Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in relation to the Illegal Logging Prohibition Amendment (Strengthening Measures to Prevent Illegal Timber Trade) Bill 2024, which concerns illegal logging of timber and the importation of such timber into Australia. This is a deeply concerning issue. It is absolutely imperative that Australia does its bit to make sure that timber which is illegally logged is not used in the Australian market. From that perspective, I certainly support the principles contained in this legislation proposed before the Senate.

I want to speak first in relation to some general matters and put these on the record. The first is that USAID has estimated that the scale of illegal logging and the market for products from illegal logging is somewhere between—no-one really knows how much—US$50 billion and US$151 billion a year. This is a significant issue. The existence of this illegal market has a number of very negative consequences for the whole world, actually—for where the illegal logging occurs and for the broader community of nations. I want to run through those consequences, first in relation to bribery and corruption. Quite often, the organisations pursuing that illegal harvesting of timber show efforts to use bribes to corrupt government officials, law enforcement agencies et cetera to allow them to engage in illegal logging. Quite often, this illegal logging in other jurisdictions is accompanied by bribery and corruption. The environmental cost, on the face of it, is clear and apparent. If you do not have regulated, sustainable timber harvesting with a strong regulatory overlay, then you will have an environmental cost. You will have timber harvested inappropriately to the detriment of the environment. Third, there's the economic cost. In many cases and in many countries, that cost is to traditional owners, who have interests in the timber being harvested. Because it's being harvested illegally, they don't get the economic benefit from the harvesting of that timber. They miss out on the royalties from the illegal timber that's harvested, and they also miss out on the economic opportunity of having a sustainable industry in their regions, and that's also extremely detrimental.

The second point I want to make—and I believe this very strongly—is that Australia should not be in a position where we have to import timber from overseas. We should be able to grow and harvest all our own timber within the borders of our own country. We should not have to import timber from overseas. Unfortunately, we're moving in the wrong direction in that regard. Various state governments have adopted policies that have had a negative impact on the timber industry within our country—our sustainable timber industry, our regulated timber industry. We're now importing timber from overseas, from countries that have less regulation, to the net cost of the environment.

I want to give you some figures in that regard. We now import $5.5 billion worth of wood products annually. That's astonishing, for a country that's had, for over a century, a very strong timber industry. A 2022 study by Forest & Wood Products Australia said we're going to double those imports by 2050. That was even before the Victorian government brought forward the native forestry ban by six years, from 2030 to 2024. Just to give you some context, there are 132 million hectares of native forests in Australia, and only 0.06 per cent are subject to logging. That's six in 10,000 native trees subject to being harvested during the course of a year. And, where they are harvested, there are obligations with respect to regeneration. So, from my perspective, it simply doesn't make any sense for Australia to be importing timber and wood products from overseas. We should be sustainable as a country.

I have some experience in these matters from my time in Papua New Guinea, where I lived and worked as a lawyer between 1999 and 2001. I saw examples there of producers who did the right thing, who complied with regulations, and those who were on the other side of the equation. I'm aware of the tactics, the strategies, used by some of those companies, individuals who were doing the wrong thing, and they're terribly disturbing. My concern is that when Australia moves to decrease its production of wood products and to import more timber from countries like Papua New Guinea, Indonesia or wherever it is, those countries have less ability to enforce regulations and govern the industry. There's less governance in those countries because they've got fewer resources, which is going to lead to a worse result for the environment.

The coalition, in government, recognised these issues and undertook a number of initiatives, and that should be noted. This was something the previous government, the coalition government, was very concerned about. It included instigating, in 2021, the review of the sunsetting of the illegal logging prohibition regulation. The sunsetting was scheduled for 2023, and we brought that forward to 2021 to ensure a rigorous examination of the rules. Secondly, an independent review conducted by KPMG in 2015 examined the impact of the illegal logging prohibition regulation, specifically on small business. A statutory review of the act was undertaken in 2018 by the then Department of Agriculture and Resources. And, indeed, at the 2022 election the previous government took to the election a dedicated policy commitment to allocate $4.4 million to strengthen Australia's fight against illegal logging and stop illegal timber imports from undercutting Australian producers.

I'm very pleased that Senator Duniam was successful and that the coalition was successful in its advocacy that this bill be referred to a Senate committee inquiry. That was incredibly important, and I'm very pleased it went through that committee process, which raised a number of issues in relation to the proposed regulation. It's one thing to have an aspiration, a well-intentioned principle, a well-intentioned policy proposal where you want to address an ill in society, but it needs to be practical, it needs to be efficient, and you've always got to be guarded against overreach and to make sure the rule of law is sustained.

In that respect, there were three issues that were identified through the committee process, including, firstly, the unworkability of and substantial costs associated with the proposed new requirements for so-called mass fibre testing—that goes to practicality. We've got to regulate the industry, but it needs to be practical. Secondly, there was the requirement for importers to directly verify and validate the legitimacy of a far higher number of their timber purchases, even for repeat imports of exactly the same products from exactly the same exporters. That obviously begs the decision of why someone who's importing the same timber products from the same exporter should have to go through the same process again and again at additional cost—that raises the efficiency issue. And, thirdly, there are the dangers associated with the creation of a new strict liability criminal offence, and the accompanying proposal to name and shame individuals and organisations and prosecute in accordance with the new provisions of the act—which, again, goes to rule of law issues. Whenever you've got strict liability offences, it raises issues which the Senate as a house of review needs to consider.

Having said all that, I again congratulate Senator Duniam in relation to the work he's done in this regard. There was engagement from the forestry minister in relation to these issues, and I would like to acknowledge that. This is the way the system's meant to work. Legislation is put forward in the lower house, it comes up to the upper house and it goes to a Senate committee, which will review that legislation and seek to improve it. In this example, there has been positive engagement between the minister and the coalition in relation to these issues, and that has led to positive outcomes. I want to specifically acknowledge that and, in particular, as I always seek to do in this place wherever I have an opportunity, I'd like to acknowledge the departmental officers who have been involved in that process for the hard work that you've all, no doubt, put in in relation to the process. I want to place that on the record. Thank you very much.

In summary, I think we're in a better place now having gone through the Senate review process. I congratulate everyone who's been involved in that process and I end on this note. Australia should have a sustainable timber industry. We should have our own timber industry. We shouldn't have to import timber from overseas. It's far better that timber is harvested in a country which has a very strong rule of law and has the resources to manage a resource that is very sensitive and needs to be managed very carefully. It's far better to do that than to import timber from countries which don't have the benefit of these advantages which Australia has.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Illegal Logging Prohibition Amendment (Strengthening Measures to Prevent Illegal Timber Trade) Bill 2024. This bill modernises the existing compliance and enforcement framework around illegal logging to help prevent illegally logged timber from being imported to Australia.

