Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the response from Minister Littleproud to the Senate resolution of 2 December.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

This was the response from Minister Littleproud to the Senate resolution of 2 December calling on the Commonwealth government to more effectively plan for koala and animal welfare in natural disaster responses. In the context of bushfires ravaging over 1.5 million hectares of New South Wales forests and the death of between 350 and 1,000 koalas in these fires, the minister's response, frankly, was very high level. It talked about disaster risk guidance and frameworks, which, quite frankly, I cannot see being of any value in saving one koala let alone 1,000.

While that's all we're being offered to save and protect our wildlife, including koalas, we've got the logging industry demanding that they ought to be able to go into national parks with bulldozers and demanding the opportunity to start looting our precious forests before our forests have even had a chance to begin recovery from the fires. And that's before these devastating fires that have destroyed people's lives and communities and wildlife have even finished burning.

What I and the community want to see from the government are some guarantees that they will implement fire disaster responses that will actually protect wildlife. We need a guarantee that this damaging logging, this looting of our forests, after the fires will be prohibited. Environment groups have called for a guarantee from the Victorian government that they will not allow damaging salvage logging in East Gippsland, and in New South Wales a cross-party parliamentary committee has written to the Premier to express their concerns about post-fire logging because of the drastic effect on koala populations.

Professor David Lindenmayer, a renowned expert forest ecologist, has written multiple, independent, peer reviewed studies which show that logging forests after bushfires increases future fire risk and can render the forest uninhabitable for wildlife for decades or even centuries. The science shows that post-fire logging would significantly impair regeneration, yet the industry ignores that. And not only that: we have the timber industry seeking to loot our forests after the fires. It is not even profitable; it's so heavily subsidised.

The truth is that, to protect our forests and our wildlife after fires, we need to let our forests recover, not tear them apart. We know from long-term studies that most burnt areas will recover well if we let them. These recovering trees are absolutely crucial for species that are at great risk, like the gliding possums, and for the healthy regeneration of whole ecosystems, including the wildlife, the soils, the plants and the insects. In contrast, logging operations kill plants that are germinating in the ash on the forest floor, and the animals that have actually survived the fires get killed during these post-fire-looting logging operations.

This government needs to take responsibility for Australia's native forests. They are of national significance. This is a global issue, not just a national issue. We need a commitment to end native-forest logging now, because the protection of our wildlife and the restoration of our forests are of critical importance to all Australians. The bushfire impact so far, and the fire season still stretching ahead of us, shows that business as usual is not possible and mealy-mouthed words from the minister is not enough. I call on this government to act in the interests of these natural systems, to act to support all of our lives, to act so that our kids and our grandkids have a chance to love and appreciate our precious native forests. The government must cut its ties with the logging industry and the fossil fuel industry and put our communities and our environment first. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted.

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

I would like to make a brief contribution on the same matter that Senator Rice was speaking on. We've seen the tragic fires that have occurred recently in this country. We've seen over a billion animals die, according to some reports. The fact that the major parties in this place still support logging carbon-dense, biodiversity-rich native forests is nothing short of a climate crime.

I want to speak in particular about a patch of beautiful land and forest in my home state of Tasmania, the takayna/Tarkine forest, where this week brave forest defenders have been arrested whilst blockading against logging operations. They've done that because they're standing up for that beautiful landscape. They're standing up for the rich, globally unique Aboriginal cultural heritage in that area. They're standing up for the carbon in those forests and they're standing up for the animals which make those forests their home.

I want to profoundly thank the people that have put their bodies on the line, for many years now, to prevent logging in that forest, and I want to say how regrettable it is that Tasmania Police have moved in to arrest them and facilitate the logging industry going into those forests, which they will clear-fell if they get their way. In clear-felling, they will—

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is not true.

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

I'll take that injection by Senator Colbeck. It is absolutely true that those forests will be clear-felled.

Senator Colbeck interjecting—

I was there last month, Senator Colbeck. I've seen the devastation that the logging industry has wreaked on coupes very close to the ones where those people were arrested, and I tell you now: the logging industry will clear-fell those forests.

In doing so, they will release massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and will destroy habitat for some of the most beautiful creatures in Australia, including numerous listed threatened species, such as the Tasmanian devil, which I actually nominated back in the day onto the Tasmanian and federal threatened species register.

I thank those brave forest protesters not only for standing up for our old forests and for standing up for the carbon that is sequestered in those forests but also for standing up for the habitat and for beautiful creatures, many of which are unique to our country and exist nowhere else in the world, and who rely on those forests for their very survival. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.