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

'For once', says Senator Polley. But the point is, is the National Reconstruction Fund funding the harvesting of plantation timber but not native? If so, on what basis? I'd love to know, and I look forward to interrogating this in the committee stage later on today or perhaps even next week. What is the science behind that? I'm sure the minister will be able to give us a very clear answer on that.

The Australian Forest Products Association have dealt with this in a briefing paper they provided a week or so back for public consumption: 'Transition to plantations is not an option. Calls to transition public native forestry into supply through plantations are unrealistic, despite plantations playing a major role in the industry. The current plantation estate is not suitable for high-quality timber products. Hardwood timber from our native forests is sustainably harvested, typically every 60 to 120 years, giving it time to develop the strength and appearance properties that consumers want.' There's a great deal more information which I will put on record in the committee stage of this bill. It's timber like the stuff we work in and around here in this chamber. It's the timber that you will see on your window frames at home, that staircases are made out of, that important parts of furniture in any house will be drawn from. It's either that, from Australian sustainably managed, world's best-standard forests or, sadly, in many cases, that ripped out of forests in very vulnerable parts of the world where there is a depressed economy that is developing and it is done with no regard for the environment at all.

Returning to my point around not understanding the issues that are pressuring manufacturing in this country, state Labor governments in Victoria and Western Australia, I lament, have policies to shut down native forestry. There are those who will have different views about this, but how can a federal Labor government say they support manufacturing, including native forest value-add, when their state counterparts in Western Australia and Victoria have a policy to shut those industries down? As a result of not supporting the harvesting and management of those forests, which is an important resource—as a Tasmanian, I'm proud of what happens in our great state in managing those forests—when the resource availability is shut down, the value-add is shut down. As a result of not supporting the harvesting and management of those forests—which are an important resource, and, as a Tasmanian, I'm proud of what happens in our great state with the management of those forests—what happens is: when you shut down the resource availability, you shut down the value-add.

We saw Parkside lured to Western Australia, with much support and many commitments from the Western Australian Labor government. Now they are shutting down. Scores of jobs in that regional community are going. Do you know where they're going? It's not somewhere else in Australia. It's offshore, because we'll still want the products that were made in that mill, but we won't be able to get them here. It's the same in Victoria. The Heyfield Mill is closing down as a result of the shutdown of the native forestry sector, which means that those jobs are going. So Labor have a lot explaining to do. I'm looking forward to the certainty that will be provided as we progress through this.