Since the beginning of the Greens, we have fought alongside forest activists for a ban on the logging of native forests and for an end to all forms of illegal logging. While we believe this bill is a move in the right direction, it simply does not go far enough to protect forests from these destructive practices. As my colleague, and the Australian Greens spokesperson for forests, Senator McKim outlined in his second reading speech, more can and must be done to strengthen our illegal logging framework and ensure Australia's timber is from sustainable sources. Thank you, Senator McKim, for your work on this bill and for fighting to protect our forests for current and future generations.

As mentioned, the Greens support the intent of this bill and welcome any measures taken to prevent illegally logged timber from entering Australia, but this must go hand in hand with protecting our own precious native forests—forests that the Labor government are allowing to be recklessly bulldozed, destroyed and logged as we speak. Australia's native forests are unique and beautiful. They are home to some of the most iconic wildlife, are unceded country for traditional owners and store enormous amounts of carbon. Yet our environmental laws are failing to protect Australia's native forests.

Under our current logging laws, the regional forest agreements, the logging industry is given a special exemption from complying with Australia's national environmental laws. The regional forest agreements have allowed for decades of reckless destruction of native forests across Australia. They've pushed native wildlife to the brink of extinction, endangered our water supplies, heightened bushfire risks and made the climate crisis worse. The government has a responsibility to stop this destruction and fix our broken environmental laws, yet Labor has failed to act on both a state and a federal level.

In my home state of Victoria, native forest logging supposedly ended in January of this year, and so did the operations of the state government owned logging agency VicForests. This seemed like a step towards genuine progress in the fight to protect Australia's forests. The announcement to end native forest logging was a hard fought victory for the many dedicated forest activists, traditional owners, academics, community members and environmental organisations that had been campaigning for the end of native forest logging in the state for decades. It was a huge achievement and win for First Nations heritage and culture, for the threatened species and wildlife that call Victoria's forests home and for the climate. The death of VicForests and their years of dodgy, money-bleeding operations was an exciting opportunity and a step forward for Victoria. Yet, shamefully, what was meant to be the end of native forest logging has continued in a rebranded form.

Recent ABC reports seem to show that VicForests is simply rebadging rather than completely shutting down. The ABC reported in early August that the CEO of VicForests has set up a brand-new organisation, the Healthy Forests Foundation, which would hire loggers and powerful logging lobbyists from the corporation and elsewhere. These revelations are incredibly concerning and undermine the end of native forest logging in Victoria. They also come as an almighty blow to the decades of work done by Victorian forest activists. Logging operators are notorious for rising from the ashes and resuming their destructive operations under new names or in a new state. We cannot allow rebadged industrial logging companies to just rebrand to skirt the law and continue their destructive practices. This poses a serious threat to the progress we've made in Victoria and across the country in protecting forests. It also undermines those decades of advocacy.

The ABC has also revealed that part of the purpose of the so-called Healthy Forests Foundation was to promote First Nations forest management, which will also supply timber. The Greens support First Nations led environmental management and want to work with First Nations people to protect and restore country. But we are concerned about the approach the industry is taking and the destruction of First Nations country, including native forests. As my colleague and Greens spokesperson for First Nations issues Senator Cox has said:

We need to ensure that when we use terms like 'First-Nations led' and 'Indigenous knowledges' to describe practices, that they are in fact grounded in our ancient ways of knowing and being with the land as our mother and protecting her indigeneity through our leadership and stewardship.

The Greens will continue to watch this development and speak with traditional owners from the area about the approach taken, to ensure that agreements made actually offer and assert the sovereign rights of First Peoples.

Of course, a rebadged VicForests is not the only threat to Victoria's native forest logging ban. The Greens are also deeply concerned about the ongoing destruction of Victoria's wombat forest by salvage logging. Commercial-scale native forest logging in Victoria officially ended in January, and the closure of smaller scale community forests was brought forward. However, VicForests are still currently removing large logs from the Wombat State Forest. Although this timber has been taken under the guise of debris clean-up, aka salvage logging, it has been allegedly sold on under the banner of forest fire management in Victoria. Let's be clear. This is logging by stealth and only serves to destroy key habitats for our threatened species.

Many Victorians have raised their concerns with me about salvage logging. They are devastated and angry that the Victorian Labor government has not honoured its 2021 commitment to create a new national park including the wombat forest. Victorian Labor should be ashamed—ashamed of its broken promises, ashamed of its dodgy practices and ashamed that it's failing in its duty to protect our forests.

The Albanese government are also guilty. They have the power to end regional forest agreements, to strengthen our national environmental laws and to end native forest logging once and for all. Yet they continue to keep their heads in the sand and prioritise corporate profits and industry lobbies over people and their environment.

Unlike Labor, the Greens are fighting to protect native forests at all levels of government. In Victoria, the Greens are calling on the government to fast-track the declaration of the proposed new national park. Here in the Australian parliament, we have introduced a private senator's bill to repeal the regional forest agreements and to finally end native forest logging. In conjunction with this bill, the Greens are calling on the federal government to fund ecological restoration and restore forests destroyed by decades of environmental vandalism, to support a just transition for workers and communities, to create new and sustainable green jobs in areas where native forest logging is ending, and to ensure the carbon value of ending logging helps the climate rather than being traded away to benefit coal, oil and gas corporations. By protecting Australia's native forests, we act on the climate emergency, we preserve the places we love for future generations, we protect our water supplies, we lessen bushfire risks and we save threatened species from extinction. Ending native forest logging just makes sense.

Today, Labor and the coalition have a chance to protect Australia's forests by supporting the Greens' second reading amendment to bring our private senator's bill forward. Shamefully, the major parties will likely vote this down and continue their campaign to prop up the dying logging industry. But know this: the Greens will not stop fighting. We won't stop fighting until all native forest logging is stopped, our wildlife is protected and our environmental laws are strengthened.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in support of the Illegal Logging Prohibition Amendment (Strengthening Measures to Prevent Illegal Timber Trade) Bill 2024. This bill is a timely piece of legislation because it doesn't only impact the future of our environment in Australia; it also impacts the future of our economy and our global reputation. It will make things tougher for those people who are engaging in the illegal timber trade, with its enhanced scope for monitoring and enforcing the law. It will ensure that Australia's timber trade is a sustainable one, and, in doing so, will protect our natural heritage. One of my roles in this place is to serve as the chair of the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, and this is an issue that resonates very strongly with me—as it does with many of the other committee members. It comes up in many conversations and in relation to many other activities of that committee.

Illegal logging exacerbates deforestation, contributes significantly to habitat loss and accelerates climate change. Our rainforests and natural reserves are vital to the health of our planet. They act as carbon sinks regulating the climate and sustaining our biodiversity. Illegal logging by bypassing the legal and environmental safeguards leads to destruction that not only threatens wildlife but diminishes the ability of forests to help mitigate climate change. It is a significant role of our forests to do that—to operate as those sinks and to assist in mitigating the fundamental and significant changes we are seeing in our climate. So it is important, critical, that we do all we can to support the health and future of our forests. Illegal logging by bypassing the legal and environmental safeguards leads to destruction, diminishes our ability to mitigate climate change and is not a distant problem; this is a problem we are facing right now. It is impacting our forests, our climate and our global reputation right here, right now.

