Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Hansard source

The farmers who are in situations currently where there is not an exceptional circumstances declaration or a drought are in the identical situation they would be in if there was no pilot of a new system. They are experiencing better seasons than they were during drought. People know that that there are still individual hardships, and no-one is skating over that, but it is important to remember that, if the biggest challenge that we have is communities saying that the new way of approaching drought is not being rolled out quickly enough, that certainly is an endorsement of the approach the government has taken in going down the path of the pilot in the first place.

The member for Braddon also asked me to deal with some of the issues as to where we were up to with negotiations regarding forestry in Tasmania. The member for Braddon has a very deep concern, representing a large number of timber workers—both people working for contractors and also people working for mills, with jobs in haulage or other areas—within the seat of Braddon. For many years the debate on forestry in Tasmania has been characterised by conflict. It has always been a situation of governments of one colour or the other, in a political circumstance, doing their best to arbitrate on who would win in a battle between conservation and forestry.

About a year ago, a whole lot of people who had never been at the same table before sat around the table. Environmental groups, the union—the CFMEU—and industry all sat around the same table for the first time. I remember at the time the key issue that people were talking about was not whether or not they could reach agreement but whether or not they could cope being at the same table. The level of passion after years of conflict was extremely high.

That resulted, in the second half of last year, in a high-level statement of principles. The government took the view, together with the Tasmanian government, that we needed to know whether the statement of principles could in fact be turned into a formalised agreement. That was why the government took the view that the appointment of Bill Kelty as a negotiator to work with the parties and see if it could get to an agreement was something worth doing.

There is a level of concern in many communities, knowing that Gunns have made the decision to get out of native forestry. There are many people facing very high degrees of uncertainty at the moment, including businesses, in the wake of what has happened with markets—initially buyers in Japan insisting for the first time on FSC certification of timber, combined with the devastation that occurred in Japan, added to the impact of the high dollar, which of itself has caused significant challenges for industry. When you put that against the backdrop of the decisions being made by Gunns, there are very high degrees of uncertainty.

It is still the preference of the government, though, for the parties to reach their agreement and for us to look at what they bring to the table. There is still a high level of opportunity here for an agreement to be put together the likes of which we have not seen in Australia—indeed, what we have always seen has been starkly the opposite. Each time I talk to the parties—and I talk to them often—they are closer than they were the day before. They are not there yet. I know that Bill Kelty is again working on the issue tomorrow. (Extension of time granted). I am hopeful that there will be an agreement soon that both the Commonwealth and the Tasmanian governments can deal with directly. The Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation is the only issue of the ones that were put forward that I have not yet touched on, and that was discussed by the member for Murray. In response to that, I can offer the information that I have. When you look at the funding for any of the research and development corporations, we need to remember that most of their funding—and RIRDC is a little bit different from the others—is through matched government levies. So the government money goes up and down depending on projections as to what happens with the various industries. For many research and development corporations it is relatively simple to forecast where they think things are going. For the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, which has many, many small levies for small, growing industries, it is more complex. The actual revenue from government will increase over the next financial year for the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation. Revenue from levies will also increase in 2011-12. However, the corporation has spent some of their reserves, so their opening balance in 2011-12 has gone down for that reason. Hopefully that provides some insight into the budget figures that the member for Murray was referring to.

See this speech in context