Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that I have received the following letter, dated 21 June, from Senator Duniam:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today I propose to move 'That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The Victorian Labor Government's decision to end native timber harvesting in January 2024 is a devastating betrayal of timber workers and communities, will cause multiple economic and social problems for Australia, and needs to be met with an immediate and comprehensive policy response from the Federal Labor Government.

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the Senate, I shall ask the clerks to set the clock accordingly.

Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

This is a very important motion. There's lots happening in the chamber today but this is an important item for discussion. I was pleased to attend the Australian Forest Products Association dinner last night, along with Minister Watt, Senator Ciccone and a number of other members of this parliament, to talk about what is an extremely important industry, one that sustains thousands of jobs across the country and does so in a sustainable way.

What we're talking about here is a resource that is, as the industry itself says, the ultimate renewable. Trees grow; you cut them down; you use them for the resources that we see displayed proudly in this chamber here; you replant them, as we are required to by law in this country; and they grow again. That's the wonderful thing about this forestry industry.

What's more, we do it to world's best standard. Our forests, be they plantation or native, hardwood or softwood, are managed to world's best standard. And, of course, the forests we harvest and manage here are certified, unlike 80 per cent of the forests from across the rest of the globe, which are not certified. I'll come back to those forests from other parts of the world, where, frankly, standards of forest management are much lower—if indeed they exist at all—than they are here in Australia.

It brings me to what's happening in the state of Victoria, which is a deeply disappointing decision. We all knew back in 2019 that the Victorian Labor government had made their plans, and set them out clearly, to phase out native forest logging by the year 2030. That was a long period of time for that government to work with industry to phase it out. I disagreed with their decision, but at least there was time for them to work with industry to phase out logging of native forests in that state. Now, the reason I disagreed with that is that it was not based on science. It was not based on fact. It was an emotive decision. Mayors of local councils in Victoria, representatives of the industry, workers from the contracting sector and anyone who is interested have been seeking the science that the decision was based upon, yet it has not been forthcoming. There is no document that the government have been able to table to point to and underpin the decision they made to shut down the native forest industry and displace the hundreds and thousands of workers whose incomes are dependent on this, as I said before, sustainable industry, and that is a crying shame.

What's worse is that in their budget the Victorian Labor government made a decision to press fast-forward on this phasing-out of native forest logging. We had seven more years to phase out this industry. A decision bad enough in itself, not based on science—but they brought it forward to seven months. They fast-forwarded it by seven years. So, by the end of this year, that industry, which is sustainable, based on science, world's best practice and good for the environment, will be gone. But you know what won't be gone, President? It's demand for the product that that industry generates: hardwood products of an appearance grade and strength grade to be used in applications that plantation timber can't be.

Australians are still going to want that product. A huge proportion of what we use here we already import. When that demand is still there and we're not producing it in Australia, we're bringing it in from countries that, quite frankly, don't give a damn about the environment. It's those forests, those native forests across the rest of the world—including in the Congo basin where, sadly, trees are ripped out of the ground; deforestation does occur—that we are going to get our timber from. Today we're already importing timber into Victoria from Tasmania.

The pie is not getting any bigger with our sustainable world-leading forests; it's getting smaller. We're dealing ourselves out of the game to make ourselves feel better. We don't have to look at clear-felled coops. We don't have to see that end of the industry. We just get the nice products. We don't care where they come from overseas. And, in the process, we're sending jobs offshore. So there are bad environmental outcomes, because we're seeing deforestation occur—I'd also argue that there are some modern slavery implications to some of these decisions when it comes to the jurisdictions we're taking timber from—but we're are also having an economic hit, with thousands of jobs in regional communities lost, never to return, all based on emotion, to win over inner-city votes in downtown Melbourne. The federal Labor government needs to stand up and stop it.

Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to oppose this motion put by Senator Duniam. You'd think Senator Duniam would have some things to worry about in his actual job, rather than worrying about what's going on in the state of Victoria. You'd think he'd have some national issues that he wanted to address. But, as is typical with Senator Duniam, he has become very obsessed with state issues and he just can't quite see the bigger picture. He's really focused on these state things that he seems to specialise in.

But I speak on this motion as a really strong supporter of the forestry industry. To be honest, if I worked in the timber industry I would actually be the third generation of my family to work in the timber industry in Tasmania, where both my grandfathers worked in the timber industry and my father did as well. So I do have a good sense of how important this industry is for regional communities, not only in Victoria but across the country as well.

As I said, the Albanese government is a strong supporter of the forestry industry, from the Prime Minister down, and we're delivering a comprehensive plan for the future of the industry. Through the regional forest agreements process we work with the states and territories to support Australia's forest industries to operate under high standards for environmental management and sustainable harvesting. Our support for a sustainable forestry is well documented, making record investments in a forestry industry that's environmentally, socially and commercially sustainable.

