Monique Ryan (Kooyong, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges the devastation caused by ongoing native forest logging in this country;

(2) commits to protecting our native forests from logging;

(3) abolishes the effective exemption from environment laws that has been granted to native forest logging currently covered by regional forestry agreements between the federal and state governments; and

(4) further commits to implementing the recommendations of the Independent Review of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, as soon as possible, to arrest the decline of our iconic places and the extinction of our most threatened plants, animals, and ecosystems.

Deforestation is the third-largest source of carbon emissions globally. To meet our target of a 43 per cent reduction by 2030, Australia must reduce its carbon emissions by 15 megatons each year. Each year we log two per cent of our native forests, resulting in the release of 15 megatons of carbon dioxide. We could meet our 2030 emissions reduction target simply by stopping native forest logging.

The native forests of the central highlands of Victoria are among the most carbon-dense forests in the world. Cessation of the native forest logging industry in Victoria would result in emissions savings equivalent to taking 730,000 cars off the road every year and ceasing logging in Tasmania would result in emissions savings equivalent to taking 1.1 million cars off the road every year.

This motion proposes the abolition of the effective exemption from the national environment laws that has been granted to native forest logging currently covered by regional forestry agreements, RFAs, between the federal and state governments. It also commits to implementing the recommendations of the Independent Review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 as soon as possible to arrest the decline of our iconic places and the extinction of our most threatened plants, animals and ecosystems.

RFAs are 20-year state-federal agreements underpinning the management of most of Australia's commercially productive native forests. They aimed to deliver certainty of resource access to forest industries and to ensure that those industries were profitable and protective of environmental values. The objectives of RFAs have not been met. They have failed to protect biodiversity and to maintain ecosystem processes. They have been associated with poor governance and abject forest protection. They've overseen the loss of profitability of, and declining employment in, native forest logging industries. They've led to the overcommitment of forest resources to wood production and failed to account for other forest values which outweigh those of wood production. Eighty-seven per cent of native forest logs from states like Victoria are used for woodchips and for paper production. Only 7.5 per cent are used for saw logs. We have alternative sources of wood products, recycled paper and plantation timber. We have to use those and stop logging our native forests. The economic value of our native forests for carbon storage is far greater than the value of those forests for woodchips and for pulp.

Victoria had one mega fire in the 1800s and one in the 1900s. We have already had three this century. Thirty per cent of everything planned to be logged in the next five years in Victoria was burned in the Black Summer bushfires. Victoria has lost over 77 per cent of its old-growth forests in the last 25 years. Forests are more flammable for up to 70 years after they are logged and regenerated. Logging creates a greater risk of more severe bushfires, which endanger people's lives and property and lead to further carbon emissions. The extreme flammability of our landscapes means that there is no certainty of wood supply for a collapsing timber industry. Our backup resources have been lost through over cutting and recurrent fires.

The industry loses large amounts of money. In 2020 the PBO estimated that immediately ending native forestry in Victoria could save as much as $190 million over a decade. Logging in Victoria, which is planned five years ahead, is now taking place in areas of the highest habitat and conservation value for 70 threatened forest-dependent species. These include Victoria's animal emblem, the critically endangered Leadbeater's possum, and the endangered southern greater glider. The key threatening process for other marsupials is the accelerated loss of hollow trees. Old-growth forests support significantly greater numbers of animal species than regrowth forests. Logging also has major impacts on forest soils causing erosion and loss of water sources.

Using our native forests for carbon storage rather than logging will still require a major skilled workforce for Australia. This workforce can manage our carbon stocks and storage, repair the damage from soil erosion and extreme sedimentation, protect water catchments. We can maintain and expand the workforces associated with the forestry sector in climate-appropriate ways. Protecting and restoring our native forests is a crucial mitigation strategy for us to meet our net zero emission targets. We need the vision to embrace it.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

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

I second the motion.

Dan Repacholi (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Albanese government supports strong plantation forestry and sustainable native forestry and is investing over $300 million in the 2022-23 budget for forest industry innovation, manufacturing and workforce skills to support these sectors into the future. This is because we know that a well-managed forest balances social, economic and environmental outcomes. That is, well-managed forests support jobs while maintaining ecosystems for Australia's unique plants and animals and have an important role to play in reducing Australia's emissions.

In committing to the future of a sustainable native forest industry, we recognise that such a future has been made possible by the regional forest agreements. These agreements are widely accepted by the Commonwealth, state governments and industry as the best mechanism to balance the long-term social, economic and environmental interests of Australia's native forests. Since the establishment of the RFA, the area of native forest in our conservation reserve has almost doubled from 5.4 million hectares before the agreements were signed to 10 million hectares in 2019. Almost 50 per cent of native forests in the RFA regions are now in reserves. The 10 agreements across Western Australia, Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales cover state, environmental and forest management legislative regimes that provide protection for matters of environmental significance.

The Albanese government will respond to the independent Samuel review by the end of this year to ensure certainty and efficiency for both environmental and economic outcomes. While Victoria and WA have indicated their intention to cease their respective RFAs in 2030 and 2024, it is worth noting that many factors inform these decisions, not least economic returns and decreasing supply. This is why the Albanese government is investing in the future of our plantation forestry sector through the 2022-23 budget with $86.2 million for new plantations, $100 million for an Australia-wide National Institute of Forest Products Innovation to support research to produce transformative outcomes for the industry across the country and $10 million for forestry workforce training and skills development.

