Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying, the timber communities approached the conservation movement to work out a set of principles, which led to discussions with the state and federal governments to develop an intergovernmental agreement which will deliver substantial funding into rural and regional Tasmania for the kind of transitional assistance that will give those communities some hope of transitioning out of native forest logging. In the absence of that money, those communities are losing jobs and people and are going broke right now. If this agreement is upheld by the federal government to the letter of the law, it will provide some future for those communities. They will have no future unless this federal money assists with retraining and transitioning.Question put:

That the motion ( Senator Madigan's ) be agreed to.

The Senate divided. [12:59]

(The President—Senator Hogg)

Question negatived.