Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition will not be supporting this amendment. The minister is correct: the Senate committee did debate this particular matter, and quite frankly this is just another mechanism for environmental groups to put pressure at different points along the supply chain, and I do agree with the minister that it will just add green tape to the cost of doing business here in Australia and make Australian businesses less competitive, because of the additional impositions. Quite frankly, along with some of the other suggestions of the Greens, this is just as likely to actually halt the trade altogether. Although this might be what the Greens want to see occur, common sense indicates that if a piece of timber or a timber product is legal at the border it does not change its status as it works its way down the supply chain: it is a legal piece of timber. It is quite open for businesses up the supply chain as part of their chain of custody systems to actually request the certification, but that is a business decision for industry. It is not something for this place to impose on businesses.

As the minister has indicated, if a product is legal at the border, it is legal. There are opportunities at a business level to make those inquiries down the supply chain. That is what the process is about and that is what the certification at the border is for. But the opposition cannot support the imposition of layers and layers of green tape down the supply chain.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN (19:53): The question is that the amendments moved by Senator Milne be agreed to.

Question negatived.