Economically, illegal logging also undermines our legitimate timber trade. This leads to significant financial losses for businesses that are following the law, are doing the right thing and are managing our forests. Those that employ sustainable practices, doing the right thing, are undermined by allowing illegal logging to continue. It also creates an uneven playing field by allowing those unscrupulous operators to sell timber at lower prices, making it more attractive and undermining the market for sustainably sourced products.

In my home state of South Australia, the forestry sector accounts for more than $2.8 billion of economic activity every year. That is a significant industry. But in South Australia I think we've got it right. We do some pretty good things in South Australia, and we do differ from the other states. Our industry is of vital importance, particularly to the beautiful Limestone Coast region in the south-east, which includes South Australia's second largest city, Mount Gambier. It's entirely plantation based because the state Labor government in 1991 introduced the Native Vegetation Act, which protects native forests from harvesting. SA is a leader in this area: a leader in protecting native vegetation and an early adopter of the right practices for our forests.

More than 13,000 jobs come from South Australia's forestry industry, and when you go to the south-east, if you're talking to people, it's likely one in three of them will be employed in the forestry sector. That is significant. It's significant for the role they play in protecting our environment by doing the right thing and producing our timber in a plantation base.

Illegal logging not only threatens the local Australian businesses like those in the south-east of South Australia but distorts those global markets, disadvantaging countries and companies who commit to legal and sustainable practices. It discourages sustainable logging outright by undermining the prices and not complying with any of the laws that we have in this country as they relate to the timber trade. So, by bringing this bill, the federal Labor government is reinforcing our dedication to fair trade and integrity and to an international timber trade that will support sustainability and does not stoke the climate crisis.

Since our introduction of the Illegal Logging Prohibition Act in 2012—again, under a Labor government—the landscape of the global timber trade has evolved. We've seen significant developments. Nations worldwide have followed our example, followed our lead and implemented their own regulations that are similar to the ones we introduced in 2012. New technologies have also emerged. Those new technologies help us track and verify products to enhance the timber trade. It is essential that our laws keep pace with these developments. As I say, when we introduced our changes in 2012, they were cutting edge. Things have developed further, and now it's time for us to develop further with them.

The proposed amendments in this bill reflect the latest advancements in timber identification and regulatory enhancement. A key provision of this bill is the consolidation of offences, which will allow us to clamp down even harder on those people who are engaged in illegal logging. It does this by enhancing the clarity and consistency of our legal framework, bringing together offences from the act and civil penalty provisions from the regulation. This streamlined approach will make enforcement of penalties for illegal logging much more straightforward and much more effective.

This bill also strengthens our ability to enforce compliance with the law by extending the period for ensuing infringement notices. The provision for civil penalties for false information is also crucial in holding those who break the law accountable for their actions.

With this bill, we will stop the people who do the wrong thing from undercutting those who are actually doing the right thing by making sure that illegally sourced timber does not enter the market. We have the technology to do that now, so we just need our regulations and our enforcement to catch up to ensure that we can deliver on those promises. We will do this by making sure that all regulated timber products are reported when they enter Australia. The ability to inspect timber products under biosecurity and customs control will further safeguard our industry against these illegal imports.

The requirement for an independent review within the first five years of the bill's commencement will ensure that those regulations remain up to date, effective and responsive to any and all changes that may emerge, both here in Australia and internationally. So, reviewing the bill will ensure that we can bring together all the developments in the first years of the bill to ensure that the bill keeps pace with developments internationally.

Extending the provisions in this bill to include partnerships, trusts and unincorporated bodies will ensure that everyone involved in the timber trade has to adhere to the same high standards. It's not about structuring your corporation so that you can get away with it because you're not captured. That is a significant and deeply relevant amendment in this bill.

These high standards bring us back to the core issue of combating illegal logging, and that is sustainability, both of the industry and of the environment—making sure the industry and the environment are walking hand in hand. The illegal logging prohibition amendment bill is more than just a regulatory update; it's much more complex than that. It is a reaffirmation of this government's commitment to sustainable and ethical practices and worker protections.

The world-leading illegal logging prohibition laws that Labor introduced in 2012 were among the first of their kind internationally. To build on that, we will now send a clear message that Australia values integrity, transparency and environmental standards. By passing this bill we will once again demonstrate Australia's leadership in global efforts to combat illegal logging and foster a sustainable timber trade. I call upon everyone to support this vital piece of legislation. We know we need the timber, but we know we need the environment—getting the balance right so that we protect our native forest and our biodiversity while having a timber industry that is well regulated, is well thought through and gives us all the advantages we need of managing these things together.

Support for this bill will have lasting impact on our environment, on our economy and, as I said, on our global standing. It will enhance our ability to combat illegal logging, protect our forests and ensure that the timber products we are using are sourced responsibly and sustainably. With this bill we can strengthen our legal framework, uphold our environmental commitments and ensure that Australia remains a leader in fighting illegal logging. Let us seize this opportunity to reinforce our dedication to sustainability, to sustainable production, to fairness and to the protection of our natural resources. This is a critical step towards safeguarding our future. By supporting this bill we are choosing to protect our forests, to support fair trade and to lead by example in the global effort to combat illegal logging.

Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here we are yet again, considering a piece of legislation from this Labor government that continually fails to take sufficient action on climate change. Here in Australia and abroad, their failure continues to be the hallmark of their time in office, as the climate crisis continues to get worse. Yet again we see a bill that does not take the whole-of-system, transformational approach that is required.

The Illegal Logging Prohibition Amendment (Strengthening Measures to Prevent Illegal Timber Trade) Bill 2024 applies to both the importation of raw and processed timber products into Australia and the processing of timber grown here. It creates some stronger protections against illegal logging overseas. However, the bottom line is that this bill is a missed opportunity to change the laws here in Australia in order to genuinely address illegal logging and protect our dwindling forests. In my home of Western Australia we have some of the most dense, ecologically diverse and precious forests in the world. So many of us have memories of enjoying the incredible Northern Jarrah Forest on the outskirts of Perth and the spectacular forests of the South West region. Unfortunately, these beautiful areas are under threat. They are now recognised as global biodiversity hotspots, and yet they are under threat from relentless logging.

Let's talk about what it means to be a global biodiversity hotspot. To qualify, an area must meet two strict criteria. Firstly, it must contain at least 1,500 specific plants found nowhere else in the world, and, secondly, it must have lost at least 70 per cent of its primary native vegetation. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has sounded the alarm. The IPCC stated, 'The scale and rate of deforestation is far beyond any natural tolerances, and the effects of climate change are already being felt in the region, with decreased rainfall and a dramatic drop in the water table over the past few decades.' They have warned our government that it must change the way these precious places are managed; otherwise we will see the collapse of our precious forest ecosystems in WA.

