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

I want to take up with the minister the issue of the economic viability of logging a coupe if you do not have the dollars flowing in from the use of the 90 per cent of the coupe that will be used for this particular purpose. Has the minister actually had a look at the fact that, without an export woodchip industry in Tasmania, there is no viability for native forest logging? Without it, there is no market and no logging. This, however, will return viability to the industry by actually creating a subsidy for the logging of native forests. Have you had a look at the modelling and can you now verify that the reason the logging stopped in Tasmania is that there is no market for the woodchips from the 90 per cent of the forest that comes out as so-called residual waste?