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

I do read the science, Senator Rice. The problem we have here in Australia is that we have an industry of scientists who have made a fortune trying to come up with inconveniently ill-informed and unfactually based misinformation because it suits their purposes. It's about time somebody started calling out some members of our environmental scientific community for the rubbish that they put out in the marketplace, believing that the word 'professor' or 'doctor' before their name somehow gives them some sort of legitimacy to say things. But that is another story, and I won't waste the chamber's time with it now.

When you look at this, this is a really good story about the success of adaptive management work. For instance, when it comes to the swift parrot, researchers have shown that it actually isn't forestry that is causing the threat to the swift parrot; it's predation from sugar gliders. We need to make sure when we come in here and make these statements that we use the facts behind the reasons for these things happening—for it to be the truth. It is just convenient for you to say it's forestry. It's not forestry that is causing these problems; it's myriad other things that are much more difficult to deal with. So, once again, the inconvenient truth of the situation seems to be lost—or not provided—by those at the other end of the chamber.

It is the belief of the government that the creation of RFAs has made considerable advances in the identification and protection of old-growth forests. We believe that they are working extremely well in setting specific protection targets for particular ecosystems. We believe this is a great result for the Australian forestry sector, the environment and the people who depend on it.

We also believe that the timber industry is a hugely important source of wood products in Australia, and Australian native forest remains a primary source for durable, high-strength, appearance-grade timber. This is not the kind of stuff you can get from growing a pine tree. It includes solid wood flooring, panelling, furniture and fine crafts. Some magnificent products are coming out of Tasmania; you have only got to go down to the Launceston wood products display centre to see the magnificent artworks that are being achieved by using this magnificent timber in a sustainable way. Australia's plantations are not able to replace the type and quality of wood that comes from using native timbers. This is, once again, something you refuse to accept. To stand in here and say, 'We'll move to plantations and we won't use native timber anymore,' is absolutely ridiculous. You know it is, but it's not convenient for your argument.

You also ignore the fact that our downstream forest industries are fully integrated; they use every single piece of wood from both plantations and native forests. Wood from our native forests complements that sourced from our plantation industry. I know you want to get rid of the RFAs, claiming they are preventing Australia from moving out of forest logging, but why would we want to move out of forest logging when we've already demonstrated it's renewable, recyclable and carbon positive, and we are managing it in a sustainable way? Why would we want to wilfully cripple our forest industries? I don't understand it; maybe you can explain it to me. Why would we want to destroy jobs in regional communities? Why would we want to shut regional communities down? Why would we want to decimate regional communities? You only have to look at the disallowance motion that Sarah Hanson-Young moved in here in relation to the Murray-Darling Basin plan to see that you don't care about our regional communities. You only care about your own ideology. There is not a care in the world for the fact that people like me live in regional communities, and those communities would be shut down by the actions of the legislation and regulations that you constantly come in here and try to have passed.

The Tasmanian RFA is a fantastic example of what 20 years of learning has done for us. We were delighted to sign the new RFA recently. There was an 80 per cent increase, or 800,000 hectares, in the reserve estate. Fifty-eight per cent, or 1.778 million hectares, of Tasmania's forest is now protected in reserves, including the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. More than a million hectares of old-growth forest are now permanently reserved, and world-benchmark, ecologically sustainable forest management has been implemented. At the same time, significant business savings have been enabled for industry. These are significant achievements, and we were delighted in 2017 to sign an extension for a further 20 years rolling.

In conclusion, we believe the management of Australia's native forests is being undertaken sustainably. What's more, far from an industry in decline, we believe our forestry industry is a sunrise industry. The RFAs set the framework for that sustainable management and the conservation of our native forests. So what's at stake? If the RFAs were repealed, jobs would be lost and communities would be destroyed, and for what environmental gain? Do we really want to put Australian Paper's Maryvale Mill out of work—is that really what you Greens want to do? Do you really want to make sure all those people who work in the Gippsland no longer have a job? I don't think it's what the Australian public wants, and it's time we called you out for the scaremongering and, often in cases, the lies that are put out into the marketplace to try and make people think that Australia's native timber industry is not a sustainable industry—it is. You have absolutely no regard for the tens of thousands of families whose livelihoods you actively seek to destroy or the hundreds of regional communities that would cease to exist if you had your own way. This is deliberate ignorance, and it is absolutely reprehensible.

The coalition government does not support the repeal of the RFA Act. The repeal will not help the environment. It will not help business. It will not create jobs. It will not help our regional communities. This coalition government stands for every single one of those things. We believe the environment must be sustainable, and our actions, legislation and regulations support that. We believe that we should be helping business, and our legislation and regulations support that. We believe in creating jobs. We created 400,000 of them last year and we are committed to making sure it's another 400,000 this year—over a thousand jobs a day. We will not destroy our regional communities with ridiculous Green ideology with absolutely no basis. It is absolutely our longstanding position that the RFAs are the best mechanism to balance the economic, social and—(Time expired)