Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to 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.

Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today somewhat incredulous that our country hasn't previously acted to stamp out the importation of illegally logged timber into Australia. So I rise to emphatically support the Illegal Logging Prohibition Amendment (Strengthening Measures to Prevent Illegal Timber Trade) Bill 2024, which will strengthen regulations around the importation and processing of timber products from overseas. It's critical that we monitor and regularly improve our systems to address the problem of illegally sourced timber from overseas making its way to the Australian market.

Acting to stop the importation of illegal timber would shut down that fatuous argument that Australia should continue to log and destroy our own beautiful native forests simply because other countries are illegally logging and perhaps some of that timber ends up here in Australia. Already in Australia almost 90 per cent of the timber that we produce here comes from plantations. So, to ensure a future domestic supply, the timber industry should be focusing on expanding plantation timber and engineered wood production.

However, a lot more needs to be done to protect our own native forests and bushlands both from illegal logging and from legal but outdated, highly destructive logging practices. Here in Australia we have our own serious problems with illegal logging and deforestation which are yet to be adequately addressed and which are certainly not addressed in this bill. For example, this bill does nothing to address illegal logging undertaken in Australia by industries other than the timber industry. As an example, we can look at the illegal logging undertaken by the beef industry here.

When the act that this bill amends was passed in 2012, it was hot on the heels of the European timber regulation, which brought in similar reforms. Importantly, that was 12 years ago. Since then, the European Union has considerably progressed its thinking and its laws and has taken concrete action to address illegal logging caused by other industries. Australia simply has not kept pace. On 1 December this year the European deforestation regulation will come into force. That regulation will require exporters to the EU of all sorts of products to conduct due diligence to ensure that the products have not been produced on lands subject to deforestation or forest degradation and that they have been produced in accordance with the laws of the country of production. It will capture exporters of cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber and soya to the EU. If exporters want to send those products to the EU, they will have to prove that they have been produced without causing deforestation. Australia must follow suit.

Let's take the cattle industry as an example. In relation to that industry, Greenpeace Australia said recently that Australia has one of the world's worst rates of deforestation, driven mostly by the beef industry. Every single day about 100,000 native animals are killed from this destruction as threatened species habitat, including for the iconic koala, is bulldozed at a rate of knots. In just five years, 668,000 hectares of koala habitat was bulldozed by the beef industry for pasture. That's 2,400 times the size of the Sydney CBD. Major global markets like the EU are moving rapidly towards responsibly sourced beef. If the Australian beef industry does not clean up its act, it risks losing market and financial access, which would be a disaster. It is deeply disappointing to see the minister for agriculture seemingly go against his own government's goal of zero new species extinctions by railing against the EU's critically important deforestation-free regulations. This bill does not prevent illegal land clearing from occurring here. It only means that timber mills will not be able to process timber that was logged illegally.

The second key area that needs urgent action by Australian governments is the devastation caused by legal logging of native forests in Australia. This bill of course does nothing to address that. Australia is well overdue to completely phase out native forest logging in this country. New South Wales, Tasmania and Queensland must follow the lead of Victoria and Western Australia in banning clear-fell logging of remnant native forests. In this age of climate change and species extinctions, continuing to destroy these precious habitats is anachronistic and senseless.

Logging contributes to climate change. Logging of mature forest releases carbon that has taken centuries to accumulate. Each year, logging releases greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to around six per cent of Australia's annual emissions. Logging also destroys critical habitat for threatened species. We are facing an extinction crisis. Despite the government's promise to prevent further extinctions, the continued logging of our native forests is a major threat facing endangered species like koalas, greater gliders and the Leadbeater's possum.

Not only is native forest logging still perfectly legal in some states; regional forestry agreements mean this logging is exempt from scrutiny under our national environment laws. If a regional forestry agreement is in place between a state government and a state owned forestry corporation, vast swathes of logging can be conducted without any of the protection afforded by the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. In 2020 in my own state of New South Wales, logging destroyed or degraded 40,000 hectares of Australian public native forest—40,000 hectares of thriving ecosystems.

In 2022, the environment minister delivered her speech on the State of the environment report. This report made for utterly devastating reading, even for the most hardened of political heads. It was an indictment of the efforts of previous governments to enact even basic measures to protect our environment and ecosystems from broad and deep destruction.

In her speech the environment minister promised to overhaul our broken national environment laws this term. Subsequently, the minister also promised to end the regional forestry agreement exemptions. But now, over 18 months later, this government is no further progressed on and has expressly washed its hands of substantive environmental law reform in this term of government. The minister has also evaded the phase-out of regional forestry agreements by saying that this may not happen until 2040 when those contracts expire. It is unbelievably disappointing.

With the bill, the government is legislating to protect overseas forests while not protecting our own native forests. It's little wonder that Australia stands as the only developed country in the world classified as a deforestation hotspot. We are also a global leader in mammalian extinctions and we are one of seven countries responsible for more than half of global biodiversity loss. A shocking part of this story is that the native forest logging industry in Australia is loss-making. It is not commercially viable. It has to be propped up by taxpayer subsidies to survive. Even worse, the vast majority of our native forest timber is being sold off, not as you would have been led to believe for beautiful timber products or the construction of our homes or furniture, but for cheap, low-quality products such as woodchips, fence palings, tomato stakes and pallets. The vast majority is shipped overseas on the cheap for pulp. It's really quite sickening.

