John Watson (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are debating cognately two bills, the Forestry Marketing and Research and Development Services Bill 2007 and the Forestry Marketing and Research and Development Services (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Bill 2007.The second of the two bills implements certain transitional measures. Effectively it enables the privatisation of the Forest and Wood Products Research and Development Corporation. We are establishing a new non-profit company, limited by guarantee under the Corporations Act 2001, and this corporation will receive payments that can be spent on activities such as marketing, promotion, research and other developmental activities. The bill establishes a new company that will replace the current Commonwealth statutory authority: the Forest Wood Products Research and Development Corporation. The effect of this is to transfer control from government to industry participants. The changes to agricultural extension services over the last 10 years reflect a worldwide trend towards privatisation so as to keep up with developments in markets both domestically and internationally.

This reorientation of the role of government in this area is matched by efforts towards deregulation in other areas better suited to private provision and the discipline of the market. The forestry industry clearly needs to be able to reorganise and strategically integrate its marketing and communication efforts to increase the consumption of timber products and to manage more effectively misinformation about sustainability and forest management, risks and harvesting practices. The industry particularly needs to convey, both at home and abroad, its very green credentials and to build the community’s confidence that it does have the expertise to manage our timber resource in a most sustainable way.

We have already seen what happens when this industry and the state forests and reservations are unable to manage and protect assets. I will refer briefly to the Victorian bushfires that burned for 47 days on a front as wide as 200 kilometres. The fires destroyed the Australian annual sawlog. It was a massive loss that should not have occurred. The forest industry are therefore heavily reliant on new research and development, and they need to know much more about managing fire risk. In addition to this, more promotion activities are needed to maintain competitiveness in a global market and to generate jobs in regional Australia. Currently the Forest and Wood Products Research and Development Corporation delivers research and development for the forest industries, and it is funded though statutory levies and charges and matching funding from the Commonwealth government. The Australian forest industry has identified a strong need for generic marketing and promotion of Australian forest products and forest management, which the corporation cannot undertake due to the legislative restrictions of the Primary Industries and Energy Research and Development Act 1989.

The Australian government gave policy approval to the proposal to establish a new industry services body and on 9 October last year it put forward legislation to implement the required changes. The policy proposal was agreed to by the Primary Industries Ministerial Council two years ago. The new company will replace the current statutory body. The idea is to provide enhanced capability that will communicate a positive image of the forest industry and the sustainability of timber as a resource.

Under the new arrangements, expenditure on research and development will not be reduced below the corporation’s current expenditure. Additional funding for marketing and promotion will be collected through changes to the levies and charges regime. A funding contract between the Australian government and the new company will set certain obligations and accountability requirements for the industry services body, including provisions relating to the use of levies and contractual payments, matching research and development funding and the transfer of assets and liabilities from the old corporation to the new company.

The main bill provides the minister with the ability to enter into a funding contract with a company to enable it to it to receive from the consolidated revenue fund and administer levies, charges and state forest grower contractual payments collected by the Commonwealth for industry promotion, research and development. The minister can then declare the company to be the industry services body for this purpose. Levies collected will be matched by appropriation from the consolidated revenue fund and then paid to the industry services body. There are also miscellaneous provisions in relation to ministerial directions to the industry services body in the event of an emergency, delegation of ministerial powers, compensation for acquisition of property and for the making of regulations.

The second bill, the Forestry Marketing and Research and Development Services (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Bill 2007, deals with the transitional arrangements required to enable the smooth transition of responsibilities from the old statutory corporation to the new industry services body as well as consequential amendments to a number of other acts. These transitional arrangements include provision for the transfer of assets, liabilities and employees—together with all their rights and entitlements—from the corporation to the new industry services body. The value of the net assets is something in the order of $6.4 million.

Even though the industry is served by a number of organisations at national and state levels, performing marketing and promotions activities, this new industry owned company will enable the establishment of a new and more efficient approach for industry-wide issues. This is consistent with the approach taken in the reform of other rural industry statutory corporations for service provision. I refer particularly to changes that have occurred in other areas including the meat, pork, livestock export, egg, dairy, wool and horticulture industries that have been very positive for producers and for the industry as a whole.