Western Australia has a long history of logging and forest clearing, and the challenges of protecting our forests from profiteering corporations continue to this day. The impacts of logging and forest clearing in my home state have been profound. Since bauxite mining began in Western Australia, more than 30,000 hectares of jarrah and marri forests have been cleared. That is well over the entire geographical size of the ACT. Over 11,290 hectares were cleared in the first decade alone. The rate of destruction of our forests is downright scary and there is no end in sight.

In WA we have seven mining corporations who are either logging or planning to log the Northern Jarrah Forest. These corporations are prioritising making bigger profits over protecting some of the only forests remaining just outside of Perth, and the WA Labor government is letting them do it. Two of these corporations, Alcoa and South32, plan to log and strip bare over 13,000 hectares of forest between them. This is devastating. We know that forest clearing in WA's South West has resulted in significant decreases in rainfall, along with decreased capacity to draw down carbon and store it in the soil and increased carbon release back into the atmosphere, in alarming quantities. These are climate impacts directly resulting from legal and illegal logging and mining activity in WA. These projects cannot be allowed to continue.

I'd like to take a moment to thank those who turned up to rally in the Perth Cultural Centre on Saturday. Hundreds of people gathered to mark Threatened Species Day and called for the rejection of South32's mine expansion and stronger protection laws for our forests, our bushland and our wildlife. The community's expectations are clear. This Labor government needs to go further than what is offered in this legislation. We need to increase measures against illegal logging of timber and also stop the other activities that contribute to deforestation on our own soil. We must also demand transparency in mineral supply chains and increase the use of secondary raw materials. To reduce mining companies' propensity for stripping forests, we must actively ensure that there is accountability and consequences for these actions, and we must do so here and internationally.

I'd like to acknowledge the work of my colleague Senator McKim for the amendments to this legislation he has proposed on behalf of the Greens. We are particularly concerned that this bill does not clearly articulate the breadth of the laws that would engage the provisions of this bill. Without clear definition, Australia could become a dumping ground for illegally logged timber. To this end, the Greens propose to repeal the definition and substitute it so that illegal logging includes the contravention of laws related to the protection of plants, the protection of the environment, human rights, bribery, money laundering, tax evasion, fraud or other financial crimes. The Labor government must use this opportunity to stop illegal logging, and they must use this opportunity to commit to climate action because continual failure to do so will lead to the condemnation of our planet and its people to the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Labor must hear the community. Protect our futures and stop mining companies from stripping our forests back to nothing but sand, hectare after hectare after hectare. This must be illegal too.

Finally, I think it is important to mention the global context of this legislation and this issue. Globally, mining activity is the fourth-largest driver of deforestation and impacts one-third of the world's global forest ecosystems. That is absolutely staggering. Think about what it looks like in reality to lose that much of our precious ecosystems. From a foreign affairs perspective, stopping deforestation is incredibly important due to the impact on people who live in the forest and rely on the forest as their home and source of food. Indeed 1.6 billion people worldwide depend on forests for their livelihood, and some 60 million indigenous people depend on forests for their subsistence. When it comes to the environment and when it comes to protecting our precious places, including our precious forests, from the avarice and the greed of Australia's largest mining companies and corporations, this bill is yet another example that the Australian community is being comprehensively let down by the two major parties. When it comes to the protection of our WA forests from those mining companies that wish to strip them to make a buck, the bottom line has never been clearer.

The people of WA cannot keep voting for the same two parties and expecting a different result. Nothing changes if nothing changes. We must see change at this election, and an increased number of Greens members here in the Senate and in Western Australia is the best way to guarantee the safety of our forests.

David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand in support of the Illegal Logging Prohibition Amendment (Strengthening Measures to Prevent Illegal Timber Trade) Bill 2024 and foreshadow that I will move a second reading amendment. In doing so, I would like to call for more to be done. I'd like to highlight the need for native forest logging in Australia to be better regulated and subject to national environmental laws. The exemption of regional forestry agreements from national environmental laws is driving species towards extinction.

This government has an opportunity this week to do a deal with the Senate crossbench, close the loophole and help impacted communities through the transition. It makes no sense to set up an environmental regulator only to stop it looking into native forest logging. I'm calling on the government to set up an EPA with integrity and independence and to give it what it needs to actually protect our environment: the ability to assess all native forest logging in Australia. Most Australians would be horrified that we have native forests being logged without oversight from our national environmental laws.

We know that this has a biodiversity and a climate impact. The climate impact of ending native forest logging in Victoria this year will be equivalent to taking 700,000 cars off the road. Yet we know in Victoria there are pushes to continue native forest logging under the guise of other names. We need to ensure that it, whatever you want to call it, gets assessed by environmental laws. Ending native forest logging in Tasmania would be the equivalent of taking 1.1 million cars off the road every year. Why are we not acting on this given that we're in a biodiversity and climate crisis? Why are we not acting given we know that this is a loss-making industry? It's not profitable. Taxpayers are having to prop up industries in the states that still have large-scale native forest logging. Of all the wood from native forest logging, 90 per cent of it goes to woodchips, paper pulp and box liners. We're talking about turning incredible native forests into a low-value, high-volume commodity.

It is frankly ridiculous that, in 2024, we're not seeing leadership on this from a government that has claimed all sorts of things: no new extinctions, nature positive and 'green Wall Street'—all of these things. What they aren't willing to do, though, is actually start to address the root cause of the biodiversity crisis here in Australia.

As I've said, the forestry industry in New South Wales and Tasmania is losing money. The Victorians wised up and decided that they could actually transition out of it. In Tasmania, total losses are above $1.5 billion since regional forest agreements were signed 20 years ago. You could have a stadium and some change for that, but I'm sure there are a lot more things that Tasmanians would want that money to be going towards. The Blueprint Institute found that, if we ended native forest logging on the north coast of New South Wales, there would be an economic windfall of $294 million between now and 2040, and that's just in northern New South Wales.

We've got an opportunity to stop losing money by cutting down our native forests and to benefit from the economic windfall of protecting them. This doesn't have to be an either/or when it comes to good regional jobs. With a little bit of imagination and with some investment, there can be transition plans for those affected and there can be jobs in specialist firefighting—in all sorts of areas—and, of course, an opportunity when it comes to tourism and carbon storage.

There is a clear need to work with communities impacted by the transition. It's totally inevitable that it will get to a point where Australians say, 'Given what we're seeing when it comes to climate change and given what we're seeing when it comes to biodiversity loss, this is untenable.' If the major parties don't want to do it, I think Australians will deliver a parliament that will force them to do it. I would urge them to get ahead of it and actually tackle this problem.

