Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The time for native forest logging is over. Native forest logging has to come to an end. Just like whaling finally came to an end in the middle of last century, the time for native forest logging to come to an end is now—way before now! The Victorian government and the WA government are just catching up.

Native forest logging is destructive, it is uneconomic and it has increasingly been shown to be illegal. It is destructive! The number of animal and plant species that have been hurtled towards extinction include the critically endangered Leadbeater's possum and the swift parrot. We have greater gliders shifting from being common to endangered because of the combination of logging and fires and logging that causes fires.

It is destructive. It is uneconomic. Native forest logging has cost the taxpayers over $100 million over the last 10 years. Just think of that: $100 million to prop up a dying industry. In Victoria alone, the Victorian government-owned logging agency has lost close to $100 million over the last 10 years. In 2021, it was reported that the New South Wales government-owned forestry corporation suffered a $20 million loss. Tasmania delivered a whopping $1.3 billion loss.

The future for the timber industry is in plantations, in farm forestry, in urban forestry and in getting greater use out of the wood that is currently being shipped offshore as whole logs and being chipped. There is so much potential here. There are jobs just waiting if we recognise that native forest logging needs to come to an end. If governments across the country did that, there'd be a whole bright new future in the industry. (Time expired)