The forestry industry in the main supports this proposal, and the foundation of this support is built on the knowledge that this change will ultimately translate into improved industry profitability, leading to expanded output, growth and jobs. As a Tasmanian senator, I heartily support the prospect of facilitating economic growth and increasing the potential of Tasmania’s forest industry. Overall, in 2004-05, Australian forest products had a turnover of $18 billion, which was one per cent of the GDP, and employed 95,360 people. For Tasmania, the importance of forest product industries cannot be underestimated.

In July 2006, the ABS released statistics on the manufacturing industry in Tasmania for the 2003-04 year. With sales of some $1.2 billion, the wood and paper products division is one of nine industry subdivisions and was ranked second highest in terms of both employment and wages and salaries. The ABS noted in its commentary that, in terms of its share of industry value added, wood and paper manufacturing is the major manufacturing industry in Tasmania, contributing something like 26 per cent of the total income.

The relative importance of wood and paper product manufacturing in Tasmania is very apparent when compared to the national contribution of the industry, which is seven per cent. So it is a very important industry for Tasmania. The IVA, or industry value adding, per person employed in wood and paper products in Tasmania rated highest of the nine ABS industry subdivisions at $142,000 per person employed. For this reason, the establishment of Forest and Wood Products Australia is very welcome, and it is my hope that it supports the forest industry in Tasmania to expand to its full capacity and for the whole of Tasmania to enjoy the benefits so derived.

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I first say that Labor welcomes the establishment of a forestry industry services company to undertake both research and development as well as marketing and promotion on behalf of the forestry industry. I want to talk about the length of time that the minister has taken to bring a bill to establish the Forest and Wood Products Australia company to this parliament. I also want to talk about the need to amend the Forestry Marketing and Research and Development Services Bill 2007 and the Forestry Marketing and Research and Development Services (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Bill 2007 to ensure that there is an appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny for Forest and Wood Products Australia in the context of this legislation and consistent with other legislation. I also want to discuss the fact that, frankly, the Senate committee inquiry into this legislation has absolutely revealed that this government has not developed the issues of water, carbon and climate change into the broader agenda for the forest industry.

It has taken the government an extraordinary period of time to bring a bill to this parliament to establish the company Forest and Wood Products Australia. The Forest and Wood Products Council established a steering committee in late 2002 to develop options for developing a new entity that could deliver both research and development as well as marketing and promotion. In September 2003, the steering committee released the Australian Forest and Wood Products Industry: Options for reform report, which first proposed establishing Forest and Wood Products Australia. That was in September 2003. We are approaching four years since that report was issued.

The industry has wanted to establish marketing and promotion as a key component of a new body to fill a long-overlooked gap. The forest industry identified that there is a perception that wood’s real environmental values are being largely overlooked by consumers. I believe there is a need to promote the inherent natural properties of wood products, such as the recycling potential, the sustainability of production, positive greenhouse impacts and potential to contribute to biodiversity and mitigation of environmental problems such as salinity. These concerns were brought to the attention of this government five years ago. Industry developed a proposal to establish Forest and Wood Products Australia four years ago. Only now, in what could be the last parliamentary session before an election—although I think we might have another couple of sessions in this parliament—does the government bring a bill forward which would meet the concerns the industry identified years ago.

If the government were serious about marketing and promotion for the forest industry, they would have finalised this bill years ago. If Minister Abetz were serious about marketing and promotion for the forest industry, he would have made this a priority when he became a minister. During Senate estimates in February, and again in the budget estimates round which has recently passed, Minister Abetz bemoaned the need to conduct more promotion of the positives of the forest industry. The minister should have been holding a mirror in front of himself as he talked about the need for forest industry promotion, because he should have been having a good hard look at himself to see who has been the real culprit in preventing the necessary levels of promotion for the forest industry. It has been a clear display of negligence by the government that this bill was not put before the parliament some time before this session of parliament. This bill has clearly been in contemplation for a very long time.

Think about the time that it has taken to bring this bill to the parliament. According to the information I recall from the Senate inquiry into this bill, the bill was drafted in February. So not only did it take a long time to reach the point where the government and the minister decided to promulgate legislation, but the legislation was prepared in February. It is now June, so it has taken from February to June to get to this point where we no doubt will pass this legislation in some form today. But since that time one wonders what reflection there has been on this legislation and other forms of this legislation that apply to other industry bodies which have been referred to in relation to the principles that underpin the various components of this package, including the statutory funding agreement.

