Rex Patrick (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I have some concerns about the Australian plantation timber industry and I've had them for a while. In September 2018 the government announced a National Forest Industries Plan, touted as a commitment to the timber industry and an investment in Australia's future. The aim of the plan was to plant a billion new plantation trees. Minister Littleproud stated at the time:

Australia will need to plant a billion new trees over the next decade to meet demand in 2050, particularly sawlogs for building and construction.

This meant planting 100 million trees per year. That's on top of the roughly 70 million trees that need to be planted each year just to replenish harvesting. The billion-trees announcement came before the timber loss in the devastating fires just over a year ago which affected 130,000 hectares of commercial plantation. Replenishment of these would require about 130 million trees to be planted.

The department recently advised the Senate that about 2,800 hectares have been planted. That's roughly 2.8 million trees, against an annual target of 170 million needed. At this rate, we can forget meeting the 2050 target; it will take 357 years to hit a billion trees. Today I learned that Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers is, for a variety of reasons, exiting the timber industry and will revert its almost 19,000 hectares to agricultural land. That's a loss of roughly seven million adult trees. We're going backwards. The government must get this plan back on track.