I think it's now irresponsible to wait any longer. We have an opportunity as a Senate. We have a government that's saying all the right things and a crossbench that is simply saying: 'Just do what you've committed to. Just front up and do what you've told Australians that you're going to do. Follow through with it to protect the people and places that we love.'

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

I rise today to speak to the Illegal Logging Prohibition Amendment (Strengthening Measures to Prevent Illegal Timber Trade) Bill 2024. There are a lot of reasons why we should be focusing on native forest logging in this country, and of course we should be doing everything we can to crack down on the illegal logging that we see both in this country and in my home state of Tasmania, as well as overseas. I understand that my colleague Senator McKim has spoken to a number of measures in the bill, including amendments, which we'll be moving in Committee of the Whole.

Let me tell you what else should be illegal, and that is logging of native forests in 2024, at a time when we're seeing global weather patterns changing so radically that even our best climate scientists can't tell us what is happening. Forests—ancient, magnificent forests like the ones we have in Tasmania—are the lungs of our planet. They are our first line of defence against climate change. They sequester carbon from the atmosphere and they store it. Not only are they absolutely critical in our fight against climate change and in reducing emissions; these forests are full of beautiful, abundant biodiversity found nowhere else on the planet. Yet we are still logging them.

State-sanctioned government logging at a loss is being subsidised by the taxpayer to clear-fell ancient, magnificent rainforests in places like the Tarkine and south-west Tasmania to support a dying industry and the political power of the major parties both in this chamber and in the state parliaments of Tasmania and, as Senator McKim outlined in his contribution, New South Wales and, most recently, Victoria.

We had a very special day on Saturday—and perhaps special for very sombre reasons. We had a day all around the world to remember endangered species: Threatened Species Day. It was on 7 September—the last day that we know of that the Tasmanian tiger lived and breathed on this planet. That's why we celebrated Threatened Species Day—for us to remember how we felt when we lost the Tasmanian tiger.

So it is beyond belief that today in the north-west of Tasmania, in the Advocate newspaper, one of the three newspapers in Tasmania—two are owned by Australian community media—the editor of that newspaper, Mr Anthony Haneveer, wrote an editorial saying:

This might sound a little controversial, but I do not really care about that damned fish.

Sure, it would be unfortunate if the Maugean skate were to go extinct, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

We know in Tasmania that we have so many species under threat right now. On Threatened Species Day, Senator Hanson-Young talked about 2,250 threatened and endangered species around the world, and, just last week, 20 new species were added to the list, but in Tasmania we have a species, the maugean skate, on the edge of extinction. We also have the Tasmanian devil, another endangered species fighting for its survival. We have the swift parrot and the orange-bellied parrot, which are also critically endangered, having lost critical habitat, especially to native forest logging. We have the masked owl in the Tarkine, which is also threatened by logging and land clearing for mining companies. While we're facing this global loss of biodiversity, the biggest we've ever seen in our memory as a human species on this planet, we have an editor of a newspaper—some-one in a position of responsibility—literally making a statement that he doesn't care about the extinction of a species.

I say to Mr Haneveer: Do you care about the loss of the Tasmanian devil, or is it just the skate you don't care about? Do you care about the loss of the Tasmanian tiger, something the whole world just remembered only on the weekend? What about the other 2,250 species—do you care about them? Maybe not. It's just the maugean skate where the salmon industry is polluting its last-known habitat. It's pretty clear what Mr Haneveer cares about and that is the salmon industry. How shameful that we would have someone in a position of influence literally making a statement that he doesn't care about the extinction of a species when we should be doing everything that we can. We have a moral obligation to protect nature, and governments need to fund that protection.

I stood at the Australian Museum in Sydney on Friday, along with an amazing group of people, for the opening of the FantasticalSharks &Rays exhibition, which was put on by a number of environment groups and the Australian Museum, working with some of the best artists and young people around this country to highlight the plight of endangered—many of them critically—sharks, rays and skates. The maugean skate was one of the key things on display at that exhibition. It was a positive exhibition. It was young people learning about the state of the world and trying to inspire us with their art to do more to protect these creatures.

I said to the assembled audience that the one thing all these thousands of threatened species around the world have got in common is that they can all be linked to decisions of government. Every single one of them can be linked to decisions of government. Governments are logging high-conservation native forest right now for political reasons. Governments are allowing the pollution of Macquarie Harbour and pushing the maugean skate to the edge of extinction, aided and abetted by people like the editor at the Advocate newspaper in the north-west of Tasmania. Governments are the ones who aren't putting in more marine protected areas to protect critically endangered marine habitats. Governments aren't changing fishery regulations to stop bottom trawling or requiring monitoring on boats to look at their by-catch. Every single species is linked to a decision of government. Approving new fossil fuel projects is a decision of government. We have higher emissions, warming oceans, the loss of habitat, mass coral bleaching, the loss of the giant kelp forest off Tasmania—95 per cent of it gone—and all the beautiful creatures that live in the ocean are gone. But do we really care about that? That was listed as a critically endangered habitat in Australia in 2012, the first one to be listed under federal law. And guess what? Not a single cent was spent by the previous government on trying to restore that habitat. Now, I understand that situation has changed and that the Labor government is looking at funding a recovery plan for the giant kelp forest. Why didn't we do that 12 years ago? Clearly, it's because people in government and in positions of power don't care.

How is it that in 2024 we have these thousands of creatures around the world facing potential extinction? The answer's really simple. It's because we as politicians, as leaders, aren't doing our job. With the maugean skate, the environment minister has a decision before her right now. We found out last week, shockingly—through an FOI discovery—that she hasn't even got a brief from her department yet, after 16 months of looking into this issue, when the Threatened Species Scientific Committee said that the skate needed to be upgraded to critically endangered. Last week we got new evidence from the scientific committee that there were only between 40 and 120 skate left on this planet. And she still won't make a decision. She hasn't even got a brief. I ask: why? Why wouldn't the environment minister have a brief on the loss of this ancient creature that's been with us since the age of the dinosaurs? It's because she wants to kick the can down the road till after the next election. I say to this government: make the decision, base it on the science that underpins the act, and make it soon so we don't lose another species.

I would also say to the Premier of Tasmania, Mr Jeremy Rockcliff, who has not once mentioned the maugean skate or the plight of the Tasmanian devil or the swift parrot because of the logging industry he full-throatedly champions: let the public hear what you've got to say about the potential extinction of these species, especially the maugean skate. This is the great moral challenge and decision of our time. At least speak about it. Don't just talk about your full-throated support for big, foreign owned multinational companies that pay no tax in Australia and are polluting our environment and pushing species to extinction.