We need timber products and we want the sustainable forest jobs that go with them. That's why we're investing over $300 million to grow plantations, to modernise our timber-manufacturing infrastructure and to build the skills of our forestry workforce. Our forest products industries are vital to our regional communities. They directly employ about 51,000 people, and tens of thousands more jobs are supported indirectly by this sector, which contributes nearly $24 billion to the national economy each year.

The benefits of a competitive, sustainable and renewable forestry industry in our regional communities should not be underestimated. It delivers positive economic and social outcomes. In addition to employment and income throughout the supply chain, it also underpins the social networks and fabric of many of our regional towns and communities. It's astounding to me that the LNP and, in particular, Senator Duniam, should be putting this motion forward, given the timid and insipid approach to the forestry sector during their three terms of government. They failed to chart a path towards a sustainable future for the industry, they failed to intervene when the Victorian government previously scaled back native forestry and they failed to put in appropriate measures to ramp up production in its place. Even worse, they presided over a 10 per cent decline in plantation estate since 2014.

In stark contrast, the Albanese government didn't waste a second in implementing strong policies for a sustainable future in forestry. At the last election we took a suite of policies to the people of Australia to increase production and support new jobs in the sector. Unlike the previous government, which was all announcement and no delivery, we're already seeing these policies put into action. That's whether it's the $100 million for an Australia-wide institute to deliver forestry research and development, or the $8.6 million to extend the life of the 11 Regional Forestry Hubs until 2027 or the $10 million for forestry workforce training needs. Today, our government is also announcing $73 million for a grants program to establish new forestry plantations across Australia. Together, these measures will strengthen the forestry industry's capacity to make greater use of the available timber resources and will drive innovation and growth.

The Victorian government's decision to end native forest logging is a decision for them. It's one that we understand they've taken with a specific operating context in mind, and we will work closely with communities and state governments to maximise the economic opportunities and job opportunities that flow from protecting forests. Certainly, I know that I can speak from my family's experience in that I understand how important forestry jobs are for families. I know the support that my grandfather was able to provide to my mum, who was one of nine, growing up in regional Tasmania, and how important forestry was for them to survive as a family. We want those jobs to be able to continue and we understand that regional communities have been built on the back of strong jobs within forestry. The Albanese Labor government is absolutely committed to doing our part to ensure that there's a sustainable forestry industry well into the future.

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

The time for native forest logging is over. Native forest logging has to come to an end. Just like whaling finally came to an end in the middle of last century, the time for native forest logging to come to an end is now—way before now! The Victorian government and the WA government are just catching up.

Native forest logging is destructive, it is uneconomic and it has increasingly been shown to be illegal. It is destructive! The number of animal and plant species that have been hurtled towards extinction include the critically endangered Leadbeater's possum and the swift parrot. We have greater gliders shifting from being common to endangered because of the combination of logging and fires and logging that causes fires.

It is destructive. It is uneconomic. Native forest logging has cost the taxpayers over $100 million over the last 10 years. Just think of that: $100 million to prop up a dying industry. In Victoria alone, the Victorian government-owned logging agency has lost close to $100 million over the last 10 years. In 2021, it was reported that the New South Wales government-owned forestry corporation suffered a $20 million loss. Tasmania delivered a whopping $1.3 billion loss.

The future for the timber industry is in plantations, in farm forestry, in urban forestry and in getting greater use out of the wood that is currently being shipped offshore as whole logs and being chipped. There is so much potential here. There are jobs just waiting if we recognise that native forest logging needs to come to an end. If governments across the country did that, there'd be a whole bright new future in the industry. (Time expired)

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a great pleasure to rise to this urgency motion moved by Senator Duniam, and I can only concur with the comments listed in his motion. I think it demonstrates how committed the government is to forestry. I don't doubt the good senator's desire to see forestry in Tasmania continue, given his family history, and I will acknowledge that, but the fact that not one Labor senator from Victoria is prepared to come and stand here in this chamber and defend the actions of the Labor government in Victoria speaks volumes for this motion. Not one single Labor member is prepared to step foot into the chamber to defend what the Victorian Labor government is doing. I think that demonstrates, as I said, exactly what is going on.

If you actually look, as Senator Duniam said in his contribution, at the science of forestry and the realities of forestry, you will clearly understand that this sector plays an important role in our broader communities. No lesser organisation than the FAO, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, made this statement in their report The state of the world's forests 2012:

… it must be clear that including forests at the core of a strategy for a sustainable future is not an option—it is mandatory.

They go on to say:

… the best way of saving a forest is to manage it sustainably and to benefit from its products and ecosystem services. If the principles of sustainable forest management are applied and forest products and ecosystem services play an increasing role, the global economy will become greener.

The global economy will become greener.

