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

My question is to Senator Birmingham, the Minister representing the Minister for the Environment. Last week the Federal Court gave final orders in its judgement of illegal logging by VicForests which took place under the Commonwealth-state regional forest agreements. The court found that logging damages or destroys habitat critical to the survival of the critically endangered Leadbeater's possum and the threatened greater gliders, and awarded costs against VicForests. More Federal Court action was also—

Hon. Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Rice, please stop. I have asked this before; when we are listening to questions online, we need to hear it in dead silence so we can all hear it. Please continue.

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

More Federal Court action was also launched last week, including against the Commonwealth, by the Bob Brown Foundation against logging in Tasmania on the grounds that the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement does not have enforceable environmental protections that are required under the RFA Act. What action is the government planning on taking against this illegal logging?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for her question. I don't necessarily accept all of the arguments or statements or claims that have been made by the senator in her question. My understanding is that, yes, the Federal Court made final orders on Friday 21 August following the judgement that was handed down in Friends of Leadbeater's Possum v VicForests, which was handed down on 27 May this year. The government is carefully considering this judgement and its implications. I understand other proceedings, as the senator referenced, were filed by the Bob Brown Foundation in relation to these matters.

Hon. Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hear some of the commentary from other colleagues on this matter, and, indeed, it would be of no surprise that the Bob Brown Foundation would seek to disrupt any or all such activities that it could possibly find a means to disrupt. A constant challenge in some of these areas are those who seek to use every possible means to delay, to defer, whether or not the legal grounds are there, to ensure that the costs of proceeding with certain activities are ever greater. In the end, it's crucial that we have appropriate laws in place for the protection of the environment but also for valuable economic activities, like forestry, to be undertaken and provide the types of jobs, security and opportunities that they do in communities around the country. Our government is determined to make sure those frameworks work—work for those communities, work for the environment and work to preserve the jobs of those who rely upon them.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Rice, a supplementary question?

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

Yes. Minister, given the failure of state governments to protect forests and threatened wildlife under the regional forest agreements, why is the government planning on handing over more power to the states, taking a chainsaw to our environment laws and slashing environmental protections in their changes to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't accept anything in terms of the approach there that Senator Rice has said. The government are by no means taking a chainsaw to any environmental regulation or protection, but we certainly are going to do our best to take a chainsaw to delays and to red tape and to additional costs, and we're going to make sure that, when environmental regulation is applied in Australia, it is applied for the protection of the environment, not for the delay, the deferral or the applying of additional costs to viable economic activity and business activity. We want to see projects that can coexist with the environment go ahead without spending years in multiple duplicative approval processes. We want to make sure that those sorts of projects can actually happen and employ and create jobs for Australians without facing undue costs, unnecessary impositions, and that's why we'll work with states to do just that. (Time expired)

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Rice, a final supplementary question?

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

Yes. Minister, what does the government then say to the people of Australia who not only have seen illegal logging but saw over three billion animals killed by last summer's climate crisis fuelled bushfires, who want stronger laws to protect our forests and animals rather than having their very existence left to the mercy of big miners, developers and logging companies?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Rice is seeking to wrap up every single one of the Greens' primary headline-grabbing grievances in one supplementary question there. The truth is that there are much more complicated issues at play when it comes to fire management, to forestry management, to natural resource management than the way in which Senator Rice seeks to summarise them. That's why our government supported and drove the delivery of a royal commission into bushfires, which, I have no doubt, when it hands down its findings, will demonstrate the complexity of the issues there in relation to bush management and to making sure that the nation is better equipped when it comes to bushfires in the future to prevent them. There will be a range of land management questions and issues addressed in that report, and we will, no doubt, then work through and respond effectively to those issues. But to simply summarise it in the way in which Senator Rice does, which seems to suggest that just locking up more land would somehow— (Time expired)