Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Industry Research and Development (Forestry Recovery Development Fund Program) Instrument 2020, made under the Industry Research and Development Act 1986, be disallowed [F2020L01081].

This motion is to disallow a $40 million fund, the Forestry Recovery Development Fund Program, that would continue to prop up damaging and devastating native forest logging. Let's be clear why I am moving today to disallow this fund: it is about protecting our native forests after they have suffered a devastating bushfire season. The Greens of course want to see funding for bushfire recovery, both for our communities and for our forests that were devastated by last summer's fires. These fires were turbocharged by our climate crisis. These fires devastated 20 per cent of our mainland forests, the greatest proportion of forests on any continent killed by fire that has been known worldwide. But we should not be funding so-called bushfire recovery that involves clear-felling our precious forests and continuing to kill our precious wildlife, destroying their habitat just at the time when they need to be nurtured and carefully managed back to health as they recover from these massive and intense fires.

I also want to be clear that our reason for moving tonight to disallow this fund is that it doesn't differentiate between native forest logging and plantation forestry. If only the government and the Labor Party would see that there's a difference between native forest logging and plantation forestry then we would be well on the way to the forest wars that have been raging for decades being over. We wouldn't be having debates like this if the government and the Labor Party came to terms with the reality that we're now in a situation where almost 90 per cent of the wood products that are being produced in Australia come from plantations. The vast majority of the jobs in the timber industry rely on timber from plantations. Plantations that are established appropriately and sustainably on already cleared land are supported across this parliament. In contrast, what is also known—what is so clear in the science and now in legal decisions—is that native forest logging devastates our precious forests. It kills animals, it destroys carbon stores, it smashes up soil, it has massive impacts on water quality and quantity and it loses money. It needs government subsidies to continue.

Like whaling, native forest logging has had its day and we need to stop logging our native forests as soon as possible and support the relatively few workers who are still employed in native forest logging to shift to other work, particularly the prospects in plantation forestry. Yet this Forestry Recovery Development Fund Program would provide $40 million for forestry operations without differentiating between devastating native forest logging and the plantation industry. This is on top of a $15 million fund that would subsidise the transport of logs that have been logged after fire has raged through, so-called 'salvage logging', although 'looting logging' is a much better term for this. Then there's an extra $10 million for a salvage log storage fund, again subsidising the looting of logging after fire. I repeat: we don't know how much of this $65 million will be spent subsidising destructive native forest logging compared with a contribution to plantations. The guidelines for this fund do not differentiate between the two. What we do know is that there is $40 million that the guidelines say will 'assist privately owned wood processing facilities to recover and rebuild using innovation and product diversification'. However, that includes:

… to develop new wood products, or secure your capacity to deliver existing products, that you intend to sell solely or mainly into interstate and/or international markets …

In other words, it is providing $40 million that can be used to help the wood products industries to keep on doing what they are currently doing: continuing to log and woodchip our precious native forests and send off those woodchips to China and Japan. This is securing capacity to deliver existing products into market.

Senator Duniam interjecting—

Senator Duniam, I hear your interjections. I'd like to believe that it won't be that—that, if we are investing taxpayers' money after the fires, it would be spent on developments that meet the triple bottom line of being good socially, good for jobs and the community; good economically, supporting regional economic development; and good environmentally—that is, in the wood products sector, supporting the developing of new and innovative plantation based products that would be helping the transition out of native forests and into plantations, which would help end the forestry wars so that we don't have to have yelling across this chamber.

But I say again: this fund does not differentiate between native forest logging and plantation forestry. This fund will be subsidising the clear-fell logging of our precious forests in Gippsland and south-east New South Wales— logging that is already being subsidised to the hilt by state and federal governments and is destroying the wildlife habitat of koalas and critically endangered species like swift parrots, Leadbeater's possums and other endangered animals, including birds. It will be subsidising this logging at a time when our forests and our wildlife suffered so much in last summer's fires—when we had three billion animals killed across the country.

I want to emphasise what type of logging this $40 million will be facilitating. Just yesterday, we saw reporting about concerns raised by the environment regulator in Victoria about logging after last summer's fires. I'd like to read key sections of that reporting:

An initial letter in January suggested that logging should be modified "in response to the changed conditions for vulnerable and threatened species across the state". A follow-up in February said the scale of the damage meant it was justified to stop commercial logging until there was more information that reduced scientific uncertainty about the risk of permanent damage.

…   …   …

But the—

state government—

conservation regulator report released under FOI laws said the fires had created uncertainty over whether the existing code requirements and management were enough to maintain biological diversity within the state’s forests.

That's on top of what we know about the damage caused by logging forests that have been burnt by fires. A series of studies have examined the ecological impacts of post-fire salvage logging in wet forests. The Australian Academy of Science summarises the impacts of logging of burnt forests, saying that it:

It:

… can have pronounced effects on the condition of aquatic ecosystems … and promote short-term fire risks.

This is the Australian Academy of Science saying that this is what so-called salvage logging—that is, looting logging—does.

Of course, all of this comes on top of the momentous court decision in Victoria earlier this year, where the Federal Court found that logging damages or destroys habitat critical to the survival of the critically endangered Leadbeater's possum and the threatened greater gliders, and they awarded costs against VicForests—that is, that logging is illegal.

These findings go to the heart of the issue here, because this funding will be subsidising ongoing devastating logging that is recognised as being destructive and that has been found to be illegal by the Federal Court, by the government conservation regulator. It was found to be destructive by scientists, who have put decades of research into these forests. It is considered to be destructive by First Nations people. It is considered to be destructive by communities who are seeing their precious forests being devastated and are putting their bodies on the line to protect them—brave individual community groups like Environment East Gippsland—