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

It gives me great pleasure to speak on the motion moved by the Labor Party in respect of questions asked of Senator Abetz by Senator Thorp. What the Labor Party has just demonstrated, yet again, is two things. One is their strong connection with the Greens—and they are arguing now for Greens policy. We know that the Greens want to close down the native forest industry in Australia, and the Labor Party is complicit with them in that process. We have just heard that argument. The second thing is that they have absolutely no understanding of the forest industry. Senator Urquhart talks about the area not being utilised in Tasmania for another six years. It is not needed in an immediate sense, but it is needed for the sustainability of the forest industry in the long term. What the Labor Party does not know—or is not prepared to admit—is that the Tasmanian Forests Agreement was actually a death sentence for the forest industry in Australia. That is why the green group supported it. It was a death sentence for the forest industry in Australia. And I wonder if the Labor Party would have been prepared to stump up again in 2027-30 to pay out what was left of the industry when their wood supply ran out. That is what the Labor Party and the Greens condemned the forest industry in Tasmania to. But of course they are not prepared to admit it; probably they do not even understand that that is what they did. They keep on trotting around saying that they left a sustainable industry behind. But all you had to do was look at the wood supply figures to know that there was not a sustainable industry left at the scale it is currently at in Tasmania. I would like to make a particular mention of the Ta Ann project. The coalition has delivered for Ta Ann without the disaster of the Tasmanian Forests Agreement. So much for Senator Urquhart's comment that if the TFA goes away so does Ta Ann. They are still there, Senator—and they are expanding, and there is no Tasmanian Forests Agreement; it is being unwound. So the scare tactics of the Labor Party are just not demonstrated.

We are disappointed that the World Heritage Commission did not accept our nomination to remove 74,000 hectares from the wilderness estate that was dishonestly put in through the disastrous TFA process in 2013 by then minister Tony Burke, that was done without consultation, that was done without the opportunity for all Tasmanians to make a contribution, that was done despite then minister Tony Burke saying to our legislative council in Tasmania, 'I don't think I'm going to go ahead with the nomination' and then walking out the door and announcing that there would be a nomination. You cannot believe a word this guy says.

It was a disastrous process that left large sections of the community disenfranchised. There are hundreds and hundreds of property owners who now have World Heritage wilderness areas as boundaries, with no understanding that that has come their way, with no consultation, and who now have new planning requirements over their properties that they did not know they had before—hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. The so-called experts who appeared before the Senate inquiry said that there were perhaps one or two. Well, they did not know, or they were not telling the truth. And the so-called experts who appeared before the Senate inquiry said, 'You can discount logging before 1960, because it is not industrial.' That was a lie. You only have to go into the forests of the Styx and the Florentine, which historian Peter MacFie clearly showed in the last fortnight are in fact 60- and 70-year-old regrowth forests, which the Greens and the Labor Party portrayed to the Australian community as old-growth forest. The dishonesty from the Labor Party and the Greens on this issue continues.

As I have said, the coalition—the government—will respect the decision of the World Heritage Commission. We will consider the decision of the World Heritage Commission. But we will do one thing. We will continue to stand up for the forest industry and forest workers in Tasmania. The really sad fact is that the light on the hill for the Labor Party now has a very nasty green tinge to it. It is not the traditional light on the hill for workers. The Labor Party has sold out the forest industry and its workers in Tasmania, and that is why they suffered so badly at the Tasmanian election. That is why they are down to seven members in the House. That is why the Greens lost 40 per cent of their representation and party status in the Tasmanian parliament. We will continue to stand up for the timber industry in Tasmania— (Time expired)