Russell Trood (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation, Senator Abetz. How is the Howard government acting to protect the world’s tropical rainforests from illegal and unsustainable logging? Is the minister aware of any alternative policies?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Trood for his question and note his commitment to ensuring that the world’s forests are harvested on a sustainable basis. Last week I released the Howard government’s plan to reduce the amount of illegally harvested timber brought into Australia, bringing down the axe on illegal logging.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This practical plan will help to reduce the amount of illegal timber imported into Australia. More than that, this plan will help to ensure the ongoing sustainability of the world’s forest resources, particularly in our own region of South-East Asia and the Pacific.

This plan proposes that we work with, rather than against, our neighbours in the fight against illegal logging. I am pleased that the policy was welcomed by a variety of industry groups and—for the benefit of those opposite who were interjecting before—by the shadow minister, Mr Martin Ferguson. But it has, of course, been opposed by the Australian Greens. Why? Because it is practical. Australia should, to quote Senator Brown, ‘ban the import of tropical rainforest timbers’. Never mind the fact that this will not actually stop tropical rainforests being logged; it will only stop the timber coming here.

Just as we sometimes say about Mr Swan in the other place that he can’t hold a policy from breakfast till lunchtime, in this case, in the Australian Greens’ press release, Senator Brown could not even keep his policy line within the same statement. Senator Brown, after saying that there should be this total ban, went on to say:

The only exception—

a total ban; now there is an exception—

would be strictly inspected local mills doing selective logging ...

Here we have the gross hypocrisy of the Greens again. In one sentence he says we should ban tropical timber imports totally, yet only three sentences later he says we can import tropical timbers. Which is it? The reason of course is that, while Senator Brown, Greenpeace and other green organisations run around saying that we should ban timber imports from places like Papua New Guinea, green groups are actually helping to run dodgy and sometimes illegal logging operations in that country’s rainforests. As the Australian newspaper recently exposed:

An Australian-led coalition of non-government organisations has set up a ... small-scale logging operation ...

Listen to this:

... Greenpeace activists are relishing a meal of—

Guess what—

cassowary-and-taro stew ... oblivious to the fact that cassowaries are much rarer than the whales Greenpeace is campaigning to protect ...

Ironically, it seems that whatever the outcome of the forestry debate, the local cassowaries can’t win. The limited money which the NGOs’ presence has generated in the area has been used to buy guns.

Guess what those guns are used for: to kill even more endangered cassowaries. This is the Greens’ great plan to save Papua New Guinea’s rainforests!

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For the Labor Party opposite, you should realise that Mr Ferguson actually supports this policy, and I think you ought to get back into your caucus room. It is little wonder that the Greens cannot be taken seriously on any of the world’s environmental— (Time expired)

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.