvest and haulage section to those in the mills and those who service the industry. Every time the Labor Party and the Greens lock up another section of forest in Gippsland more jobs are lost and more families are forced to seek alternative employment in the region, or they simply move away and small country towns suffer the consequences.

The Greens in particular like to claim that the jobs will be replaced by jobs in areas like ecotourism, but in my experience the Greens have never created a job in regional Victoria and their policies are a direct threat to the livelihoods of the families that work in range of traditional industries, from timber harvesting to commercial fishing and the Latrobe Valley power industry. As one of the leading players in the timber industry in East Gippsland, Bob Humphries from Cann River has told me in the past that he cannot see many of his timber workers serving up Devonshire teas in the future. This is a real issue for us. I am a very passionate supporter of our tourism industry, but at the same time the timber industry provides sustainable jobs in the long term for our community and there are people with the skills and experience who deserve to be able to continue to earn their living in a sustainable manner in the East Gippsland forests. These are hardworking men and women. They have skills in that industry. They provide a product that is in great demand. But their livelihoods are constantly at risk from the Labor Party and the Greens when they do those deals to win preferences in city seats. It is to the eternal shame of Labor members of parliament that they refuse to stand up and be counted when the workers in the timber industry are having their jobs taken away from them at the expense of Green preferences.

Just on the point of skills that the timber industry workers have I will briefly mention the important role that the timber industry has played in the past and must continue to play in the future in fire suppression and prevention activities in Gippsland. The skilled heavy machinery operators in the timber industry have been critically important in severe fire events over the past decade and before that. I have no doubt that the presence of machines and the men with the skill and courage to use them in difficult circumstances has helped to protect life and property. Every time another area of land is shut away from the timber industry, more workers are lost from those communities and more opportunities to help defend life and property in those extreme fire events are lost from areas like Gippsland. I have not seen any members of the extreme environmental groups jumping on bulldozers to put in firebreaks when fire has threatened our towns in the past. I hope the timber industry workers are around to provide that service for us in the future.

As the recent federal election result in Gippsland indicated, my community has had enough of the city based politicians, and in this case the city based Greens candidate, telling us how to live our lives, what jobs we can have and what jobs we cannot have. I sincerely welcome this motion by the member for Lyons because, like the member for Lyons, I recognise that the forestry industry is an important part of the Australian economy.

In my contribution to this debate I want to focus more on the native hardwood timber industry in Victoria. I do support the sustainable harvesting of native timber in Victoria because I recognise the important role that the industry plays in regional communities. I also recognise the complete impracticality of the alternatives which are often shouted by the Greens and whispered by Labor MPs. They call for an end to logging of native timber but remain strangely silent on the importation of timber products from poor nations with a poor track record of illegal harvesting and unsustainable forest management practices.

The Victorian Association of Forest Industries reports that the value of national imports and exports of forest products in 2008-09 show a $2.1 billion trade deficit in forest products here in Australia. I would much rather see Australians support an Australian native timber industry that is strictly supervised and managed in a sustainable manner to achieve maximum value for each tree that is harvested than support the pillaging of the forests of poorer developing countries where there are not the protocols, they are nowhere near as well-managed and they are unsustainably harvested.

I could take all night to dispel more of the myths and the factual inconsistencies of the Greens in their anti-logging tirades but in the time I have available I want to focus on the importance of the timber industry to Gippsland and the positive policy direction that has been adopted by the coalition at both the state and federal levels. Timber production, as a matter of interest—and this is completely contrary to the information that is often promulgated by the Greens—is excluded from vast areas of Victorian forests. It is excluded from all national parks and conservation areas—and that is over three million hectares of native forest. The area of Victorian public native forest actually harvested and regenerated equates to approximately 0.12 per cent of the total forest area in Victoria. If you listen to the Greens you would believe we were about to cut down our last tree in Victoria. It is a ridiculous proposition and it really causes great offence to the people who live and work in the bush and sustainably manage their forestry resource and seek to add value to the product at every opportunity. The industry itself is worth about $6.5 billion to the Victorian economy and directly employs in the order of 20,000 people.

I recently visited the Heyfield mill of the Gunns company and had the opportunity to witness firsthand the new technology and the investment in some of the equipment that the member for Lyons referred to. Finger joining is being done on small offcuts of timber that would have previously ended up in the chipper. They are now being joined in a high-tech process and maximum value is gained from every stick of wood that comes out of the bush. It is a fantastic commitment that the company has shown to the timber product we have in Victoria. It is a product that is in demand right around the world.

