Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Hansard source

Certainly. I would be grateful if you would suggest to Senator Whish-Wilson that he might like to show me the respect I showed him when he was making his speech. The reality is that making the kinds of accusations and making the kind of speech that Senator Whish-Wilson did tonight does not help anybody. It does not help the people of Tasmania, it does not help the people of the salmon industry, it does not help his community and it certainly does not help the environment.

But, as I said, my intention tonight was actually to stand up and talk about a much more positive issue. It starts off with a very sad place, and that is the current energy crisis that has befallen my home state of South Australia and the ensuing renewable energy debate that has occurred. Whilst we have heard lots of comments about this there is one thing that is absolutely assured and everybody agrees on, and that is that the requirement for energy demand into the future is going to go on unabated. When it comes to renewable energy, unfortunately we have an ideological approach from the Greens and from the ALP about pursuit of renewable energy, without actually looking at the transition process about how we are going to actually get to a position where that is a sustainable source of energy. It is a somewhat blinkered and narrow-minded outlook.

There is far more to renewable energy than windmills and solar panels. There is an energy source out there that can actually generate jobs and growth in regional Australia, and it is based on a renewable resource that sequesters carbon. That energy source is bioenergy. It can function as carbon-neutral, it can provide a baseload energy source and it is not dependent on the wind blowing, the sun shining, the waves rolling in or building infrastructure that allows things to fall from great heights to generate energy. It can produce sustainable, renewable, reliable energy, and it can do it 24 hours a day. That renewable energy resource is wood waste. It is beneficial to the environment and it is identified as a positive carbon-neutral source.

Generating bioenergy from woody biomass is about making the most use from materials sourced during sustainable forest harvesting and the production of wood and paper. The use of forest biomass is carbon-neutral, and most often the particular material used is actually the offcuts, the bits and pieces that are left over after you have used the wood that you have harvested for other purposes. This residue is quite often left to rot on the forest floor. This is an issue because it is a fire hazard. It is also not being used for its highest value application. Often it is just used as green mulch. Using woody residues, the low-value materials that are left lying around, to produce energy is a sensible way to avoid using fossil based fuels that have such high levels of emissions.

One of the major objections to the use of woody biomass comes from a body of people who believe that bioenergy will displace other forms of clean-energy generation. All forms of renewable energy need to be pursued in coming up with a mix of renewable energies that will be sustainable into the future but particularly in making sure that we have renewable energies that are available for us 24 hours a day. Some environmental activists claim that using wood waste to produce bioenergy will increase logging activities in our native forests. This is simply not true.

At this point, it would be very remiss of me not to mention an emotional, fact-devoid speech that was given in this place a few weeks ago by Senator Rice when she was referring to the regional forestry agreements that we are currently in the process of renewing. The Greens revel in fomenting disruption and uncertainty in the industries they feel must be punished for not conforming to their narrow views, as we saw tonight with Senator Whish-Wilson. However, if they were really true to their cause, they would throw all possible support behind the regional forestry agreements because a sustainable forestry industry using renewable, carbon-sequestering resources with some of the strongest conservation values in the world certainly fits into the narrative that we often hear them use. If they were true to their purpose in this place, they would throw all possible support behind these RFAs to provide certainty and security for thousands of forestry workers in regional Australia. If they were true to their word about supporting regional communities, they would throw their support behind the RFAs to ensure those communities which literally depend on forestry for their survival will have a future. There is absolutely no doubt that the forestry sector provides one of the pieces that needs to be put in place for our renewable-energy future. It is somewhat ironical coming from a state like South Australia where we see this ideological, hell-bent pursuit of a renewable-energy future without having a look at all those pieces that we now see that major generation of energy in many of our rural and regional communities in South Australia is from burning diesel.

Standing here tonight I would like to say that I am a great supporter of our forestry sector. I believe that it is a sunrise industry with an amazing future in the Australian landscape. I believe that wood waste stands ready to assist us in our renewable-energy future. I commend to this house that everybody look at the forestry sector as an element that we can add to our renewable-energy mix into the future and to seek for the Greens and those who are not supporting this as an energy source to rethink their ideological beliefs and think about the future of our rural and regional communities across the whole of Australia.