Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

As we sit here today, nearly a quarter of a century into the 21st century, with all we know about the breakdown of this planet's climate and the extinction crisis that we are facing on a global scale, it is truly staggering that both old-style parties in this place still support the wholesale destruction of Australia's beautiful, magnificent carbon-rich native forests and that both major parties in this place—the Coles and Woolworths of Australian politics—still support the industrial-scale clear-felling and burning of the habitat of some of the most beautiful, unique creatures on this planet.

Our native forests are home to a complex and awesome web of life. They are absolutely critical in the fight against climate change. They nurture our spirits, and they are worth protecting just for what they are—beautiful and magnificent. Native forest logging is not just a last-century industry; it is actually a 19th-century industry. Logging those beautiful, awesome, magnificent forests is a crime against our climate and a crime against nature. Whether it's the swift parrot in my home state of Tasmania being logged into extinction by the Tasmanian government, or the Leadbeater's possum, the southern greater glider and many other threatened species that call Australia's native forests home, those species are being driven into extinction by an industry based on greed and on political access.

The native forest logging industry destroys carbon sinks, and it releases carbon bonds into the atmosphere. It is a mendicant industry that would collapse overnight if public subsidies were withdrawn from it. Why does it exist? It exists so that people in this place in the major parties can put on their hardhats and their safety vets, wander into the local sawmill for a photo opportunity and pretend that they care about the workers. They don't care about the workers. If they did, they would be putting in place a transition plan to help those workers transition their jobs into jobs that manage and protect biodiversity, manage and protect our forests, and manage and protect nature. Instead, what we see are draconian anti-protest laws, where those brave people who actually put themselves on the line to defend our forests are criminalised. It shouldn't be a crime to defend our forests; it should be a crime to destroy our forests. That's why we need ecocide laws in Australia that actually criminalise the destruction of nature, particularly when it's done for profit and political gain.

The major parties will soon understand that they can't arrest their way out of the climate crisis and that they can't arrest their way out of the extinction crisis. The prisons are just not big enough for them to be able to do that. There are people who have been—and still are today—in prison in Tasmania because they stood up against the political duopoly in this country and put themselves on the line to defend our forests. I will give a shout-out to those people and the many others around this country who are engaging in civil disobedience to protect our climate and to protect nature. They are the true heroes of our times, and they will be recorded as heroes when the pages of history are written through the 21st century.

The Liberals in Tasmania went to the election promising more logging. There was a 10-plus per cent swing against them. Those policies were overwhelmingly rejected.