The Victorian Liberals and Nationals in coalition have recognised that there is a threat to the industry at the moment that is posed by Labor and the Greens in the state election and have given their policy commitments that they will not support any further reductions in access to native timber. There was a great announcement made on the weekend. The Victorian Leader of the Nationals, Peter Ryan, and the shadow minister for agriculture, Peter Walsh, gave more undertakings to the Victorian timber industry. They said they will guarantee long-term access to the current supplies of native timber, they will review the regional forest agreements every five years to provide 20-year resource security, they will place VicForests under the sole direction of the Minister for Agriculture, they will restructure the board of VicForests to include industry stakeholders and they will review harvesting rotations for faster-growing native species such as mountain ash.

These are all important initiatives that will help to provide security for the timber industry. The industry needs that security to be able to invest in new technology with any confidence whatsoever. Anyone who has not been to a timber mill in the last 20 years should visit a mill today. They will see it is completely different from the old saw bench they might have seen in the past. There is maximum effort to get the highest yield possible out of each log. The only way the industry is going to invest with confidence is if it has a policy direction set by state and federal governments that recognises that we do have a sustainable hardwood industry here in Australia—and we certainly have one in Victoria that needs the support of both state and federal governments.

The only way I believe that will happen in Victoria is if the coalition wins the state election. The future of towns like Bairnsdale, Swifts Creek, Orbost, Cann River, Heyfield and Nowa Nowa, which I mentioned before, will only be secured and the jobs of those working families in those communities will only be secured if we can get rid of the Brumby government in Victoria.

At a federal level the coalition has also got a strong history of supporting the forestry sector. We took a very detailed policy to the recent election. It was disappointing that the Labor Party—the party that claims to stand up for the working class, the party that claims to stand up for blue-collar workers—did not even release a full policy to cover the timber industry. It is an appalling situation when we have that neglect of such a valuable industry here in Australia. So at the federal election the Liberals and Nationals in coalition at the federal level committed to maintaining our support for the long-term regional forest agreements and not supporting any further lock-ups unless they are proposed by the industry itself, which is a completely different approach to that adopted by the Labor Party, who have the Greens constantly tugging at their coattails to make sure they get their attention. The moment the Labor Party lock up one more section the Greens will say, ‘That’s a good start, but now we want something else.’ They will never be satisfied. When it comes to the timber industry the Greens will never be satisfied.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hear, hear!

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Kennedy supports me in that. When it comes to the timber industry the Greens will never be satisfied and the Labor Party are getting themselves into a position of great folly. If they believe they can ever satisfy the demands and the wants of the Greens when it comes to the timber industry, they are deluding themselves. Unfortunately, I fear for the future of the timber industry under a Labor Party which is in debt to the Greens for their preferences in the city seats and I fear what will happen in the Victorian state election if Labor and the Greens form another rainbow coalition like they have here in the federal parliament.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Lyons for putting his private member’s motion forward, because it gives me an opportunity to speak about the importance of the timber industry and forestry to my seat of Page and to the whole north-east. There are a couple of things in particular I want to talk about. I know that the motivation was to give protection to the industry. In Page, the whole north-east and the North Coast there is a strong environmental movement that is decades-old, but the timber industry is a lot older. I have lived through the regional forest agreements, the RFAs, and I have lived through a whole range of conflict. We are at a stage now where we have the RFAs and we have some certainty, but there are still real problems in the industry.

I want to thank Southern Cross University, particularly Professor Jerry Vanclay, who hosts our Forest and Timber Industry Forum. That Forest and Timber Industry Forum has a range of people involved in it, from Planted Forest Operations, Forests NSW; Koppers Wood Products, the Hurfords Group, 4STree Pty Ltd and Timber Communities of Australia. I thank Tony Wade from Timber Communities of Australia for providing me with some information tonight on the industry.

It is hard to break down the figures specifically for Page, but for the upper north-east of New South Wales from Coffs Harbour north a lot of timber comes from private native forest. This equates to about $84 million of manufactured output, $26 million per annum in wages to about 650 employees in harvesting and processing. There is also $15 million to landholders for their trees. It is estimated that an additional five people are employed for a certain area of timber harvested, which in this instance would equate to about 1,300 additional jobs.

I also want to talk about the managed investment schemes. I have a briefing paper here called A framework for a sustainable forest and timber industry from the Southern Cross University Forest and Timber Industry Forum. I met with them recently. They asked me if they could have a meeting with the minister. I have put that request in and I am sure that that will be able to happen. I am hoping it can, because there are some good things they have to say and some specific things they want to ask. Some of those are about a sustainable industry. It is about creating jobs and income opportunities, delivering high-value renewable green products to current and future generations. It sustains biodiversity and clean water, captures carbon and provides renewable energy options. These are the words from the forum themselves. There is a proposed action plan which covers a legislative and policy review and renewal. It has immediate measures in there about the disposal of small wood and mill wood waste. There are short-term, stopgap measures to assist forest plantation owners. That includes provisions in the MIS about tax concessions.