Additionally, we are committed to removing the water rule, in order to enable greater plantation and farm forestry and increase participation in the Emissions Reduction Fund. By encouraging plantation expansion and farm forestry across Australia, the Albanese government is looking to shore up Australia's timber future. How we look to implement the removal of the water rule will be informed by the consultation process currently underway. That is because the Albanese government listens to those most affected by policy change. We are informed by the evidence and we are committed to delivering on our promises.

Timber supply issues are a key concern impacting many communities along the eastern seaboard. The lack of a domestic source of construction-grade and appearance-grade timber, much of which is sourced from the native forestry sector, is impacting the rebuild efforts following the 2019 and 2020 Black Summer bushfires and the current flooding events. This situation highlights the importance of the Albanese government's budget measures to support forestry industries, given the environmental need to displace plastic products into the future, make the best use of forest harvest and continue to evolve innovation in forest product manufacturing.

As Australia's plantations are not currently able to replace the type and quality of wood produced from native forests, the Albanese government is investing in forestry workers and product manufacturers to grow the skills and innovation that we need right here at home. Native forestry supports thousands of regional jobs across Australia, not including the many roles involved in the secondary processing of wood products or the many scientific roles in the sector. Australia also recognises the value of native forestry to our international obligations. These are the reasons why the Albanese government is committed to a long-term future of sustainable native forest industry and to balance a long-term social economic and social interests of our native forest.

Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Link to 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.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kooyong for bringing forward this very important motion for debate this evening. In the north-east of Victoria, in my electorate of Indi, we have some of Australia's most precious native forest landscapes—the stunning Eucalyptus regnans, mountain ash, forests of the Central Highlands; the Eucalyptus pauciflora, snow gums, of the high country; and the beautiful Eucalyptus sideroxylon, ironbark, forests around Chiltern. These stunning forests are part of the fabric of our land.

At the same time, forestry is a major part of the culture and economy of Indi, including both native forest logging and plantation logging. Many of my constituents are employed directly in logging, and even more jobs are supported indirectly by the industry.

As I speak on this motion this evening, I'm thinking of the critically important native forests and the way in which they must be protected, but also of the communities who rely on those forests and their connection to the bush, which, in many cases, is generations deep. I believe we must manage the sector carefully to respect the people in our region who derive their livelihood from native forest logging, whilst recognising that the industry must and will be phased out.

I must state that I believe in a thriving, sustainable Australian forestry sector. Australia has the land, the workforce, the resources, the science and the experience to sustain forestry as a major primary-commodity industry and a major export industry. The question is: how do we do this among the many challenges ahead, recognising that the value of our native forests, both environmentally and economically, is when those forests stay standing?

The State of the environment report, released earlier this year, painted an alarming picture of environmental decline, and land clearing was singled out as a primary driver. We will not have a thriving forestry or a thriving agricultural sector if we continue to eradicate our forests and native vegetation at such rates. Logging native forests poses many risks to our natural environment, increases our carbon emissions and destroys habitats of endangered species. I'm deeply troubled by the court rulings that found that VicForests, which manages our native forestry sector, is failing in its responsibilities to protect native wildlife. While Victoria is failing to implement its commitments under the regional forestry agreements, the Commonwealth is failing to withhold accreditation of Victoria's forest management regime, thereby allowing failure to continue.

Research has persuasively demonstrated that, by replacing older and wetter forests with younger and drier forests, native logging contributed to the extent and severity of the terrible bushfires that our region experienced in 2019-20. The Victorian government is phasing out native logging by 2030, which will drive an increase in plantation forestry and a transition in the processing sector from native timbers to pine and other species. It's vital that we get this transition right, both for the environment and for our local economies. Plantation forestry, mostly of radiata pine, is a significant employer in Indi, supporting thousands of jobs in towns like Benalla, Wangaratta and Myrtleford and across the Upper Murray. After the plantation sector was hard hit by the 2019-20 fires, I worked hard to secure $10.4 million in recovery funding to protect thousands of jobs across these towns. I support the plantation based forestry sector, and I believe that the transition from native to fully plantation based industry, if properly managed, will be good news for Indi, delivering both greater environmental protection and an economic boost for our region.

But a plan should be in place before we cease native forest logging activities, to enable those workers to transition to meaningful work with options to remain associated with the Australian bush in new ways. Those who work in forestry have skills we will need into the future. Forest management will be needed to regenerate logging coupes and unused tracks; for firefighting, and feral animal and plant control; for measuring carbon stocks; for outreach programs for farmers to plant trees and provide carbon sinks; and for supporting new tourism infrastructure, to showcase the uniqueness of the bush to visitors at home and abroad—to name just a few things. We need to do all of these things—keep our forests healthy and sustain both the forestry and agricultural sectors into the future—and do this in a way that strengthens our natural landscapes and protects our ecology. The challenges are many and will require everyone to work together.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired.

Debate interrupted.