Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Greens have long advocated in this place and elsewhere for the hemp industry in Australia: industrial hemp, hemp for food, hemp for fuels, hemp for building materials and, of course, hemp for fibre and many other uses. There probably isn't a more exciting opportunity for Australian agriculture than hemp. So it was with some disappointment that this week we saw that a $200 million bid for a cooperative research centre and 10-year plan for the hemp industry wasn't funded by this government. Through the University of Queensland, this cooperative research centre was able to garner $50 million in commercial support for this cooperative research centre to have a long-term plan for Australian farmers and for communities to grow this amazing agricultural product, hemp.

The government has a very important role to play in hemp, because it's the government's fault that in 2024 this is still a fledgling industry. Because of the long history of the war on drugs, hemp has always been associated with cannabis and marijuana. It wasn't until the last five years that major restrictions around growing hemp were removed, but there are still too many restrictions on this industry, and in many people's minds it is still associated with cannabis. But it is an absolutely wonderful crop for us to be exploring, putting research and development into and putting innovation into.

AgriFutures, who recently funded a paper into the future of the hemp industry in Australia, said that, through growing high-value products, there was an $18.6 billion opportunity for Australia to seize the moment with hemp over the five-year time frame out to 2027. But, unfortunately, this cooperative research centre bid has failed. I applaud the agriculture minister for giving some funding to the hemp industry. I want to give a special shout-out to Andi Lucas from X-Hemp in Tasmania, who recently did receive some funding for her amazing business through a women in agriculture grant. I actually bumped into her in the dog park on the weekend and asked her how things were going. She said that it's really tough. She's knocking on the doors of investors, trying to do what she can to use hemp for building materials and for fibre, where we know it has applications all around the world.

It wasn't lost on me that, in the week that the cooperative research centre bid failed to get government support to grow this amazing industry, the agriculture minister flew into Tasmania and announced $100 million in funding from his government for a forest products innovation centre at the University of Tasmania. Specifically, it is called the Australian Forest and Wood Innovations program, AFWI, and there will be $100 million to fund forest and wood products research to 'meet wood and fibre needs into the future'.

The Greens would support that if it was restricted to plantation timber, but neither Minister Watt nor the University of Tasmania is providing any guarantees that our precious native forests won't be used in this research centre or that the applications of this research won't be used to create demand for conflict timbers out of our precious rainforests and wild places in Tasmania. It's also no coincidence that this announcement happened during a state election in Tasmania, when the current government announced that they would open up 45,000 hectares of Tasmania's precious mixed species wild rainforests for logging at a time of climate emergency—a time of species loss and biodiversity crisis.

Sure, you could assume that it was just a brain fart for the state election, designed to create conflict, whip up a bit of fear and a bit of division within the electorate, and demonise the Greens and conservationists who are trying to protect these forests. But, if you join the dots, there are a lot more sinister things going on here.

For example, it concerns me that this new $100 million research into forestry products is also going to examine the burning of forest residues for power—a long discredited form of renewable energy, particularly if it involves native forests, which are our first line of defence in our climate emergency for sequestering carbon. In fact, some of Tasmania's old rainforests in places like the Tarkine are the most carbon rich spots on the planet. It won't take long, I'm sure, before the major parties rip into them again—for what reason I just cannot ascertain, when there are better options out there, like hemp. Hemp is an amazing source of fibre. I can't understand why the government is not getting behind it as a substitute for things like native forest timber.

Can I also do a special shout-out to a Palawa Aboriginal elder, Jimmy Everett, who only yesterday in the Styx Valley was arrested and locked up for defending his land and country. Mr Everett's ancestors didn't just manage this country for 2,000 years—we have been there for just over 200 years—but they've managed this country for 2,000 generations. For 60,000 years they have lived in peace and harmony with the land in Tasmania, and he gets arrested for going and stopping forest destruction in the Styx Valley, which has some of the tallest flowering plants on the planet? It's outrageous. Nine protesters have been arrested this week. Only recently, Ali Alishah was also arrested and put in prison and is on a hunger strike—we are very concerned about his health—trying to protect these forests and bring attention to the fact that in this day and age it is madness to be logging these forests, especially when other states have committed to phasing out the logging of native forests. So I would like to do a special call out to Ali. There are a lot of people that support you. Search as hard as I may, I've found no statements from Tasmanian Labor or from LEAN, the Labor Environmental Action Network that he was very senior in, supporting him in his hunger vigil in Tasmanian prisons to protect these forests.

Dr Bob Brown, who I replaced in the Senate, once famously said, 'The future is green or not at all.' I'm optimistic that Tasmanians, this Saturday 23 March, will vote for a green future, that they will vote for the environment and protecting what is precious about Tasmania. They will vote for alternative policy solutions, things like fibre from hemp. They will vote to protect our wild and precious places from exploitation. They will vote for the Maugean skate, which is on the brink of extinction in Macquarie Harbour. They will vote for a different future. They will vote for integrity in politics. They will vote for cooperative politics. They will vote for an end to the two major parties' stranglehold on power in my home state of Tasmania. I'm optimistic that this Saturday we will see Tasmanians step up and vote for change.

I'd like to finish by doing a special shout-out to my Green colleagues in the state parliament in Tasmania, especially our leader, Dr Rosalie Woodruff, and Vica Bayley and all the candidates running for the Tasmanian Greens. I'm very proud of the work that you have done in such a short time when this Tasmanian government so cynically called an election a year and a half early, and not because of instability over two independents but because of instability within the Liberal Party in Tasmania, because of the insurgency that is being run by Eric Abetz and others within the Liberal Party. Somehow they're claiming that a majority Liberal government would be good for the state, when we've seen nothing but instability.

It's time for a different approach. I voted last week in the electorate of Bass, where I live, in Launceston. I proudly voted for Cecily Rosol number 1 and voted 1 to 7 for the Greens candidates, and I put the Liberal Party last. I urge others in Lyons in Tasmania to vote for Tabatha Badger, another amazing candidate, and Darren Briggs in Braddon, and make sure that the future is green.