I have already spoken in this place about the review and a report on MIS. I said that that was a good start but that it did not go far enough. While managed investment schemes might be applicable to what they were designed for—which was international equity trusts and a whole range of other financial products—when we are looking at forestry and agriculture different provisions within the MIS are needed. It needs to be quite specific and there needs to be a whole lot of people involved in it—particularly more involvement with local government. Forest research is another area within the plan. Key considerations are forest plantations as long-term infrastructure investments. We know forests take a long time to reach maturity—up to 40 years. Thus, long-term, patient capital is required. Patience is not always operative when we have managed investment schemes, because MIS promote short-term rotations and low-value product. There are also forest plantations supporting environmental services. (Time expired)

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In rising to speak to the motion before the House, I pay tribute to the honourable member from Tasmania who moved this resolution. I think he embodies all of the laudable characteristics which hallmarked the Labor Party from its inception. I hope to have my history book published early in the New Year. It will delineate those great character traits that created this great movement that was so germane to the formation of modern Australia as we know it. Those values are still very much alive in the person of Mr Adams, the member for Lyons, representing Tasmania.

Having said that, I have always been one that has been associated with proactive government—governments that get in and do things and get things done, things that have been good for Australia. I was very, very young. I was really only tagging behind the great men that built the coal industry of Australia, the aluminium industry of Australia and the tourism industry of Queensland. They did it by proactive government. We have seen that in successive governments, starting with the Keating-Hawke government and going on with the Liberal-National Party government. It has been a little less true of the Rudd government and it is a bit hard yet to make judgment upon the current government. These people did not sit idly by and watch things happen, so I have always thought that if we wanted timber we should go out and plant trees.

The honourable member for Page, who spoke previously, is a very excellent member for her area, and so was her predecessor, Ian Causley. He took me to task on the idea of plantations. I said: ‘We’re the mob that go out and get things done. We don’t talk about it; we do it.’ He said, ‘Have you ever driven north of Brisbane?’ I said: ‘Yeah. Righto!’ I strongly urge those who genuinely care about the Australian environment to take a drive north of Brisbane. They refer to it as the ‘pine desert’. There are no insects. There are no animals. There are no birds. There is just a thundering silence. They tell me that, when they take the trees away, nothing will grow because of what the trees have dropped in those areas. But even a monoculture of gum trees can create problems for us, so sustainable logging is definitely where we should be at. I am not saying it cannot be enhanced by some pods of plantation timber. I would not go that far. But putting trees back seems to me to be a good thing to do as well. Sustainable logging is definitely a million miles ahead of plantation monoculture when it comes to the environment.

I come from North Queensland. There is a tiny coastal belt—about 60 kilometres wide, I suppose—where some of the trees have been taken. Not very many have been taken because it is a highly mountainous region. Outside of the Snowy Mountains, it is the highest mountain range in Australia, so obviously you cannot take too many trees from there or farm there—and we have not. Only about a third, or maybe a quarter, of that coastal belt has been logged. West of the Dividing Range—the vast bulk of the northern half of Queensland—only an imbecile would do major clearing work, because it costs $300, or maybe $500, an acre and the land is worth maybe $70 an acre if you are lucky. So it has not happened and it is not going to happen.

Let me turn to the timber industry. It has been taken away from us. Some 28 mills were closed in North Queensland. You can see 11 giant mills when you drive on the highway. You can actually see them from the highway. The one in Ingham is three-quarters of a kilometre long. It is just a big empty shed. Three days ago I showed a visiting journalist the town of Mareeba. The main street of Mareeba is a kilometre-long manufacturing area and there is nothing there now. (Time expired)

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand today to speak in support of the motion of my good friend, colleague and cousin, the member for Lyons, at a time when the forestry industry in our home state is at a real crossroads. For many years forestry has been a battleground and political football in my state, particularly around election time—something I know only too well by bitter experience. But finally, hopefully, we are seeing both sides of the argument working towards a lasting agreement. That may not be soon enough for some in the industry, unfortunately.

During the election, I was pleased that we as the Labor Party promised to provide $20 million to help forest contractors and their employees, a sector suffering severely during the downturn of the forest industry. I know that the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Senator Ludwig, is working through the details of the type of assistance the government will provide, who will be eligible for assistance and when assistance will be provided. On a number of occasions, I have sat with people from the industry—decent, hardworking people—who are being pushed to the edge by the financial pressures they are under. I have visited them out in the bush and in their workshops and seen them at work. They are good people who do valuable work. These people have built what they thought would be a business which contributed to the many communities which depend on forestry. They employ many people; some of them are family and many of them are just like family, such is the nature of these small businesses in close-knit communities. Now, because of a whole variety of factors, many well beyond their own control, they are facing financial ruin. I truly do not know how some of these people are able to sleep at night with the burden of their financial troubles.