Last year the native forest logging division of the New South Wales forestry corporation lost $30 million despite receiving $80 million in government subsidies. In 2021, it lost $20 million, and, in 2022, $9 million. As taxpayers we are subsidising the destruction of critical habitat of Australia's unique native species.

The Blueprint Institute, a conservative think tank, has conducted cost-benefit analyses of logging of our native forests. It has done that for the Central Highlands of Victoria, for the North Coast of New South Wales and for Tasmania. Its work assessed the economic potential of native forest conservation by modelling the value of carbon sequestration, water supply and tourism against continued logging. In all three cases the Blueprint Institute's findings demonstrated conclusively that there is no economic case for continued logging of our native forests.

Victoria has shut down native logging in that state because it is not financially viable. For the North Coast of New South Wales the modelling showed that ending native forest logging in 2024 instead of 2040—the date that the regional forestry agreement is currently scheduled to expire—and using that land instead for carbon sequestration and tourism would deliver a net benefit of $45 million in present-day value. That is after paying generous compensation to the industry and workers and making pay-outs to break trade agreements. It also found that managing the North Coast region in a manner consistent with conservation would abate an average of 0.45 million tonnes of carbon annually, which equates to a net present value of $174 million. In totality, from the present to 2040, using the forests of the North Coast for purposes other than logging will generate at least $294 million in revenue. The numbers for Tasmania are even more compelling. So it is nonsensical to continue subsidising this loss-making industry, particularly in the current context of increasing climate change disasters and native species extinctions.

So, yes, we do need to ensure that illegally logged timber from overseas does not make its way here. This is a vitally important step. But even more importantly we need to take care of what's happening in our own backyard and to crack down hard on the vast problem of illegal logging here in Australia. If the Labor government is genuinely concerned about the issue of deforestation, forest destruction and extinctions then the carve-outs for regional forestry agreements from our national environment laws must cease. State governments must also ban logging of our native forests.

This is why, in partnership with the WWF, last year I launched the Forest Pledge. The Forest Pledge is a promise by signatories to do what they can to help end native forest logging in this country. It is supported by 36 environmental and civil organisations, including WWF, the Climate Council, the Public Health Association and the Blueprint Institute. It is also supported by 29 scientists, experts and academics, and, importantly, it is supported by former senior politicians from both sides of the political spectrum, including Bob Debus, Geoff Gallop, Robert Hill and others.

While I do support this bill and feel it is a vitally important step, I also use this opportunity to urge the government to fulfil their promises this term to do more to protect and preserve our forests right here at home by, firstly, cracking down on illegal logging and deforestation by industries other than the timber industry and, secondly, by ending native forest logging once and for all across the entire country.

Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move the amendment as circulated in my name:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

notes that:

each year around 300 000 hectares of Australia's native forests and woodlands are lost to logging and land clearing;

if Australia ceased all logging of native forests, the avoided emissions alone would be close to what is needed annually (15.5 Mt CO2) to achieve our national target of a 43% reduction on 2005 levels of emission by 2030; and

Australia's native forests are among the most carbon-dense in the world; and

calls on the Government to end native forest logging immediately".

Australia's native forests are unique and beautiful. They are home to some of our most iconic wildlife. They are the lungs of our country. They store enormous amounts of carbon. They are unceded country for traditional owners, with precious totems and songlines woven through them. Protecting them means acting on the climate emergency, protecting our water supplies, lessening bushfire risk, saving threatened species from extinction and preserving the places that we Australians love.

Labor and LNP governments have permitted and overseen decades of native forest logging that destroys intact forest and releases over 11 million tonnes of carbon each year. This is the result of agreements between the federal government and states and territories. These agreements have created legal loopholes for native forest logging even where threatened animals and plants are killed and destroyed. Labor has broken its promise to strengthen our national environment laws, which means they plan for this destructive logging to continue in Tasmania and New South Wales. Logging has mostly stopped in Victoria and Western Australia because of the efforts of community campaigners, First Nations groups and the Greens. However, forests are still under threat in these states from destructive forest management activities, including salvage logging, thinning and excessive burning.

Logging native forests is uneconomic and unsustainable. The only reason this damaging money-wasting activity continues is because it is propped up by massive government subsidies. Our tax dollars are facilitating these unviable, destructive operations. We must support regional workers and communities through a just transition away from industries that are fuelling climate change and towards ecologically restorative jobs. This includes completing the transition of the timber industry from being 90 per cent based on plantations and farm forestry to 100 per cent.

Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is, and I reserve my right to speak.

Kristy McBain (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Illegal Logging Prohibition Amendment (Strengthening Measures to Prevent Illegal Timber Trade) Bill 2024 will modernise and strengthen Australia's illegal logging laws to better protect the Australian market from illegally harvested timber and to support legal and sustainable timber trade. It will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the regulatory framework by strengthening the monitoring, investigation and enforcement powers, including through new timber-testing powers and the use of injunctions and enforceable undertakings.

It will also strengthen requirements concerning due diligence, thereby enhancing our ability to identify patterns of compliance or non-compliance with those requirements and take appropriate enforcement action. These changes complement the work the Australian government is delivering through a $4.4 million investment to improve timber identification testing and illegal logging traceability. I thank the members for their contributions to this debate.

Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Ryan has moved an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment be agreed to.

Question unresolved.

As it is necessary to resolve this question to enable further questions to be considered in relation to this bill, in accordance with standing order 195 the bill will be returned to the House for further consideration.