Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

As I said, the government's view is that Australia still needs timber products and wants sustainable forestry jobs. That is why we have a very substantial investment in modernising the timber manufacturing infrastructure, building the skills of the forestry workforce and growing more plantations, which already account for around 90 per cent of national timber production. That's a substantial increase over the last few years. This is a substantial investment. I appreciate the Greens political party wants a banning of native logging in Australia. As I previously said in this place, I've travelled a reasonable amount, particularly in the countries of South-East Asia, and I've never understood why it is progressive policy to believe that we should source timber from countries which don't have the same level of environmental regulation.