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

Firstly, it always concerns the Australian Greens when we hear about constructive discussions between the opposition and the Labor Party on forestry matters. Let's be very, very clear about what's happened for decades in this country—that is, the Labor, Liberal and National parties have got together and stitched up the ongoing destruction of our native forests. That means the native forest logging industry in Australia has turbocharged the breakdown of the planet's climate. It means the native forest logging industry in Australia is logging species like the swift parrot and the masked owl, in Tasmania, into extinction.

The swift parrot—that beautiful little bird, the fastest parrot in the world, one of the only migratory parrots in the world—is being logged into extinction by a mendicant industry that only survives because of public handouts it gets. Because of the stitch-up between the establishment parties in this country, that beautiful little bird is being logged into extinction. There are around 500 birds left, down from vast flocks of tens of thousands of those beautiful little birds. It is crashing in number because its feeding habitat and its breeding habitat is being destroyed. That's what the stitch-up between the establishment political parties looks like. It looks like the destruction of biodiversity and the destruction of nature, because that is exactly what is happening.

While our planet is literally cooking, while our ecosystems are crumbling around us, while species after species is either going extinct or sliding towards extinction, the major parties are colluding to exempt the forest industry from our national environment laws, weak as they are. The major parties are colluding to continue to pump, even just in my home state of Tasmania, tens of millions of dollars a year so that this mendicant industry can continue. The major parties, for base political purposes, are logging habitats of critically endangered species and logging those species into extinction. It is profoundly distressing.

Of course, what the major parties fail to understand is humans are actually part of the ecosystem as well. We are part of the biodiversity of this planet, and when the ecosystems crumble, in all their complexity and all their magnificence, it affects us. As our climate continues to break down, in all of its complexity and all of its magnificence, it affects us—it affects humans. We are already seeing large—massive—displacements of human beings around the planet because of changed weather and rainfall patterns and the resulting impacts on the availability of food and drinking water. We are already seeing mass biodiversity collapse on this planet as a result of climate change and the ongoing poisoning of nature, yet the Labor and Liberal parties get together and keep stitching it up for their own base political purposes. It's profoundly disturbing that we stand here today, with all of the scientific knowledge that we have and with everything that we know about ecological collapse and climate breakdown, and we fail to take action to stop species like the swift parrot being logged into extinction.

Just today in Tasmania we had an editorial in the Advocate newspaper from Mr Anthony Haneveer, the editor—someone, I might add, who is straight out of the Liberal political offices in Tasmania, as Senator Duniam well knows. In fact I'm not certain about this, but I expect they worked together at some stage. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they worked together in the office of the Tasmanian Premier at some stage. Mr Haneveer editorialised this morning in the Advocate newspaper in Australia in relation to the Maugean skate. There are fewer than 150 of these amazing creatures left in Macquarie Harbour in Tasmania, and this is what Mr Haneveer had to say about that skate, which is sliding into extinction because of the industrial fish-farming industry in Tasmania:

This might sound a little controversial, but I do not really care about that damned fish.

Sure, it would be unfortunate if the Maugean skate were to go extinct, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

That is an incitement to extinction. That is an incitement to the industrial salmon-farming industry in Tasmania to continue to act in a way that the science is telling us is sliding the Maugean skate into extinction. It is so profoundly distressing. Whether it's the Maugean skate and the industrial salmon-farming industry or the beautiful little swift parrot and the industrial native forest logging industry in Tasmania, these two species—so different but so amazing, so beautiful and so intricate, and each the result of millennia of evolutionary forces and ecological processes to arrive where they are today—are being logged and fish farmed into extinction while the establishment parties in this country sit on their hands and do nothing about it.

Here's something for Mr Haneveer: I do care about that damned fish. The Greens do care about that damned fish. We will lose sleep over the fate of that fish—we are losing sleep over the fate of that fish—unlike Mr Haneveer and the establishment political parties in this place. I've got another thing for Mr Haneveer and the establishment parties: we will fight to defend that fish—that beautiful, ancient fish that's been around since the time of the dinosaurs. We will fight for the swift parrot—that beautiful little parrot, one of the fastest parrots ever to have lived on this planet—that is being logged into extinction. We will fight for those species in this place and we will fight every day to protect them from the establishment parties and their agents, like Mr Haneveer and many, many others in the Tasmanian media ecosystem.

Minister, I've got some questions in the committee stage for you on the interrelationship between some of the standards covered in the draft rules that have been published. My first question is: does the Responsible Wood sustainable forest management standard—which is the PEFC endorsed Australian standard—meet the PEFC sustainable forest management requirements? This is critical because it goes to whether it is an auditable condition for forests to be legally logged in order for them to be certified.