Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Assistant Treasurer to a question without notice asked by Senator Milne today relating to the Tasmanian regional forest agreement.

Premier David Bartlett in Tasmania, when he was in real trouble in the first two weeks of the election campaign, said on Friday, 26 February, that he would immediately begin negotiations with the Commonwealth government to renew the regional forest agreement, that he would be sealing a new 20-year agreement which would provide the industry with the security needed and that, since the RFA in Tasmania is due to expire in 2017, it would take it out to 2037. That was a pledge to continue logging old-growth forests out until 2037.

What an absolute disgrace—that a premier would come out and say that in a time of climate change in the International Year of Biodiversity. Next year is the International Year of Forests and here we have the Tasmanian Premier saying that he would immediately renegotiate the regional forest agreement with the Commonwealth government to provide for logging of those huge carbon stores, biodiverse forests, and do it for another 20 years. There is one problem: Premier Bartlett cannot make that commitment without the agreement of the federal government because a regional forest agreement is negotiated between the federal government and the state government. The question is: has Premier Bartlett had secret negotiations with the Prime Minister to log Tasmania’s old-growth forests until 2037? Who else in the Commonwealth has he spoken to or, alternatively, has he spoken to nobody in the Commonwealth and instead just made it up as an election promise to con forest workers in Tasmania to vote Labor because he is going to promise them that he will continue logging in Tasmania until 2037? Today in Tasmania there has been an announcement that they are about to set the state on fire again, as they do every year, with massive regeneration burns. And what undertaking has the Commonwealth given in relation to greenhouse gas emissions from the megaburning of Tasmania’s forests?

This comes down to a question of integrity. Somebody is not telling the truth here. Minister Sherry has plainly refused to confirm any notion that the Commonwealth has been in any negotiations with Tasmania about extending the RFA or extending logging for another 20 years. That would be consistent with my understanding of where the Commonwealth is because every time I raise extending or renegotiating the regional forest agreement for the protection of forests, I am told by every single federal minister I raise it with that they are not touching the RFA, that they will not renegotiate the RFA, that they will not even consider protecting another twig under the RFA because it is set in concrete. They will not go near it. They cite Mark Latham, which is mythology, but nevertheless that is what Commonwealth ministers say one after the other. Then we have the Premier in Tasmania saying no, that he will immediately renegotiate the forest agreement in Tasmania to provide for logging of old-growth forests out to 2037.

My view is that Premier Bartlett made it up on the day, that it is wedge politics in Tasmania, that he was polling badly and decided to go out with the old tried and true wedge politics to set up a community divide in order to advantage the Labor Party, when in fact the regional forest agreement has led to massive job losses in Tasmania, all of those companies shedding jobs with their supposed RFA guarantees in place. It is now up to the Prime Minister to say whether he has given an undertaking to Premier Bartlett to extend old-growth logging in Tasmania to 2037. If there has been no such undertaking, then Premier Bartlett had better cough up to the Tasmanian people, come clean and say that he made it up on the day, that there is no commitment from the Commonwealth and that in fact it is a confidence trick in the lead-up to a state election.

Question agreed to.