Labor wants this bill to be consistent with other forms of legislation and we believe that this bill needs to be amended to improve the accountability to the parliament. I stress ‘accountability to the parliament’ because that is the area in which this bill is deficient. We do fully support an industry services body, as set out in this bill, but the bill must contain adequate accountability provisions to the parliament. This bill will establish arrangements in its unamended form that do not hold the proposed industry services body or the minister sufficiently accountable to the parliament for the expenditure of levy and taxpayer funds. The accountability requirements that the government established for the dairy industry services body, Dairy Australia, provides a benchmark for accountability. The amendment that Labor put forward for that legislation, which was accepted by the government, is in fact the template we are using in this regard and will replicate the government’s own benchmark in accountability that was developed for the dairy industry.

The amendment involves inserting two additional provisions into the legislation. First is a provision that, within 14 days of lodging their annual report, the industry body must give the minister a copy of the report. The minister must table this report to each house of parliament within 14 days of the report being given to the minister and, additional to other requirements under the Corporations Act 2001, the annual report must include the amount of forest service payments and matching payments made to the industry services body, the amount of those payments that were spent and outcomes as measured against objectives that apply in relation to the industry services body.

The second additional provision of Labor’s amendment involves other reporting requirements. It requires that the minister, as soon as practical after the holding of each annual general meeting of the industry services body, cause to be tabled in each house of parliament a report on the year ending 30 June before the holding of that meeting. The report must include a statement as to the amount of charges imposed under section 2 of schedule 7, or section 2 of schedule 8, of the Primary Industries (Customs) Charges Act 1999 and it must be received by the Commonwealth on or after that time. A statement as to the amounts of levy imposed under those provisions must be received by the Commonwealth on or after the transfer time. It also requires a statement as to the amounts of levy imposed under regulations made for the purposes of schedule 27 of the Primary Industries (Excise) Levies Act 1999,  received by the Commonwealth on or after the transfer time; and a statement as to whether the minister is satisfied, on the basis of information provided by the industry services body, that the spending of forest service payments and matching payments complies with the funding contract and, if the minister is not satisfied, detail as to why the minister is not satisfied that the spending complies.

These are very fundamental provisions. It is all well and good for the industry services body to have contractual arrangements with the executive of the parliament or the government. It is a serious matter that levy payments in this legislation—in effect, a form of taxation upon industry—are not subject in an effective way to the scrutiny of parliament. I say again: these are measures which the government has included in other similar pieces of legislation—and I cite the dairy industry legislation, where the appropriate Dairy Produce Act provisions were included in the Dairy Industry Service Reform Bill 2003. These provisions are replicated in amendments which were accepted by the government in relation to that legislation. They are reporting requirements which the government was happy to bring forward, and Labor urges the government and the minor parties to support this amendment to ensure that there is an appropriate level of parliamentary oversight established for Forest and Wood Products Australia.

In the context of this legislation, and particularly in the area of research for this industry, this government has failed to incorporate the forest industry into the broader agenda of carbon, water and climate change that is going to be a future driver for the forest industry. During the committee inquiry into this bill, the current Forest and Wood Products Research and Development Corporation provided an extensive list of projects that they are undertaking. This list represents extensive necessary work to further advance the interests of the forest industry in Australia. But, frankly, the government has allowed a yawning gap to emerge for the future of the forest industry. The government has failed to develop any framework for the forest industry to establish its links with the issues of water for this nation, carbon and carbon sequestration, and the climate change future Australia will need to tackle.

During the recent budget estimates, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry indicated that it had received no directions on how to address these most important issues for the future of forestry. The department indicated that it was not looking into how forestry would fit into any future carbon trading scheme. It was also clear from the recent budget estimates that the department was not being asked by government to address what the effect of water use will be on the forest industry. The department has not been tasked by the government to address how carbon absorption by forests will fit into the future of climate change in Australia. In addition, the government has failed to provide any leadership, therefore, to the forest industry’s responses to the issues of water and water use in Australia, to carbon and carbon sequestration and to the general climate change picture.

I have to say that that is not all that surprising, considering that the government has been a bastion of climate change scepticism and is a government which is causing Australia—and, in this case, the Australian forest industry—to be left behind on issues which will be the necessary responses to climate change. That is the greatest shame of all in relation to this industry, which I know is keen to be involved and has not seen the government leading it in the directions that are necessary to give it the best opportunities to respond to the challenges that those issues present.

