Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One group of workers Labor don't fight for is forestry workers. We have the federal government making bad decisions, but, unfortunately, we have a lot of state Labor governments making bad decisions as well. We've had a recent decision by the New South Wales Labor government that is basically going to shut down most of our forestry industry in New South Wales.

A lot of people don't understand the difference between a plantation and selective hardwood harvesting. Plantations are what they are. You can see them, they're felled at the end, and they make a lot of difference. There's no biodiversity there, just a monocrop. With hardwood harvesting, we go in and select, very scientifically, using environmental best practice, and take hardwood timber out of there—very sustainable and very renewable.

This area has been locked up because of, supposedly, koalas. I'd be happy to show anyone opposite that, where the place is locked up, what happens is lantana grows, weeds grow and the koalas leave. There's scientific proof of that. They literally can't move around on the ground, because of all the weed growth. It also causes these areas to be a tinderbox. You stop having the industry keeping fire trail access open. They do a lot of weed harvesting, but that all stops as well. The trails become more dangerous because of the fire danger that they are.

The last thing is we still need the hardwood, so guess what we do as a country because those opposite don't let us use our own? We import it all from countries who don't have the same environmentally sustainable standards we do. Shame!