Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

State and territory governments have a vital role to play in reducing the bushfire threat. They need to accept that the Greens ideologically driven stance of ‘lock up and forget’ is not working for the people, the community, the economy and, above all, the environment and wildlife. The great challenge for the Australian Greens and the Labor state governments right around this country is to start accepting the local knowledge of the local people in these rural and regional areas and to stop this nonsense of locking up and forgetting our national parks. That policy is now responsible for bushfires pumping—as Tony Wright so rightly heads his article in today’s Bulletin40 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That is courtesy of the policies that Senator Bob Brown and the Greens and the Labor state governments are advocating. (Time expired)