Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to quickly associate myself with the remarks of my good friend Senator Duniam. I want to make a point that hasn't been made today. If you close down the native forestry logging industry in this country, all you are doing is moving the activity offshore. That is all you are doing. I'm saying that as someone who lived and worked in Papua New Guinea for over 2½ years. I know how the logging industry was conducted in Papua New Guinea by certain operators, not all of them. There were some very good operators, but there were also other operators who didn't give one ounce of care about the environment or about occupational health and safety. They gave absolutely no concern. That is what you're doing. That is what these Labor state governments are doing when they're shutting down the industry in Australia; they're simply moving those jobs and that activity offshore.

I will never forget attending a paper chip mill in one place offshore—I won't say where—and seeing a worker who had absolutely no occupational health and safety equipment, wearing a pair of songs, trying to push a log into a revolving blade. I had to walk away when I saw it. I was visiting the site. I asked the operator: what are your workplace health and safety statistics like? The manager said, 'Well, we do have problems, but the workers sell their helmets and their occupational health and safety gear, their PPE, so we can't stop that.' I've never, ever forgotten. It was one of the worst things I've ever seen on any industrial site in 25 years in the private sector, and that is what is happening. We're shutting down the industry here, but the industry is going to go offshore, in developing countries where they don't have the same standards we have.

We have a sustainable industry here, and it's in the best interests of all of those involved in the industry and all those communities which Senator Duniam referred to for the industry to be sustainable, just as it's in the best interests of our farmers to farm in a sustainable way. That's why it's so disappointing to see the state Labor governments taking this short-sighted attitude with respect to what should be a vibrant industry in this country.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.