As for Mr Anthony Haneveer at the Advocate newspaper in north-west Tasmania: Mr Haneveer, I think you should resign, and, if you don't resign, then the Australian Community Media board need to sack you. How despicable that you would use your platform to essentially green-light the extinction of a species. The tens of thousands of people who will be reading your opinion, who trusted in the institution of your newspaper, can see that in your own words:

This might sound a little controversial, but I do not really care about that damned fish—

a fish that has lived with us since the age of the dinosaurs. What moral right do we have to cause the extinction of a species because of the profits of a couple of multinational salmon companies? Mr Haneveer said:

Sure, it would be unfortunate if the Maugean skate were to go extinct, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

This is why we are in an extinction crisis—because of people like Mr Haneveer.

We have to do better and we have to stand up to this bullshit when we see it—

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Whish-Wilson, you know that's unparliamentary language. Please withdraw.

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

We have to stand up to this when—

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Please withdraw.

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

we see it, Acting Deputy President.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can you withdraw, please. I've asked you to withdraw.

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

I withdraw—and we need to do better.

So, while the Greens will be working constructively with the government on this bill to stop illegal logging and crack down on illegal logging, let's not forget that it is criminal in this day and age that we are still logging native forests. Governments are subsidising this. Taxpayers are paying for it. We're paying for our own destruction, future generations will pay for it, our wildlife is paying for it, and it's time we did better.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd just like to congratulate all of my Greens parliamentary colleagues on contributing to this particular debate this morning and highlighting the sheer hypocrisy of this government, and of successive governments federally and around the country, when it comes to the issue of forestry and logging. It's all very well and good to be worried about illegal logging outside of Australia; meanwhile, we have laws in this country that continue and sanction the destruction of our native forests and the critical habitat for our endangered wildlife and species.

Many Australians don't know that Australia's laws right now allow for the continued destruction, bulldozing and logging of our native forests. We hear a lot about the destruction of forests in other countries. Meanwhile, here in Australia, ancient woodlands, ancient forests and ancient rainforests are being destroyed without any need for environmental assessment or approval. Our laws are fundamentally broken. There is a loophole—a logging loophole—that allows for the destruction of our native forest, regardless of whether it's koala habitat or swift parrot habitat, regardless of whether it's the home of the masked owl, which, of course, is endangered.

In 2024, when our planet is facing the dual crises of biodiversity loss and global warming, our environment is in collapse and, rather than stopping making the situation worse, we have a law in this country that allows for our beautiful forests to be destroyed. And, not just that, it's often paid for with taxpayers' money. Taxpayers are funding the destruction of our native forest, and our laws rubberstamp the logging, the chainsaws, the bulldozers. This has to change.

If we are serious about tackling the worst parts of global warming and the climate crisis, we have to stop destroying our forests. If we're serious about halting the extinction of the koala, we have to stop destroying our native forests and woodlands. If we're serious about protecting nature before many of our animals and wildlife species are gone for good, we have to stop the logging of our native forests. It should be illegal. It should be illegal to destroy native forests. It should be illegal to chop down those ancient trees. It should be illegal to bulldoze the homes of critically endangered animals.

This parliament is being faced with a package of legislation right now that does little to protect our native forests and little to protect our endangered wildlife and native species. The Labor government promised the Australian people that they would fix our environment laws and that they'd stop the extinction of our native animals, yet before this Senate this week as a package of legislation that does not stop any of this destruction. In fact, what we're hearing is that the Prime Minister himself wants to gut protections even further to satisfy the interests of the big mining corporations and the big-business lobby groups. Too afraid to stand up for nature, too afraid to stand up to the big-mining lobby and too afraid to say no to the destruction of our native forests, including the bulldozing of koala habitat, the Prime Minister is giving a nod and a wink to Gina Rinehart and the fossil fuel industry to keep going as they are. Mother Nature can't handle this. Our environment cannot cope with the continued destruction of our forests. Our wildlife cannot continue to survive as their homes and habitat are destroyed.

It is an international disgrace that Australia's koala, our most beloved and iconic animal, is on the brink of extinction because this government and successive governments have failed to protect its homes. The only koalas that are going to be left in Australia are the ones that are in zoos. That's what we face right now. It is an international disgrace. Because of successive governments, there are only a few hundred of the world's fastest parrot, the swift parrot, left in the wild, yet this government and the Peter Dutton alternative government want to keep logging their habitat.

The Greens are passionate about this issue because we can see this destruction before our very eyes, and we know that millions of Australians want to see the logging of our ancient forests stopped, before the forests are all gone. Every opinion poll published in recent years, time and time again, has shown that Australians want our native forests protected. They love our forests. They are proud of our forests. They want homes for our wildlife—our birds and animals. So my plea to the government today is: use your power; work with the Senate to protect our forests, which are the homes of our animals, the habitat of our native species. Do something good for nature. Do something good; don't just roll over at the whim of Gina Rinehart and the mining lobby. Don't just roll over and say: 'Oh, it's all too hard. We'll get back to it some day down the track.' We don't have some day down the track! We are running out of time. The chainsaws are running. The bulldozers are going. Our climate is getting worse—hotter, drier, more extreme. We are running out of time.

There are the numbers in this chamber to protect our forests and protect our environment if the Labor government has the guts to do it. We can protect the koala from going extinct. We can protect our native species. We can stop illegal land clearing. We can stop making the climate crisis worse by supercharging pollution and allowing coal and gas companies to keep expanding, day after day after day. If we work collectively we can stop this destruction. The government have to use their power. What is the point of being in government if you're just going to roll over every time somebody says 'boo'. What is the point of being in government if, instead of listening to the community, instead of listening to the voters, you're only doing the bidding of the big corporations and the big polluters? Why do they have a say in what laws are needed to protect nature? Their whole business model is built on destroying nature. Why would you take their advice? What is the point of being in government if, every time the road gets hard, you go to water?

Stop being a disappointment. You have the power to change things, to make things better, to deliver a positive outcome for the environment. You don't have to roll over to the mining lobby and Gina Rinehart. You don't have to do the dirty work of Mr Peter Dutton. He's not in government; you are. Use your power for good, save the koala, protect our forests and stop making pollution worse. It's pretty simple. You've got the numbers in this place to do it; don't pretend otherwise. Let's get it done.

David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I endorse the words of my colleagues, particularly Senator McKim, who led for us on this, and Senator Hanson-Young and others. There's a time to stop native forest logging, and that time is now.

This bill, the Illegal Logging Prohibition Amendment (Strengthening Measures to Prevent Illegal Timber Trade) Bill 2024, in pretending Labor cares about forests while at the same time greenlighting the wholesale industrial destruction of our native forests, is a pretty obscene bit of narrowcasting from Labor. We've seen it time after time—bringing in a piece of legislation that pretends to put in an environmental protection authority but doesn't create an independent one, that pretends to do something on illegal logging while signing off on yet another round, years and years more, of destructive native forest logging. It can only happen because the Commonwealth government gives state and territory governments, but particularly state governments in New South Wales and Tasmania, an exemption from federal environmental laws to go in and destroy critical and endangered habitat. That's the only reason native logging can continue in New South Wales and Tasmania: the Albanese government continues an exemption put in by the Howard government to let logging destroy endangered native species and destroy critically endangered habitat. We could remove that exemption and end native forest logging this week in parliament, if Labor had a backbone, because there is an absolute progressive majority in this chamber to do it.

