Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

( I understand the Greens position on this. The government will not be supporting the amendment for the principal reason that this is about what clause 6 of the bill makes very clear—that the purpose of the bill is to prohibit the importation of illegally logged timber and the processing of illegally logged raw logs and requires importers of regulated timber products and processors of raw logs to conduct due diligence in order to reduce the risk that illegally logged timber is imported or processed. That is the essence of what the bill does. It does not stretch into the objects clauses, particularly what the objects clause in your amendment goes to. It is a very specific piece of legislation that is designed to prohibit the importation of illegally logged timber and the processing of it domestically.

What I can say is that the 2010 election commitment by the Australian Labor Party makes it clear that that would be the nature of the legislation that we would be implementing. I will end there and continue after question time.

Progress reported.