It's interesting that we just heard that the future is in plantations. We hear this quite a lot from the Greens. Mind you, you've got to grow those plantations somewhere and, every time someone looks to grow a plantation on a new piece of ground, the Greens are there to oppose it or to campaign against it. But the reality is that you won't get the high-quality timbers that go into making magnificent furniture such as we enjoy in this chamber here from plantation forestry. As a carpenter, I know that the best-quality timbers are slow grown. They're given time, on a sustainable forest rotation. That is where you'll get these timbers—and not only that. I acknowledge that the plantation sector is important, but a native forest based system of growing timber is actually better for carbon storage, it's better for biodiversity, it's better for water quality and it uses no chemicals. So, under almost every environmental value that you could consider, native forestry—

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

Except for destroying ecosystems.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, actually it's better for biodiversity. The forest science deniers that sit at the bottom of the garden—or, should I say, at the bottom of the chamber—aren't prepared to listen to the FAO of the UN or the IPCC when they recommend sustainable forestry. They talk to us about the IPCC when it comes to climate change, but they don't recognise that native forestry is better for carbon storage than plantation forestry, which they claim to promote. The forest science deniers in the chamber really don't want to listen to reality. They are the ones pushing the Victorians to this circumstance.

We know the fires in Victoria have had an impact on the available timbers. It means an adjustment to the sector to make sure that the forest harvest can continue to be sustainable. I have to say that I am sick of the lies. I am sick of the lies that are made up by anti-forestry groups and that they continue to peddle in relation to this sector. It does, as Senator Chisholm said, make a valuable contribution to our community. It does make a valuable contribution to important sectors of our economy. It does provide us with the magnificent timbers that we see as we sit here in the chamber. It is a pity that from that nobody from the Labor Party from Victoria has come into the chamber to defend this motion.

Tammy Tyrrell (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have seen these photos of forests totally cleared, with logs everywhere and looking more like the surface of the moon than the centre of a native forest. If you were making policy based on what gets clicks on Facebook, you would support banning native timber harvesting too. It is a good thing we don't; you can't measure good policy based on how many likes it gets. That's why this idea of banning native timber forestry makes no sense to me. You can't just jump into a blanket ban like this. If you want to improve forestry standards, that is a conversation worth having—but you have to have that conversation with the industry, not just with your social media feed. Banning native timber harvesting is basically the same as saying that this industry cannot be regulated. You are saying there is no way to balance the environmental impacts with the economic benefits, and that's not just true.

Of course native forestry needs to be regulated properly; nobody would tell you otherwise. You can't have cowboys cutting down whatever they want, wherever they want. But there's a better way to do this which keeps those jobs in regional Tasmania and keeps that money in peoples' pockets. There's a role for native forestry and it has to be recognised. It is a sustainable, renewable industry when it's regulated well. The cowboys of years gone by are out. They're gone. The native forestry sector these days is nothing like what it used to be, but its reputation is still based on what it used to be 30 years ago. That is when we saw real damage, real deforestation.

Today's industry is about making sure the footprint of forestry is sustainable and renewable. That means we are getting the jobs, we are getting the salaries and we are getting the products the forestry sector is making. That might not mean much in Canberra or Melbourne, but it is a big deal in regional Tasmania. We don't get much of a look in up here, and that is how you end up with dumb bans like this one.

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

Native forest logging is a violent assault on nature from a mendicant industry that cannot stand on its own two feet. It indiscriminately slaughters countless native animals, it poisons our rivers and waterways, it destroys ecosystems, it pollutes the air, it despoils landscapes and it cooks the planet. The sooner it ends the better. Just end it now and help people through the transition. If folks in here who like to cosplay as if they support regional communities were serious about regional jobs they would invest in things like rewilding and looking after the place—turn people who currently trash our forests into people who look after our forests, embed carbon into our forests and into our soils and look after the place rather than trash it. That is how you should help regional people move into the future. Stop being such hypocrites. (Time expired)

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I speak in favour of Senator Duniam's motion. The timber industry is an essential industry to maintain Australia's way of life. How can Labor Premier Andrews eliminate native timber production while at the same time Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is promising to build 30,000 new homes which require timber? As a famous robot once said, 'That does not compute.'

Native timber forestry does not harm the environment. Sensible native timber logging has been going on in Australia for 150 years, and the forests are still here, the fauna and flora are still here. Until these Labor and Greens ideologues declared war on sustainable timber harvesting, the jobs in the timber industry were still here, the communities that rely on these jobs were still here. Not any more—Dan Andrews has done them in: no jobs in forestry in Mr Dan Andrews's socialist state of Victoria. The truth is native timber logging disturbs a few per cent of the total forest area every year. Logging reduces the forest fuel loads to protect us from bushfires. We also saw how badly some areas of forest burned in the deliberately lit bushfires a few years ago, Some areas have still not recovered thanks to Greens and teal policies—clearly, not areas that were logged and the fuel loads removed. One Nation stands as a strong supporter of the logging industry and a strong supporter of humanity. Timber is essential.

