Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President, but I am at liberty to acknowledge an interjection and I am more than happy to do so because the good senator on the other side, through you, shows her ignorance of the Tasmanian economy. Her defence of the hopeless government in Tasmania at this point in time is indefensible, as is her defence of some of the economic policies that have been put in place. The completely and utterly destructive forest deal that exists in Tasmania was voted on quite comprehensively by the people at the Tasmanian election last September. To the detriment of the Labor Party and some longstanding members of parliament, who had been considered strong supporters of the forest industry, seats were lost because of the devastating deal that was promoted by the Greens and Labor in Tasmania and the Greens and Labor in Canberra. If that deal is allowed to continue, by 2030 it will see the death of the forest industry. How do we know that? We need to look only at the forest wood supply projections produced by that process, published by Labor and the Greens in Tasmania, that show that the native wood supply in Tasmania will decline from about 137,000-150,000 cubic metres per annum now to less than 40,000 cubic metres by 2030. That is not enough to sustain the existing small sawmilling industry in Tasmania.

That is the fundamental reason the coalition opposes the Tasmanian forest agreement. It does not, as members on the other side like to tell us, provide for a sustainable forest industry in the future. It actually signs the death warrant of the forest industry in Tasmania by 2030. It just takes a while to take effect. It puts a future government in another 10 or so years in the position of having to bail out or compensate the rest of the industry for the fact that they have no resource. That is an absurd proposition.

We have magnificent resources in Tasmania. We have magnificent forests. We have 44 per cent of the state protected in reserves. We have a magnificent, outstanding wilderness World Heritage area that has been added to by this fraudulent process. Those areas should never have been added. It is all down to Labor and Green ideology. We know that the Greens want to destroy the native forest industry in Australia, let alone in Tasmania. Senator Milne said this morning on the ABC that there is no future for the native forest industry. She is wrong.

In the Great Hall of this place last night 600 people mobbed the Prime Minister after his demonstration of support for the forest industry because at last they have a Prime Minister who is standing up for them and putting forward policies that will provide the industry here in Australia with a long-term future. Plenty of those people are using native forest timbers, as they should. It is a valuable resource and it provides magnificent products. Look around this building at the magnificent Australian timbers that adorn this place. If Senator Milne had her way, none of this would exist. Yet every piece of timber in this place is a carbon store. Forty per cent of each piece of timber is a carbon store. As we use these timbers in our homes, buildings and structures around the country we are adding to the carbon store.

We also know that a forest that is managed sustainably with appropriate rotation will actually store more carbon than one that is left static. A static forest creates a carbon store but a mature static forest is actually a net carbon emitter. It is a growing forest that actively takes up carbon. Work by the CSIRO, by some of Australia's best forest scientists, has shown quite clearly that if you manage a forest over time, if you take into account the carbon stored in timber products such as we have been talking about—particularly when you take into account substitution from petrochemical derived products—you can increase your carbon storage by up to double what you can achieve by leaving the forest static. It really surprises me that those on the other side do not get this. It is as though they are joining the forest science deniers in the Greens who do not want to understand this, who purposely put inhibitors into the policies that have been implemented over the last three or four years in order to stop us storing carbon in our natural landscapes through trees and forest processes. It really just does not make sense.

It is about time some common sense was put back into the forest debate in Australia. That is what the Prime Minister did last night and that is what people in Tasmania are looking for. They do not want to see tens of millions of dollars—hundreds of millions of dollars—spent in the Tasmanian economy to close down good, viable, environmentally sustainable businesses. That is Greens and Labor ideology. They do not want to see that. They said that to us at the last federal election. That is why Eric Hutchinson got a 13.7 per cent swing to defeat Dick Adams. That is why Brett Whiteley got a 10-plus per cent swing to defeat Sid Sidebottom.