Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is for the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. What progress has there been on the Tasmanian forestry agreement since the parliament last met? Is the minister aware of other approaches to the agreement, and what would their impact be?

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

I want to thank the member for Lyons for asking a question about an issue that we have been talking about all term in here as to whether or not we could get the stakeholders from each side of the Tasmanian forestry debate to agree and then whether we could get that agreement to go through the Tasmanian parliament. I am very pleased to say that since this parliament last met the forestry deal has been endorsed by the Tasmanian parliament and is now being rolled out. This is something that ends 30 years of conflict in Tasmanian forestry and has extraordinary outcomes for both Tasmanian jobs and conservation.

We have had a significant shift in the forestry industry for some time now. Markets that we used to be able to rely on started to disappear or demand that they would only buy timber product, whether it be woodchip, peeler billet or sawlog, if it had the Forest Stewardship Council certification on it. None of the native forestry run by Forestry Tasmania was eligible at that point for FSC certification. Now, with the agreement in place, we are seeing the process for certification for the export of timber products from Tasmania moving quickly.

Tasmania will be leading the nation. It will be the one state whose official forestry body has gained Forest Stewardship Council certification and which has opened itself up to those export markets around the world. On the different exit packages that have been offered I have heard the comments of the Leader of the Opposition, who has said that his side of politics would never pay people to leave, completely forgetting the exit packages over the years, pretending they never happened. What will occur is where people have already seen the massive drop-off in demand they now have an opportunity to take up that slack through the exit packages and then reinvest in their businesses. This is a good outcome for jobs in Tasmania. This opens Tasmanian forestry products back up to the world. At the same time it means that conservation outcomes that previously would have been thought to be completely unattainable are now possible. We now have in the order of half a million hectares of forestry reserves coming into place, taking in some areas within the Tarkine, areas such as the Blue Tier. But the most highly contested forests, areas like the Weld, the Styx and the Upper Florentine, are currently before the World Heritage Committee in Paris to enable them to get the full level of conservation protection and to be put on the World Heritage List.

This is something where the conflict options that have been there for the last 30 years have been entirely rejected by this government. We have worked with stakeholders, with the Tasmanian people, who have wanted to move to a future that is very different from the past with a combination of conservation and jobs. (Time expired)

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I ask a supplementary question. Minister, what is the benefit to the electorate of Lyons and all the other electorates in Tasmania?

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

The member for Lyons has a very strong record in this House as someone who has always stood up on the side of jobs in Tasmania. He has always been there. All those jobs are possible only because we have moved beyond the old conflict model. The old conflict model was killing our international markets, which are now opened up. Most of the people who will be taking up the exit packages will be using that money to reinvest back into jobs in the north-west, in the southern forests, across the eastern forests—throughout Tasmania. What we have there is the opposite of what the Liberal Party would have wanted. They have had terror at the thought that there might not be conflict. The moment they thought we could actually have a thing called peace in the forests nothing has scared them more, because their whole political approach in Tasmania has thrived on the conflict model. Seats like the seat of Lyons, the seat of Franklin and the seat of Bass have always thrived on the concept of jobs. They have always thrived on the concept of making sure that we adapt to the changes in the market and that we do not pretend that a battle from 30 years ago is going to provide a sustainable future for Tasmanians. It is about making sure that we look at where markets have gone and that we work with the Tasmanian community to make sure that the economic future that members like the member for Lyons have been demanding is well and truly within the grasp of Tasmanians.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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