Why do we say, 'End native forest logging'? We say it because of the incredible natural values in our forests. We live in this most extraordinary place. You can go for a bushwalk in Australia and, in a couple of hundred metres, pass through diversity that you'd have to cross the whole of Western Europe to see. You can go from rainforest to dry eucalypt forest to wet sclerophyll forest. You can have this extraordinary adventure in nature in a couple of hundred metres, walking in our extraordinary forests. You'd literally have to cross the whole of the North American continent to see that kind of diversity. And this government thinks it's reasonable, thinks it's okay, to agree to its wholesale destruction. It does your brain in.

Last month I was fortunate to be with some of our extraordinary campaigners down on the South Coast of New South Wales—I'm biased; I think it is one of the most beautiful parts of the planet—surrounded by these ancient forests that stretch across that beautiful southern part of my home state of New South Wales. I was in Mogo State Forest with some of our local council candidates for Eurobodalla Council. I was down there with Colleen Turner, Joslyn van der Moolen and dozens and dozens of forest protectors. We were there in Mogo State Forest because the New South Wales Labor government, with the tick of approval from the Albanese government, wants to get in there and destroy that part of Mogo State Forest—beautiful dry eucalypt forest. When forest protectors went in and put an infrared drone over the forest that Forestry Corporation of NSW wants to log, they found, in just a couple of nights, a greater glider hotspot. They found 10 greater gliders in the forest that Forestry Corporation want to destroy. I don't know if anyone in this chamber, outside of the Greens, has ever actually seen a greater glider. They are extraordinary creatures. They have beautiful fluffy ears. You can hear them glide in the forests at night. They go from tree to tree—they're quite big creatures; they're like super-sized possums—and you see them if you're spotlighting for them at night. You can hear them crash from tree to tree as they move across their favourite parts in the forest. They are an endangered species, and the local community campaigners, the forest protectors—not Forestry Corporation of NSW—found 10 greater gliders in this little patch of forest that Forestry Corporation wants to destroy. And it's wholesale destruction; they chop down every decent tree and go in afterwards and napalm the remaining forest litter on the ground in that part of the forest.

This forest is in a part of the state that got smashed, utterly smashed, by the summer bushfires a few years ago. The locals are saying: 'This bit of forest survived. This bit of forest, with this extraordinary diversity, survived.' So much of the forest around Mogo State Forest and the surrounding areas got smashed in those fires. We've got this extraordinary hotspot for greater gliders. In fact, one of the beautiful gum trees in that bit of Mogo State Forest is a 62-metre-high spotted gum. It has a seven-metre circumference on it. And Forestry Corporation of NSW wants to clear-fell the entire forest and leave it completely vulnerable, as well as killing all of the habitat trees for those greater gliders. It is utterly, utterly shameful.

The locals are distraught about it. They can't believe that a Labor state government and a Labor federal government are green-lighting the destruction of their beautiful Mogo forest. They cannot believe it. In fact, just before the fires ripped through other parts of that forest down there, local forest protectors spotted platypus in the rivers. There are platypus in the rivers and greater gliders in the trees, yet Forestry Corporation of NSW, with the support of state and federal Labor, went through the forest—they didn't see a single glider, didn't see a platypus and didn't see a habitat tree—and slated the entire chunk of forest, about four different compartments, for wholesale logging. Locals cannot believe it.

They also can't believe it because it's the same forest that their local council has identified for the extraordinary, 70-kilometre Mogo mountain bike trail network. All the locals are excited about the jobs that could be in the forests through having this amazing mountain bike network on some of the converted forestry roads and tracks. They're excited about the investment in ecotourism and about the protection of their forest. Yet, right smack bang in the middle of the proposed new Mogo mountain bike trail network, the New South Wales government, under Labor, wants to destroy the forest. Locals just cannot believe the environmental and economic vandalism in their local area.

They also note that these mature forests were the thing that stopped the big fires. The mature forests, with their moist understorey, were what stopped the big fires and will stop the next big bushfire. If these forests get logged—and I can tell you now that forest campaigners like Colleen, Joslyn and others are going to be in there doing what they can to protect these forests and stop them being logged—we know what will happen. The whole forest will dry out. It will be replaced with spindly saplings, and it will be ripe and primed for the next big fire, which will tear through those forests and destroy homes, like we've seen time after time with recently logged forests. The locals know that for their own safety, for the planet's safety, protecting these forests is absolutely essential.

So I join with my colleagues to say to Labor: 'Grow a backbone. You know it's right to protect native forests from logging. You know that it's essential for climate. You know it's essential for our native species. You know it's essential for keeping communities safe from the next big bloody fire that's coming.' Surely even Labor could realise that it's wrong to log forests that are chock-a-block full of endangered greater gliders. Surely even Labor can see that that's wrong. And if you see it's wrong, do something about it: join with the Greens, join with the progressive majority in this chamber and finally end native forest logging in this country.

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

The Illegal Logging Prohibition Amendment (Strengthening Measures to Prevent Illegal Timber Trade) Bill 2024 will modernise and strengthen Australia's illegal logging laws to better protect the Australian market from illegally harvested timber and support a legal and sustainable timber trade. It will increase regulatory efficiency and effectiveness by strengthening monitoring, investigation and enforcement powers, including through new timber testing powers and the use of injunctions and enforceable undertakings. It will also enable the provision of key due diligence information up-front, thereby enhancing our ability to use data to identify high-risk timber products and enable appropriate enforcement action to be taken.

Changes proposed by the bill have been informed by a comprehensive public consultation process that sought broad support from industry and non-government organisations for the improvements and by the development of a regulation impact statement published in 2023. These changes complement the work the Australian government is doing through the 2022 election commitment to invest $4.4 million to improve timber identification testing and illegal logging traceability.

The bill has been subject to a Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee inquiry, and I thank everyone who participated in the inquiry as well as the committee for its consideration of the bill. The committee released its report on 20 June 2024, and I will take this opportunity to provide the government response to the report. The report recommended that the bill be passed, and the government welcomes and agrees with this recommendation. The coalition senators' dissenting report recommended that the passage of the bill be deferred until after the finalisation of the rules to be made under the proposed act. The government notes this recommendation but does not agree with it. The rules cannot be finalised until the bill passes the parliament and the rule-making power becomes operative. However, the government is ensuring that the regulated community and other stakeholders have an opportunity to comment on the draft rules before they are finalised. On 19 August this year an exposure draft of the rules was released for public consultation, and the department has held a public webinar to explain key changes. They have received valuable feedback from stakeholders to date.