In summary, Labor believes that this bill will provide the forest industry with additional capacity to market and promote its products. This is a step forward that the industry identified in 2002 as being necessary for the future of the industry, but it has taken the government the best part of five years to take steps to address this issue. It has taken five years from when the industry identified problems around marketing and promotion for the government to take steps to address the issue. In addition, the government has failed to put the future of carbon, water and climate change at the centre of its thinking for the future of the forest industry. This, frankly, is a failure of leadership and a demonstration that the government has been caught in its own web of climate change scepticism, which rendered it incapable of delivering the leadership that this industry needed in these important areas.

I say again that we believe this bill does not contain the necessary reporting requirements back to this parliament. We seek to address that issue by the amendment circulated in the chamber in my name—which, I say again, replicates what the government has already established as a benchmark in the dairy industry services body, which has been approved in this chamber—with the support of the government. I urge the government and others to support Labor’s amendment, lest we end up with inadequacies which we will regret in the future in relation to the accountability of a body that will receive the benefit of not only levies collected from industry but also taxpayer funds in the form of matching contributions from government regarding this and other legislation of this parliament.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to join with my colleagues Senator Watson, Senator O’Brien and, I know, all other senators who have the interests of Australia and Australia’s forestry industry at heart in supporting the Forestry Marketing and Research and Development Services Bill 2007 and the Forestry Marketing and Research and Development Services (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Bill 2007 today. I endorse entirely the comments by Senator Watson and I endorse the positive comments by Senator O’Brien.

I want to speak on this legislation simply to acknowledge those people in the industry who have put so much blood, sweat, tears, enthusiasm and effort into getting this proposal to where it is today. I mention particularly the members of the Forest and Wood Products Council who, over many years, have struggled to ensure that full industry support was obtained for this proposal. I want to mention, in no particular order, the very fine work done in this matter by Mr Nick Roberts—then a chief executive of Weyerhaeuser and now, as I understand it, following a chance meeting I had with him in Sydney last week, working for my namesake in Sydney, Ian Macdonald, the agricultural minister in the New South Wales government. Nick was one of those who led the charge along with Ms Kate Carnell, who was then the Executive Director of the National Association of Forest Industries; Neil Fisher, the CEO of A3P; Greg McCormack, the President of NAFI; and people like Rob Lord from Norske Skog and Warwick Ragg.

Trevor Smith from the CFMEU, who did a lot of work in those early days, and more recently my good friend and genuine supporter of the forest industries Michael O’Connor from the CFMEU, have played a very significant part in ensuring that this particular positive piece of legislation gets to the table. I want to mention as well Timber Communities Australia; Jill Lewis and Kersten Gentle, both of whom made a very significant contribution to the hard work that was needed; Colin Shipard from the Australian Forest Contractors Association; Clive Dossetor from the Timber Merchants Association; recently Mrs Catherine Murphy, now the CEO of NAFI; and Doug Head, now the President of NAFI but in those earlier days a member of the Forest and Wood Products Council, who added his considerable support and standing to this piece of legislation.

Regrettably, Senator O’Brien could not help himself; he had to try to find some fault with this legislation. It is unfortunate, because I know Senator O’Brien supports it and has supported it for a long time, but he does not understand. If, perchance, he ever were in the situation where he was a minister in a government, he would understand that things take some time to put together, particularly when you are dealing with something as complex as this particular issue. Senator O’Brien is right: this thought was as much a government initiative as an industry initiative; it was a drawing together of thoughts by the government and the industry that at each election they had to face criticism, stupidity and hypocrisy, particularly from the Greens political party, about forestry. Anyone who knows anything about the forestry industry will understand that the forestry industry, particularly in Australia, is one of the most sustainable, one of the most environmentally friendly industries going. But each year the industry has to put up with these fraudulent campaigns from the Greens political party about forestry.

