Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's also important to note that our forestry estates are managed by state and territory governments. The Commonwealth does not manage a single tree in any productive forest. We're working very, very hard, as I said, with state and territory governments and with industry to expand our forestry estate. I understand from the most recent reports that, in Tasmania, the softwood estate expanded by 2,000 hectares and there is an average of 1,100 trees per hectare. That equates to an expansion of approximately 2.2 million trees. In addition, I've been advised that there are currently two contractors working on over 900 hectares of plantation, meaning that almost another million trees are going into the ground. In New South Wales, where the bushfires were most significant, over 100,000 hectares, which equates to over 100 million trees, were lost during those fires. Last year 4½ thousand hectares were planted, and another 7,000 hectares are currently being— (Time expired)