Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak to this private senator's bill, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Regional Forest Agreements) Bill 2020. I always think it's fascinating to spend some time in the chamber listening to the contributions of various senators who all represent different parts of the country and I always listen closely to Senator Rice because she is always incredibly sincere and passionate in her defence of her region and the environment. I come from the other end of the country, in Queensland, where we have had a proud history of incredibly considered timber cutting.

Whilst Senator Ciccone made some representations on representing workers, I would suggest that what has long been the role of the National Party is to ensure that primary industries—and I include timber cutting as one—are represented. There's also the certainty that's required for those people who are still operating in the Maryborough region, those people who are operating in the cape, being native title holders and Indigenous people of the north who are now accessing their own hardwood timbers, and they need be given the rights and opportunities to develop their industries in an appropriate, sensitive and well-regulated environment. Something that I believe is in the best interests of our communities, of our people, of course, is to be able to utilise the most renewable and sustainable resource there is—probably other than sugarcane—and that is timber. So I rise to support this legislation in its attempt to provide certainty, in its attempt to allow the men and women who are employed in the timber industry, particularly under the RFAs, to have a sense that they will not be held up or have the industry which they are so passionate about and work so hard in be in any way curtailed.

The EPBC Act is one that, as we all know, is incredibly difficult to deal with. In Queensland, particularly in the far north of the state, it is not uncommon for projects to get to seven or eight years of spending hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in consultants' fees before they just withdraw and walk away from an investment in our part of the state. Now, I think that's an incredible tragedy, because we are crying out for jobs for those communities. As Senator McCarthy said in the chamber the other day, purposeful, meaningful work only happens when we approve projects and allow for investment to go forward. And certainty is a very important part of that. Again, in Queensland we had a timber industry that was so successful, so environmentally light in its touch, that the region was nominated for World Heritage listing because it was so pristine after 100 years of logging. I speak to some of those people, particularly men, who came out as immigrants from different parts of the world to go into timber cutting. They understand and they know that country as well as anyone. They talk about which tree to take and from which direction.

During the school holidays, I took my son and we drove up the Kirrama Range Road to the Blencoe Falls. That was the old timber cutting track to allow the timber to come more directly down to the coast and to the mills, rather than work their way round the Kuranda range on other roads that are further away. It is beautiful, and it is impossible to see where those timber activities used to be because they have now completely regrown. Some of the timber cutters tell me that, if they went back a month after they had cut, it was difficult to see where they had cut trees from. Certainly, six months or a year later, all traces of their activities were gone, such was the sensitive touch that they had in that part of the country. So, while some of Senator Rice's comments were, I'm sure, well made, they are really better directed at the Victorian state government, which is failing to carry out the work that it is required to do under its regulations.

In Queensland we have a fully sustainable hardwood industry. It is highly regulated, and something that we should be incredibly proud of is the expertise and knowledge of our timber workers and timber industry. But what they require is certainty to know that they will still be able to operate in the months and years ahead and that they will be able to bring their children into that industry and pass on that deep knowledge and understanding of the forests and the timbers they take and how that continues to make it healthy. Previously, we used to have more fires and more events that would have managed forests and rangelands in a different way. As humans, we now try and stop that from happening. We fear fire. Of course, the result has been that we've got growth in different places that was being managed by timber cutters and by the forestry industry, and we are now leaving parts of the country completely exposed to the hot fires that we've had more recently. So I support this private senator's bill. I commend it to you because I do believe it provides a sense of certainty in relation to the RFAs and for the people who work under them—the people who have deep expertise and sensitivity for the place they work in and the communities they live in.