The Greens political party would have Australia source all of its forest and wood products from forests around the world that are nowhere near as sustainable as Australia’s forestry management is. I can never understand—except to confirm that the Greens’ opposition is purely left-wing political rather than environmental—why the Greens would want us to take forest products from the Solomons, from Papua New Guinea, from many other places around the world that do rape and pillage their forests in preference to getting them from Australia, which has the most sustainable forestry management regime anywhere in the world. It is hypocrisy and absolutely fraudulent behaviour of the Greens in trying—and they are still trying, even today—to destroy this very sustainable industry for Australia that provides so much resource for our country. It also provides so many jobs and so much economic activity in rural and regional Australia, a part of Australia that, over the years, has declined in importance and declined in opportunities for employment. This industry brings back those opportunities and is a great industry for those of us who live in rural and regional Australia.

This initiative of the government and the industry, if I can say it was a joint initiative, is aimed at promoting the obvious good aspects of forestry—and that is all of them—and ensuring that Australians can understand the hypocrisy and fraudulence of the campaigns that the Greens mount every year against this very worthwhile industry. There is a good story to tell, but it is always easy for the Greens to get the ear of lazy journalists and to rubbish a very sustainable and productive industry. The industry and the government understood that the industry needs to be in a position to explain the benefits of forestry in a far better and more sustainable way than the industry has been able to do in the past. And so this idea came up at the Forest and Wood Products Council meetings back in 2002 and 2003, and the long process to bring it to fruition then started.

Senator O’Brien would have you believe that you have a talk about it one day and introduce legislation the next. Quite clearly, and unfortunately, Senator O’Brien does not understand the processes. The people who I mentioned earlier put a hell of a lot of work into getting this particular initiative to where it is. It had to fit in within the principles of research and development, but it also had to involve the industry and additional levies, and that required enormous amounts of consultation with the industry. I do not like to highlight this, but I point out that even with the greatest goodwill and the enthusiastic support of all of the industry leaders, the ballot that was required before this legislation came into being was supported by only 72 per cent of the industry people entitled to vote. I know from those early days that there were concerns, particularly amongst smaller organisations, about the cost of additional levies. All of that had to be gone through so very carefully.

The industry leaders took that upon themselves; it was not the government doing it. The industry had to go around painstakingly, and I know some of those people I mentioned travelled the length and breadth of Australia meeting with small organisations, meeting with businesses, explaining it, showing PowerPoint presentations, doing a hell of a lot of work. We talk about it today, but we cannot really understand the effort and toil that those industry leaders put into getting the support that was needed and then getting it just right, which they did, over a period of time. I congratulate Senator Abetz on getting this legislation to the parliament at this time. Senator O’Brien says someone told him something at estimates. I would point out though to Senator O’Brien that even to go through the parliamentary process, it has had to go to the Scrutiny of Bills Committee, it has had to go to the Senate committee—these things do take time, and they have to be done correctly. I am a bit saddened that Senator O’Brien had to find some way to try to differentiate himself from the government, so he embarked upon this quite silly attack on the time taken. The time taken was necessary to get it right. It is not an easy thing to do; it is complex. But it is here today and I am delighted to see that. I do want to place on record the efforts of all those people I mentioned earlier in getting it to this particular point.

Senator O’Brien also had to throw in some comments, along with his leader’s message for the day, I guess it was, about greenhouse gas emissions and the government’s approach to it. As has been pointed out before, time and again, the Howard government was the first government, I think, in the world to set up a greenhouse office, back in 1996.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The first in the world. Thank you, Senator Abetz. We were on the case long before it became popular in other countries around the world and certainly long before it became popular in the organisations of the Australian Labor Party. They are the Johnny-come-latelys to this debate. Our government has been dealing with this seriously since 1996, the year we came into government. Time will not permit me to go into all of the things that our government has done, but I would just mention one little thing: the Commercial Environment Forestry project funded in the budget a few years ago. That is the sort of thing that this government has been doing with the industry to ensure that forestry is recognised as being very much part of the solution to climate change.

This government has funded and the industry has run any number of projects working towards that end. The enormous amount of effort that the government has put into matters like water usage and carbon sequestration involving forestry are too numerous to mention. But we got there with this particular project. The research and development element of it that has been supported by government for many years will remain, but the industry itself will put in additional levies to make sure that the Australian public are well aware of the sustainable nature of our forestry.

