Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

It might be a good opportunity for my colleagues down the end there to not rile me up, and I'll keep it pretty tame too.

Given all of this, it does beg the questions: why wouldn't we back the industry? Of course, if you don't, where do you get the resource from? Those are two pretty central questions around this bill, and, indeed, what happens in a world where this bill does not take effect? Conservative estimates that we've repeated ad nauseam in this place—and of course in the other place and out in the public domain as well—are that demand for timber products is going to increase fourfold by the year 2050. There are myriad reasons that feed into that, mainly in the housing and construction sector: timber framing, staircases, window frames, flooring, furniture and decorative applications, amongst others. The demand is heading in that direction. Of course, native timber, from the forests that we're contemplating here in the debating of this bill, are central to the provision of the resource that is required to fulfil that demand. There are some stats out there now that 30 percent of any home built these days is hardwood, and therefore coming from native forests.

Bearing in mind the world-leading status of our forestry industry and those who work in it, you've got to wonder why we wouldn't back it. Of course, that goes to the second question I asked before: where does the resource come from if we aren't taking it from well managed, world-leading, science based Australian forests? We often get it from overseas. This is the thing. If we're not producing it here, we're taking it from overseas nations, where we don't have the same assurances. We don't have the same guarantees around the resource and the sustainability of the management models they have in place in those nations. We don't know what environmental outcomes there are. We don't know what conditions exist for workers in those forests and those mills. Without strong regimes in those corresponding nations around traceability and labelling, it is very difficult for us to know with any confidence. It's very difficult for us as a country that does value environmental management and the value conditions for employees in these often dangerous environments to know whether the timber we are buying and importing will in any way be the standard we require of ourselves and expect as consumers of this resource. I'll come to some facts in a moment around other nations and their track records.

In the last term of parliament, I was pleased to see a DNA-testing program in many of our timber retail outlets. The scary thing was—and I'm pleased that we were able to reveal this—that, while many of our very high-profile retailers were marketing and selling product that was claimed to be a particular species of timber sourced from a sustainable forest overseas, the DNA testing revealed that, in fact, it wasn't that timber and, indeed, it didn't come from a sustainable source. I implore the Albanese government to consider continuing this program, because I think it is important. If we're going to impose high standards on our timber industry, and rightly so—it's a set of impositions that the industry would welcome and that would, of course, help them with their brand—we should continue to do that for overseas sources and those who import from them.

To that point, we are bringing our timber in from overseas, and one such point of origin is the nation of Brazil. A lot of timber comes in, and we've got a void here that we are seeking to fill. As I said before, with demand quadrupling by the year 2050, where are we getting this timber from? It's not coming out of thin air and it's certainly not coming out of Australian forests; it's coming from overseas. I did a bit of research earlier on and I came across a number of facts that worried me quite significantly We still want to buy the products, but we are finding it less and less possible to do so here in Australia, using Australian timber, sustainably managed, sustainably sourced and done to the world's best standard. We still want to buy the product, but we are forcing ourselves to buy it from overseas.

If you look at Brazil, for the first six months of this year, 2022, the Amazon rainforest reached a record high in terms of deforestation. Government data showed that an area five times the size of New York City was destroyed. From January to June this year, 3,988 square kilometres was cleared. Of course, you can't just say, 'Oh, well, that's a matter for them,' because I think turning your back on the rest of the world, when we are good global citizens, is an important thing for us not to do. We set an example and we expect others to follow. This very same report talks about how in this clearing regime—not done in accordance with any science and not done to the world's best standard as it is here in Australia—after loggers extract valuable wood, ranchers and land grabbers set fire to what's left to clear the land for agriculture. So here they are, indeed, contributing not only to deforestation but to carbon emissions, which is something I would have thought many in this place would be opposed to supporting. This is what happens when we strangle our industry here by not providing certainty: we force demand offshore. We are sourcing timber from unsustainable forests offshore and, of course, sending the jobs to them.

I could go on about Brazil at length, but let's turn to the continent of Africa and the deforestation in the Congo Basin, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We're seeing, if you're looking at the measurement of the amount of timber being ripped out of the Congo Basin, that wood removal, which is measured in cubic metres, is continuing to increase annually. Industrialised roundwood, which is used for the purposes I've been talking about, increased from 3.05 million cubic metres in 1990 to 4.45 million cubic metres in 2010. So, if we think that these forests are being managed well and in accordance with world's best practice, you only have to consider claims like 'Congo Basin rainforest may be gone by 2100, study finds', and the facts I have already put on record.

We do forestry well here, and that was the point behind Senator McKenzie's private senator's bill—the bill we're debating today. Of course, there have been events that have happened in the Federal Court of Australia since the bill was first introduced, and that's great. But we are in the business of providing certainty. We are in the business of providing certainty for this industry, which is world-leading and does not have headlines like the ones I've just read out or academic studies pointing to terrible outcomes like the ones I've just referred to. Our industry is one that is sustainable, one that we should be proud of, one that supports tens of thousands of jobs in regional communities and billions of dollars of economic productivity and revenue for Australian households and businesses, all the while providing good environmental outcomes.

So this is why it is important for us to remove all doubt. It's great that the Federal Court reached the conclusion that they did, but let's not leave people in doubt. Let's show the government's intent for this particular industry, amongst other great primary industries, and make sure it has the support it needs. That certainty I mentioned earlier on is the one thing businesses and households are looking for anywhere they can get it—certainty from government through its policy, its regulation and its legislation. We know, of course, that, at a time in the future, the new government will present to this parliament its response to the Samuel review—a review which, I might add, has been out and in the public domain for some time. But that will also make a change to what we're debating here. So let's put a marker in the ground, let's support this industry and let's support this bill.