The challenge for us now as legislators, state and federal, is to find the middle ground and provide a lasting framework to secure the future for those who remain in the industry. This should set a course where we can have a valuable forest industry which sustains strong regional communities and where conflict is just part of history. I want to be able to see these people be proud of their part in an industry which is creating a stable environment for people to work in, an industry that is renewable, sustainable and significant—the forestry industry. We must create an industry that can invest and plan for the future without—as my colleagues have mentioned—fear that it could be derailed with the stroke of a pen at some political whim or by a poorly chosen set of words. We do not want an industry that has to invest more in security than it does in the safety of its workers just so those workers can go about their daily duties. We want an industry where forest workers can be proud to stand up and say that they are so, wherever and with whoever they may be.

This can be done without jeopardising the future of our great native forests and the environment which we all treasure. Nobody wants to see this great forest resource wasted or sold for a pittance. We want an industry where they can invest in the best of downstream processing so that they can be competitive worldwide and not have to do so with the fear that it could all be taken away. This is an industry that is no small contributor to the Tasmanian economy and employment, particularly in regional areas. In 2006 a report into the industry by Dr Jacki Schirmer put the annual spend by forestry industries in Tasmania at about $1.6 billion, employing 6,300 people. Tasmanian forestry exports were estimated to be worth $443 million, or 13 per cent of exports, in the 2008-09 year, according to ABARE statistics. Importantly, a majority of these people and companies work in native forests. If we are to see a shift away from native forest logging then it will mean a massive change in the industry. Given that we are talking about something which could impact on three per cent of the Tasmanian workforce directly, and many more indirectly, then we must do everything we can to get it right and to cushion the blow.

The forest industries are an important, significant part of my region and of Tasmania as a whole and we must do everything we can to ensure their future is a positive one. The best thing to do to achieve this is to provide formally agreed certitude beyond the whim of political parties and with the agreement of the Tasmanian community. On a final note, it is crucial that the agreement, as it reaches its final stages, must support value adding, and in my region this means guaranteeing resource security for Briton Timbers and Ta Ann, both users of native hardwoods.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Food Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the private member’s forestry motion put forward by the member for Lyons. We the coalition welcome a motion on the important forestry industry as we have long supported it and recognised its large contribution to the economy nationally, especially in regional Australia. The coalition has always recognised a balance between the environmental and socioeconomic needs of native forest management through the regional forest agreements and the landmark Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement. Australia’s forestry industry is able to deliver significant economic and environmental returns to the nation.

With regard to this bill, the member for Lyons has the right intent; however, the Tasmanian situation does not extend to the rest of Australia. We recognise that the forestry industry is an important part of the Australian economy, but in Tasmania we also, as the member for Lyons said, recognise the current crisis in the industry in that state. Unfortunately for the member for Lyons, his support of the industry does not extend to his government. Labor has failed to support the forestry industry as a key contributor to the nation’s economy and a major employer in regional Australia. Labor scrapped the position of dedicated forestry minister upon coming to government in 2007. Labor’s new alliance with the Greens means the forestry industry faces an uncertain future.

The coalition went to the recent federal election with a strong forestry policy while Labor did not even release a full policy. We committed to maintaining support for long-term regional forestry agreements, not supporting any further forest lock-ups unless proposed by industry, ongoing development of quality forest certification processes, providing funding to assist small sawmillers to obtain international forestry certification, $3.7 million over five years to develop a centre of excellence for timber engineering and design, increasing research and development for the forestry industry, funding of $1½ million over three years for forest works and the reintroduction of amendments to the renewable energy legislation to allow for wood biomass to benefit from the energy incentives available to other renewable energy sources. As far as Tasmanian forestry negotiations go, we recognised the efforts of the forestry industry, unions, timber communities and environmental NGOs in negotiating a way forward for the industry in Tasmania. It will be up to these organisations to work together and negotiate with both the Tasmanian government and the Federal government. The coalition has worked and will continue to work constructively with these groups through this process.

The Tasmanian crisis, however, does not reflect the timber industry throughout Australia and there are no calls for complete restructure as is suggested in the motion before the chamber. What the industry needs is not a complete restructure but certainty of access to resource and this can be achieved in a number of ways: stopping unnecessary lock-ups of forest, ensuring incentives are available for ongoing investment in the sector and increasing research and development. The coalition supports all of these measures and this was reflected in our election policy. We ask that the government do the same and ensure the industry, its businesses and workers have a positive future.

I do not just speak on this issue as the shadow minister for agriculture. The electorate of Calare is a very serious area of forestry, mostly plantation forestry. The forestry industry has, always has had and always will have the support of the coalition. It will have the support of the unions. The industry will have support because it does not just provide jobs; it provides an incredibly valuable resource that all of Australia needs.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allocated for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.