As I said, I regret to see that even today the Greens continue, at every turn, to try to destroy this fabulous Australian industry, this industry that does more to promote environmental results than practically any other industry. The Greens would have us all buy houses made of aluminium or cement—

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Concrete.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

or concrete or steel, those sorts of building materials that have enormous greenhouse gas emissions. But the Greens would have you use aluminium, concrete, steel—

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mud.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, I don’t know about mud—but certainly aluminium, concrete and steel, which have enormous greenhouse gas emissions. The Greens would rather you build with them than with the most sustainable product you can get, and that is native forest and wood products. They would have us buy paper made of pulp from the countries in the world that simply ravage their forests. Here in Australia we manage them sustainably. We need paper. The Greens use as much paper if not more than anyone else, but they want to get it from countries whose forests are just pillaged and ravaged, rather than from Australia, which, as I say, has one of the best if not the best forest management regime anywhere in the world.

Perhaps this legislation should not have been necessary, but, because of the easy message to sell, picked up, as I say, by lazy journalists who find these faults with the forest industries, it is necessary for the industry—not governments, and I make that clear; it is important for the industry itself—to fund and run education campaigns, and this legislation will help in that way.

I do not want to delay the Senate. I am delighted that this legislation is receiving bipartisan support. Senator O’Brien, in the committee hearing, mentioned that it did not have sufficient accountability—well, as I am sure Senator Abetz will elaborate on, what we followed here was the egg industry R&D arrangement, and this is really a template for the future. There is all the necessary accountability there, and the industry itself of course will ensure that it is accountable to itself for the additional funds that the industry will be putting in.

Congratulations to Senator Abetz and his department. I know the department has put in an enormous amount of work over many years on this. I have mentioned this twice before and I want to mention it again: I particularly want to recognise the efforts of all those industry leaders who have worked so hard to get this particular proposal to where it is today. Like my colleagues I commend the legislation to the Senate.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think I am in a position to say thank you for 2½ of the speeches that have been contributed in this debate. I thank Senator Watson and Senator Ian Macdonald. Before Senator Ian Macdonald I feel somewhat of an impostor because I know that he did a lot of the work to get this legislation to where it is today. But I have the privilege, being the Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation, of dealing with the legislation here. I thank senators for their contributions. I note the Senate committee report on this legislation. One aspect of the committee report dealt with the issue of accountability. With  great respect—and I do not want to delay the Senate on this aspect too much—the Senate committee report dealt with governance and accountability from paragraph 3.13 onwards to paragraph 3.27 and made out the case very well.

Allow me to try to summarise the situation. We did have a further look at this situation after the Senate committee report and the minority report. We do not agree with the minority report that was co-signed by Labor and the Greens. We believe that the majority report is the more robust report. The forestry legislation is based on the Egg Industry Service Provision Act 2002. The egg industry services body is of a similar size to the proposed new forest industry services body. The simpler provisions for the egg industry services body have been shown to provide appropriate accountability under the funding contract, and the committee was made aware of this. The government will receive annual reports and audited financial statements from the forest industry services body, which will ensure that its operations are compliant with the provisions of the contract. The legislation and the accompanying transition bill provide for the government to declare a new industry services body for the forest industry. This has arisen in response to an initiative of the Australian forest industry itself, which Senator Macdonald so eloquently spoke of.

My other comments are in relation to climate change and Senator O’Brien’s obligatory comment about the government’s greenhouse response. As Senator Macdonald quite rightly pointed out, in 1996, when we won government, the then minister, Senator Robert Hill, indicated that the government was looking at this. By 1998 we had the first greenhouse office of any country in the world. We are accused of being poll driven on this matter.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, definitely. I think I’ve said that five or six times already.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are accused of being Johnny-come-latelys on the issue. Senator Sterle, by a foolish interjection, is confirming that on behalf of the Labor Party. The other day I took the opportunity of asking the Parliamentary Library to have a bit of a look at the number of questions that were asked on global warming and climate change from 1998 to the current date. The information is very instructive. In the year that we set up the Greenhouse Office, 1998, how many questions do you think the Labor Party asked?

