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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Senator Watt) to my question without notice on native forest logging.

This is something that is close to my heart. I have been campaigning for decades to end the destructive logging of Australia's native forests, and particularly Victoria's. Sadly, the minister's answer shows that Labor just don't get it. The minister talked of balance, of sustainable forestry—I mean, let me translate that for you. What that means is ongoing forest destruction. What that means is the deaths of hundreds of endangered greater gliders in illegal logging operations undertaken by the state logging company, VicForests. What balance and sustainable forestry means is the ongoing emissions every year of three million tonnes of carbon, the equivalent of 700,000 cars, while we're in a climate crisis, as the devastating floods around the country are reminding us at the moment, as the Black Summer bushfires did three years ago. Those events were all-too-stark reminders of the climate crisis that we're in.

In a few days from now, voters in Victoria will have a choice between very different approaches to our native forests. The Labor Party has failed comprehensively at both state and federal levels to protect Victoria's precious native forests. They make vague promises about ending native-forest logging, but the time frame is so far away that vast swathes of forests and the animals that rely upon them are going to be gone by the time 2030 comes around—at the rate of four MCGs worth of forests every day. They say that the forests are being managed jointly, but the Labor federal government is doing nothing about VicForests' illegal logging, refusing to pull the Victorian Labor government into line. Minister Watt made no commitments to get rid of the logging laws—our regional forest agreements—that allow this logging to continue. He made no commitment to make changes to our environment laws—the EPBC Act—to better protect our forests. The Victorian Labor government and the federal government are working in cahoots to allow the ongoing devastation of our native forests and the wildlife that depend upon them.

The Greens have a different vision. We have a clear policy of ending native-forest logging. We want to see a just transition, one that provides clean, green jobs that are sustainable for both workers and the environment. We want to see people working to protect our forests in ecological restoration, in revegetation, in tackling weeds and pest animals, in disaster management and relief, in growing trees in plantations, and in farm forestry, so that 100 per cent of the wood being produced in this country and in Victoria comes from those sources. We want to see people employed in growing hemp as an alternative source of fibre. We can be growing and supporting our regional communities—not leaving them abandoned in a dying industry.

In particular, I thank the activists and campaigners who have fought so hard over so many years to protect our native forests—the protesters, the citizens scientists, the organisations and the people who are taking legal action. We have seen three separate court cases in recent months that have found VicForests and its logging have broken the laws that are meant to be protecting our forests and the animals that live in them. The courage and the commitment of these campaigners have made a huge difference to our forests, to our future and to our climate, and I thank them. The voters of Victoria should be listening to this—when it comes to forests, the Labor Party is a party of too little, too late, and Victorians would do very well to remember that on Saturday.

Question agreed to.