Ralph Babet (Victoria, United Australia Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of Senator Duniam's urgency motion—of course I do. I am appalled by the accelerated destruction of the native timber industry in my home state of Victoria. The industry has been a vital part of Victoria's regional economy for 170 years—more than 170 years—but instead of being given until 2030 to transition they have been blindsided with destruction within six months. The Andrews Labor government has taken an axe to many hardworking Gippsland communities such as Orbost and Hayfield.

Our native timber industry is the lifeblood of many of our regional towns, and its closure on 1 January is expected to cut 4½ thousand jobs—incredible. Children are in tears because their parents might not have a job next year. They don't know how they will put food on the table. They don't know where they are going to go, how they're going to feed their kids. It is wrong. They will default on mortgages, schools will close, local football clubs—gone. This plan is a plan to destroy country towns, and it is heartless and, more importantly, unscientific. Premier Dan Andrews recently said that he wasn't here to be popular. That is what he said. My God, is he correct—I can't stand the man. He may be popular with Greens leader Mr Adam Bandt and the Chinese Communist Party—he is popular with them—but I guarantee he will never stand face-to-face with those regional Victorians whose lives he is destroying.

The industry regulator works hard to ensure the long-term health and productivity of our beautiful native forests. Far from damaging ecosystems, sustainable logging prevents devastating superfires because the industry has a vested interest in protecting the sustainability of native forests. That is why it logs selectively and regenerates native species, creating healthy, resilient forests which provide a unique home for flora and fauna. Before the arrival of settlers, Indigenous Australians used to reduce the risk of fire and of intense fires by back-burning. That is what they did. The native timber industry achieves the same result by maintaining firebreaks and access roads, reducing fuel loads and conducting prescribed burning. Disgracefully, the Andrews government is not interested in these benefits, but is interested only in courting inner-city Greens votes. That is all he is interested in, and it is not right. Labor needs to stand up for the forests. (Time expired)

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on this urgency motion, and I can feel for those forestry workers and those communities in Victoria who have had their lives thrown into turmoil by this decision because it has just happened in WA. Just a few months before the decision to end native timber harvesting in Western Australia, the minister released a report and gave a speech—

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

These are the same arguments people made to defend slavery.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

talking about, Senator McKim, the sustainability of the well-managed Western Australian native timber harvesting industry. This was the Labor minister who gave a speech talking about how well managed and sustainable the native timber harvesting was and how it would be there for the long term. Just a few months later, they chopped it off at the neck and ended it overnight.

I come from one of those communities. I was born in Manjimup and raised on a family farm in Pemberton. My dad's best mate was a timber industry worker who worked for the government—the then Department of Forestry. We had lots of friends in that community. Something happened in that community almost overnight. When my dad ran for parliament in the 60s, he lost because it was a safe Labor seat on the back of a unionised timber workforce. When Labor betrayed those workers, as Labor always does in the bush, it flipped and became a safe Liberal seat pretty much overnight. That is the outcome that we see here. We see a betrayal of these communities to the point where long-held beliefs have to be thrown out the window. Those communities are undermined and betrayed by their political leaders when they do things like this.

The very small harvest that was taken from Western Australian native forests sustained a small industry at the end—I'm happy to acknowledge that. It wasn't a massive industry anymore. It had been cut down over the years and made into a relatively small industry. But to those few towns that relied on that industry, it was a key economic driver. To those small towns in the south-west of Western Australia harvesting basically two timbers, karri and red gum, it was a key component of the fabric, the history and the economic wealth of those communities. They had that chopped out from under them with no warning and no transition time and, in fact, when just a few months before the Labor minister was saying that the industry was sustainable and had a long future. How can you do that to a community? How in all conscience can you do that to a local community? It's just a disgrace.

Unfortunately, Labor governments have form in the bush, whether it be in native timber harvesting in my home state of WA or now in Victoria. We see exactly the same process occurring in my home state of WA in the sheep industry—a decision taken with no evidence, no scientific review and no examination of what the industry had actually done to improve standards over the years. As Senator Tyrrell so rightly said, we should look at things like standards, we should see how industries are being managed and we should look at the way that industries are operating now, not as they used to operate 30 years ago when the Greens were formulating their positions on this. We should look at how the industries are operating now and make decisions based on the best science. Are these industries sustainable? Are their practices at world's best standards? Are we delivering sustainable jobs into the future? The answer on all those marks, for both native timber harvesting and—in my home state also—the live export industry for sheep, is, 'Yes, they are sustainable.'

The trouble is that federal Labor and state Labor just don't care about the bush. I would even go harder than that: they hate the bush. They don't care and they— (Time expired)

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion moved by Senator Duniam be agreed to.