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Two? Three?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are an exaggerator. You think more highly of the Labor Party, Senator Macdonald, than they deserve. It was one question. From 1998 through to 2007, they asked 34 questions, which is pretty good, until you realise that, out of those 34 questions, 30 were asked in the last 12 months. So from 1998 until about 2006, you had year after year where the Labor Party did not ask a single question in this place during Senate question time on this issue. In fact, from 1998 to 2007, we asked more questions, as dorothy dixers, on this topic to try to get the public debate going on these issues than the Labor Party did. To those journalists who continually write and say the Labor Party have stolen the march on the Liberal Party and the National Party on this: just look at the documentation, the raw data, not the propaganda. If they looked at the raw data, they would be interested to see that we have had a constant, steady approach on this. The Labor Party ignored it, then saw it in the polls and ramped it up and tried to become the hero on the issue. We have constantly been the friend of the issue and continually husbanded the issue, as it should be, not taken the big, lavish approach that the Labor Party have taken on this issue.

One comment that Senator Macdonald made is that the forest industry, unfortunately, on the basis of each electoral cycle has had to confront the silly arguments in relation to forestry. That is why this legislation is so important—because it will allow the forest industry to become more proactive in defending itself and getting out correct information. Some of the difficulties the forest industry is facing today are shown in the Senate report on this legislation. The fact that the Labor Party and the Greens have signed off on the coalition minority report clearly indicates Labor and the Greens are in a coalition together, working together. They have already agreed to exchange preferences in New South Wales—that is already known—without any forest policy on the table. The forest policy is being developed; it just has not been put on the table as yet.

I also indicate my very real concern at what happened at the national Labor conference in relation to forestry. The Labor Party under Kevin Rudd has now backtracked from the very sensible position Mr Beazley had. All I say to the forest industry is: be very careful. Mr Mark Latham had a foolish, silly, stupid forest policy. Who was the architect of it? His political love child, whom he parachuted in to the seat of Kingsford Smith: none other than Mr Garrett. Keep in mind that Mr Beazley was wise enough to sideline him as shadow parliamentary secretary for the arts or something. Mr Beazley repudiated the Latham forest policy. As soon as Mr Rudd became leader, Mr Latham’s political love child, Mr Garrett, was put straight into the environment portfolio, and a very keen defender of the forest industry, Mr Martin Ferguson, was deliberately pushed out of that portfolio. Mr Rudd did not want too much robust discussion within the Labor Party on this issue, so the defender of the forest industry was sidelined, pushed aside deliberately so Mr Garrett would have the greater say in this area.

This report that the Labor Party has signed up to is just nitpicking in its desire to delay legislation and to inflict on the industry and the body concerned extra red tape and more cost so that the amount of money they can actually spend on research, development and active campaigning will be minimised. That the Labor Party would get into bed with the Greens should not surprise anybody, because it has been happening for far too long—and under Mr Rudd’s leadership it is clearly happening again. Today might even be the six-month anniversary of Mr Rudd’s elevation to the leadership. I am not sure if it is, but we must be getting to around that time. And do you know what? During those six months I think the Prime Minister has visited my home state of Tasmania on at least two or three occasions. I think Mr Rudd has as well, and so have Mr Downer and a whole host of cabinet ministers and shadow ministers—with one exception. Who do you reckon that might be? Who has difficulty in coming to the state of Tasmania in his position as a senior shadow minister? Mr Peter Garrett—although he and Mr Rudd promised the Tasmanian people that, before they made their decision at the Labor Party national conference, they would come to Tasmania and listen and learn. Clearly Mr Garrett does not need to listen and learn. He has already made up his mind, and that is why he has not visited Tasmania during that period.

That aside, another, unfortunate, issue confronting the forest industry is this celebrity cult, where just because you are an actor you all of a sudden become an expert to make commentary on forest practices. Or, as I had occasion to indicate recently to an Institute of Foresters of Australia conference at Coffs Harbour, because you are a well-recognised author of novels, you are then written up in newspapers as somehow having authority to comment on forest practices. I posed the question: how many newspapers would print articles from a forester saying, ‘With all my forestry credentials on the table, I now seek to critique this novel’? They would laugh the forester out of the place and say: ‘It is ludicrous. You have nothing to bring to the table.’ But, if you happen to be a writer of novels, you have everything to bring to the table and you are reported.

So it was, in a way, disappointing to read that Mr Ian Thorpe, for whom I have great respect in his capacity as a world renowned swimmer, came to Tasmania and, unfortunately, fed himself on a diet of Senator Bob Brown and other green activists.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, not Thorpie!

