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

I think I am in a position to say thank you for 2½ of the speeches that have been contributed in this debate. I thank Senator Watson and Senator Ian Macdonald. Before Senator Ian Macdonald I feel somewhat of an impostor because I know that he did a lot of the work to get this legislation to where it is today. But I have the privilege, being the Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation, of dealing with the legislation here. I thank senators for their contributions. I note the Senate committee report on this legislation. One aspect of the committee report dealt with the issue of accountability. With  great respect—and I do not want to delay the Senate on this aspect too much—the Senate committee report dealt with governance and accountability from paragraph 3.13 onwards to paragraph 3.27 and made out the case very well.

Allow me to try to summarise the situation. We did have a further look at this situation after the Senate committee report and the minority report. We do not agree with the minority report that was co-signed by Labor and the Greens. We believe that the majority report is the more robust report. The forestry legislation is based on the Egg Industry Service Provision Act 2002. The egg industry services body is of a similar size to the proposed new forest industry services body. The simpler provisions for the egg industry services body have been shown to provide appropriate accountability under the funding contract, and the committee was made aware of this. The government will receive annual reports and audited financial statements from the forest industry services body, which will ensure that its operations are compliant with the provisions of the contract. The legislation and the accompanying transition bill provide for the government to declare a new industry services body for the forest industry. This has arisen in response to an initiative of the Australian forest industry itself, which Senator Macdonald so eloquently spoke of.

My other comments are in relation to climate change and Senator O’Brien’s obligatory comment about the government’s greenhouse response. As Senator Macdonald quite rightly pointed out, in 1996, when we won government, the then minister, Senator Robert Hill, indicated that the government was looking at this. By 1998 we had the first greenhouse office of any country in the world. We are accused of being poll driven on this matter.