In relation to the other matters raised in the dissenting report, I note that the strict liability offences and publication powers are increasingly common across Australian legislation, including environmental legislation, as they broaden regulatory options. These are appropriately framed, and I thank the committee for recognising the intentions to utilise these appropriately and sensitively. As stated in the explanatory memorandum to the bill, the proposed new publication powers are intended to be used only when noncompliance is repeated or very serious and when it is considered in the public interest to do so. Such instances may be where a person has been convicted of an offence on several occasions or has repeatedly failed to comply with due diligence requirements without undertaking further checks or adjusting practices. It is not intended that publication would occur for minor instances of noncompliance where publication would not be in the public interest or where noncompliance can be otherwise addressed.

As for concerns raised over the new power to enable testing of timber and regulated timber products, the bill does not impose any requirements on importers or processors to test timber themselves and bear the associated costs. The new timber testing power would be available to Commonwealth officers to utilise under compliance activities and is strictly limited to being exercised only when the timber or regulated timber product is subject to biosecurity control or customs control.

The opposition has previously raised a proposal to exclude domestic timber processors from the application of the laws. I note that it is appropriate to maintain the current situation whereby the illegal logging prohibition legislation applies to both timber importers and processors of raw logs. This ensures that the regulation of illegally logged timber is consistent with Australia's trade law obligations. The opposition has also previously questioned the need to require notices of intention to import a regulated timber product. Changing the operation of key provisions would undermine the intention of the new notice requirement, which is to obtain and use information to better target compliance powers.

Finally, the government notes the committee's comments on the importance of continued stakeholder consultation. As demonstrated by the current consultation process, the government recognises this and is fully committed to ongoing engagement with regulated entities. Recommendations in the RRAT report from the Australian Greens have also been reflected in proposed amendments tabled, which the government notes but does not agree to.

In recommendation 1, corresponding to the amendment on sheet 2643, the Australia Greens recommended that section 18B of the bill be amended to require that import notices include, at a minimum, information on the species and countries of harvest of imported timber. The government does not agree to this recommendation. The government's position is that the timber species and country of harvest would be more appropriately prescribed in the rules, along with other requirements under section 18B of the bill as drafted, and as noted in the explanatory memorandum. It is intended that these matters would be prescribed by the rules once an IT system that would support receiving notices is operational and the regulated community has been consulted.

In recommendation 2, corresponding to the amendments on sheet 2626, the Australian Greens recommended that section 7 of the act be amended to cover further laws that may impact supply chain illegality. The government does not agree with this recommendation because the due diligence requirements already require importers of regulated timber products and processors of raw logs to consider any other information the importer or processor knows indicating illegal logging risk.

In recommendation 3, corresponding to the amendment on sheet 2645, the Australia Greens recommended that the bill be amended to require regular public reporting of the extent of illegal logging in Australia and of the action taken under the act. The government does not support this recommendation, as the act does not directly regulate the act of harvesting timber within Australia. These matters are regulated by state and territory legislation, the reporting of which is not the responsibility of the Commonwealth.

In recommendation 4, corresponding to the amendments on sheet 2646, the Australian Greens recommended that the bill be amended so that the rules may provide that the due diligence obligations can be satisfied by compliance with specific domestic or foreign laws, rules or operational processes as part of the due diligence applications. The government does not agree with this recommendation as the act already provides for this. Consequently the amendments do not add anything and may have unintended consequences for the interpretation of the provisions.

In recommendation 5, corresponding to the amendments on sheet 2647, the Australian Greens recommended that the Senate pass the Ending Native Forest Logging Bill. The government does not agree to this recommendation. The Ending Native Forest Logging Bill has no relevance to, or connection with, this bill.

In recommendation 6, the Australian Greens recommended that the bill be passed by the Senate with amendments in line with the above recommendations. For the reasons already given, the government does not agree to this recommendation, nor does the government agree to further amendments proposed by the Australian Greens.

Regarding amendment sheet 2665, to add prohibitions for further dealings in illegally logged timber, the government notes that the illegal logging prohibition legislation already prohibits illegally logged timber from entering the Australian market by way of importation and the processing of raw logs within Australia. This was informed by extensive work in developing the current illegal logging prohibition legislation. There's no good reason to deviate from this.

Regarding the proposed amendment on sheet 2664, that 'interested persons' be able to apply for injunctions relating to conduct or proposed conduct, the government does not agree to this amendment. Injunctions are available under the Regulatory Powers Act for those who administer and enforce the legislation to restrain contraventions of the legislation or to compel compliance with the legislation. It would not be appropriate or practical to extend these powers to other 'interested persons'.

Regarding the proposed amendment on sheet 2645, that an independent review of the operation of the act be conducted within five years and during each subsequent five-year period, the government does not agree to this recommendation. The government notes that it has already agreed to amendments moved in the House of Representatives to conduct an independent review of the act within five years.

The Australian government remains committed to combating illegal logging and associated trade and its global environmental, social and economic impacts. Illegal logging remains the greatest transborder environmental crime globally and undercuts the prices our domestic forest industries can receive for sustainably produced timber products.

I commend this bill, which will optimise Australia's illegal logging laws to protect our market from illegally harvested timber and illegally logged raw logs, to the Senate.

I also table an addendum to the revised explanatory memorandum relating to the Illegal Logging Prohibition Amendment (Strengthening Measures to Prevent Illegal Timber Trade) Bill 2024. The addendum responds to matters raised by the Scrutiny of Bills Committee.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I put the question on the second reading, I advise that Senator McKim has moved a second reading amendment and Senator David Pocock has foreshadowed a further second reading amendment, so my intention is to put the second reading amendment moved by Senator McKim. The question before the Senate is that the second reading amendment as moved by Senator McKim be agreed to.

David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate:

(a) notes that:

(i) native forest logging operates at a loss in Australia and is heavily subsidised by Australian governments,

(ii) native forest logging is driving at least 48 Australian native wildlife/fauna species, and many more native flora species, towards extinction, including the Swift Parrot, Koala and Greater Glider,

(iii) native forest logging has operated under an exemption from Australia's environment law for 25 years, which has accelerated the loss of forest-dwelling species and caused ecosystem decline, with some forest ecosystems now at risk of collapse,

(iv) in the last 25 years of native forest logging in Australia, more than one in four forest-dependant threatened fauna species have officially moved closer to extinction, 15 previously common forest-dependant fauna have been added to the list of species threatened with extinction, and a record high number of forest-dwelling fauna are now formally listed as threatened with extinction,

(v) Australia's native forests are key carbon sinks and ending native forest logging would contribute substantially to achieving the 43% by 2030 climate target; and

(b) calls on the Government to remove the loophole that prevents national environmental laws from being applied to Regional Forest Agreements and develop a transition package for impacted communities".

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question before the Senate is that the second reading amendment moved by Senator David Pocock be agreed to.