Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

We are not opposed to forest management. We are opposed to the gross dereliction of custodianship in the mismanagement we see in those logged forests, particularly those spurred by the woodchip industry at the moment. The minister has effectively answered the question: if you protect your forests you do not have a look-in. Is it not right that under the Kyoto arrangements people who logged forests after 31 December 1989 were not to get any reward for it because they were actually converting carbon resources into something less, forever? Under this proposal, are you not allowing offset credits for regrowth on land that was logged after that date right up until the same date last year? For example, if Gunns Ltd or Forestry Tasmania has logged forest areas since 1989, are they now going to be recognised and accredited for what is growing on that land? That replaced the richest carbon banks in Australia under government authority, with somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion of public money to foster it under various Labor and Liberal governments since 1988.