Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Milne for her second supplementary question. As I was saying, the Tasmanian Forests Intergovernmental Agreement provides for the independent expert forest schedulers, who were appointed to determine which harvesting work is currently occurring within those coupes—that is, within the 430,000-hectare area nominated for conservation—and the contractual wood supply that is required to be met, and whether there are practical alternative coupes outside the 430,000-hectare area for meeting those contractual wood-supply requirements. Initial advice prepared by the two independent expert schedulers was presented to government and signatories on 13 October 2011. Following consideration of that advice, signatories have requested further information from the independent expert schedulers to clarify and expand on a number of elements— (Time expired)