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, it was disappointing, Senator McGauran. But, despite such a terrible diet of information provided to him, Mr Thorpe was able to say: ‘A lot of people rely on the forest industry for work, so obviously just saying you can’t touch the trees wouldn’t be appropriate.’ On that basis he is streets ahead of Senator Bob Brown and the Australian Greens. It is instructive, isn’t it, that when we are talking about the development of the forest industry, with the Greens asserting that they always support downstream processing, there is a very large gap in the chamber and not a single contribution being made by them.

In this newspaper article, Mr Thorpe said that when he saw some of the forest practices they were quite confronting. I agree with him. I would invite him to have a look at the next steak that he eats—I assume he is a meat eater—and then go to the very beginning, look at a peaceful cow in a pasture and follow it through the process chain to the abattoir. I am sure he would similarly say it is very confronting. However, I am sure at the end of the day he, like so many of us, still enjoys his beef and his good meal of meat. Similarly, I say to those people: ‘Yes, we still enjoy reading our newspapers. We like having toilet paper and tissue paper and we like to have wooden furniture et cetera.’ Well, there are some confronting processes that have to be gone through. The test is not whether it is visually confronting but whether it is scientifically sustainable.

The challenge I continually throw out—that Senator Bob Brown, the Wilderness Society and others always refuse to deal with—is simply this: tell me where in the world do they do forestry better than in Australia? I ask that question continually and not one of these anti-forestry campaigners are able to say to me: ‘Look, Eric, what you ought to do is look to country X for a better practice.’ The simple fact is they cannot, and they know it, and it is about time that they were honest in relation to this debate on forestry.

The third issue that concerns me is that some sectors of the forest industry are, unfortunately, bending over backwards in trying to avoid confrontation and, in doing so, I think, are offending common sense, good practice and good public policy. It pains me to say that in recent times Forestry Tasmania, albeit a government corporation in Tasmania, entered into a memorandum of understanding with a green group to get them out of the forests and stop them from demonstrating. And the Premier welcomed the agreement. Today, Madam Acting Deputy President Kirk—and with your legal background I am sure you would fully understand this—I am calling on the state Attorney-General, as the first law officer of the state, to have a very close look at this memorandum of understanding, repudiate it and ensure that it is ripped up.

This memorandum of understanding has as one of its operative clauses—and this is a matter of great concern—that the activists agree to not damage the completed road. The last time I read my Criminal Code, damaging property was a criminal offence. The MOU then says that the activists agree to ‘not hinder’, to ‘remove all impediments/obstruc-tions’, to ‘not block or prevent movement by motor vehicles’. These are all criminal offences. Good public policy dictates that you cannot enter any binding agreement with another on the basis that one of the parties agrees not to commit a criminal offence.

This memorandum offends every principle of sound public policy. For the Premier to welcome this is unfortunate, as it indicates what he is now doing in a bid to get Kevin Rudd elected. Mr Lennon himself has not been willing to reconfirm his absolute commitment to the Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement. In fact, he has said that he has not said that he would rule out any more lock-ups. That is a major concern to the industry and a major concern to all those who worked so hard, along with Senator Ian Macdonald, in putting that balanced Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement together.

Here is an agreement that is endorsed by the Premier. He says that this memorandum of understanding between industry and the activists is a good move. This is a group of people who are saying, ‘If you remove yourself from the forest, we will no longer commit criminal offences.’ Guess what that group has done? The Huon Environment Centre got themselves out of the Florentine. But where are they today? Set up in the Weld. They agreed not to do damage or obstruct people in one forest and then they moved into the forest next door. To deal with these people in the way that the state government has means that there is state-sanctioned blackmail, and it needs to be condemned by every single person who has a concern about the rule of law in this country—particularly anyone who is concerned about the future of our forest industry. For Mr Lennon and others not to have condemned it, when it offends every principle of public policy, clearly shows what state Labor is doing in Tasmania: it is vacating certain forest areas to clear the way for Mr Rudd to announce further lock-ups in the lead-up to the election.

I plead with those opposite to desist from this ridiculous activity. After the last election, I thought Labor would have learnt its lessons about this. We had a good bipartisan policy: no further lock-ups. We now have 47 per cent of the state locked up. One million hectares of old growth is locked up, and so the list goes on. Surely we can leave that which remains for the forest industry to enable it to make the transition, which will come in due course, to a fully plantation based sector. I commend the bills to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a second time.