Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Barnett. That was destroyed again by the same group of people. They thought that they had done a marvellous thing by stopping this operation, which could have provided so much wealth and so many jobs for Australia. They continue to do that. I simply cannot understand it. The Tasmanian forestry industry is sustainable. The Greens have never been able to explain to me how shutting down an industry that is so well managed in Australia and that is so sustainable can help the cause of world forests and greenhouse gas emissions. We will still continue to use paper made from pulp, but if we do not make it from Australian produce we will simply buy it from forests that have been decimated in the Amazon or in the Solomons or elsewhere in the world that do not have the same sort of very precise management arrangements that the Australian forests have.

I hope that the Gunns mill will continue. I wish it all the best, because it will again be a great tragedy for our nation if a small group of people can, by their activities, destroy what could be—and, if it is allowed to go ahead, will be—a great facility, a great business and a great operation for Australia in the state of Tasmania. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.