Andrew Wilkie (Denison, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. The GBE Forestry Tasmania has collapsed financially, and, bizarrely, the state government inquiry did not seek to find out why. Almost $2 billion in assets and $359 million in government cash injections have been squandered. Prime Minister, seeing as a lot of the money was from federal grants and programs, will your government investigate this matter to find out what went wrong and to hold the culprits to account?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We know who the culprits were. The culprits were the Labor-Green government in Tasmania, assisted by the Labor-Green government in Canberra. They are the culprits, because, in the five years to 2013, the job losses in that industry were more than 4,000. Two-thirds of the jobs in the Tasmanian forestry industry disappeared in the five years up to 2013. In the two decades to 2013, the area in forest production in Tasmania reduced by 60 per cent because of Labor-Green governments in Tasmania, aided between 2007 and 2013 by a Labor-Green government here in Canberra.

I should correct one point that was made by the member in his question. I am advised that Forestry Tasmania has not collapsed financially. In fact, the Tasmanian government is standing squarely behind the business. But I can also advise the member for Denison that we are doing what we can to help the forest industry in Tasmania. We are extending the regional forest agreement to give the forestry industry certainty so that it can invest with confidence. And, very importantly, this government will not be supporting any further forest lock-ups. Our forests should be there on a sustainable basis to create sustainable green jobs for the future.

Not only are we doing the right thing by the forestry industry in Tasmania; we are doing the right thing by Tasmania

There is $60 million that we have invested in an irrigation scheme in northern Tasmania; there is $200 million that we are investing in freight equalisation so that the great goods of Tasmania can be exported beyond the mainland to the wider world; there is $40 million to turn Hobart Airport into Hobart International Airport; there is $90 million for an ice-breaker; and there is $400 million for the Midlands Highway. So, egged on at every turn by the member for Lyons, the member for Braddon and the member for Bass, this government is investing in a better future for the people of Tasmania.