Alison Penfold (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Agriculture, mining and forestry are the three industries that help build Australia and Australian prosperity. They have a special place in our history and future—that is, if governments can be kept away from regulatory meddling and, worse, using them as sources of votes. The worst lamentable example is forestry.

Native hardwood timber supplies our housing, infrastructure, construction, transport and manufacturing sectors. Timber is a product we need, and it's an industry we need to look after. Its people are experienced professionals who understand the science behind healthy and sustainable resource ecosystems and work in a highly regulated and scrutinised industry. Governments of all persuasions need to rethink their orthodoxy and instead reflect on the reality of forestry, not the ideology of those opposed to it. Take, for example, the announcement by New South Wales premier Chris Minns on Sunday 7 September—yes, Father's Day—to create a great koala national park out of 176,000 hectares of state forest on the New South Wales north coast. That was a day when dads who work in the north coast timber industry were told that their jobs were in jeopardy. What a low blow. Government should be looking to grow jobs and industries, not cancel them.

When trees grow and are harvested, they grow jobs, careers, communities, industries, housing and infrastructure and provide real carbon solutions. As trees grow, particularly younger trees, they absorb and lock away carbon and, after the harvesting and processing, store carbon away in the array of timber products. The cycle is then repeated with regeneration. This is climate action in action. The New South Wales Labor premier and his ministers are tearing up timber mill contracts, and workers are losing jobs as a result.

In my own electorate, workers have lost jobs at the Herons Creek timber mill. I went to the mill last week and spoke to the workers who'd just been sacked. They were gutted, destroyed, bewildered. These were good jobs held by good men in a good industry, a sustainable industry and an Australian industry focused on looking after our forests—not to destroy what provided their livelihoods. What did they do wrong? They don't deserve this.

Communities in my electorate and up and down the New South Wales north coast don't deserve to have good jobs destroyed by the stroke of a government pen. Efforts are underway to get these workers a decent redundancy package. I want to acknowledge the Timber, Furnishing and Textiles Union for taking it right up to the New South Wales government. In addition to the worker and industry compensation, the New South Wales government has committed $80 million for the park and an extra $60 million for the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service. It's going to be an expensive new park. But for what? The people on the ground know that there is absolutely no additional conservation value in this park—in protecting koalas or other species—and that the threats to koalas are more from urbanisation, vehicles, dogs, disease and wildfires. We also know that koala density is mostly similar between state forests and national parks and that, if these forests are not well managed by regular fuel reduction, they'll become raging infernos on hot windy days—a far bigger threat to koalas.

The heart of this matter is not koala conservation; that's the spin. At the heart of this decision is a deal between the New South Wales and federal Labor governments to deliver on its extreme net zero policy—a deal that sees the Minns Labor government lock up state forests in exchange for funding from the Albanese Labor government through earnings from Australian carbon credit units. In the New South Wales government's own words:

The final creation of the park is dependent on the successful registration of a carbon project under the Improved Native Forest Management (INFM) Method, which is currently moving through the federal government assessment processes.

I note that, on the draft method, there was less than supportive feedback from the Carbon Market Institute taskforce, and I also note that the Australian Forest Products Association is urging the federal government to withdraw support for the New South Wales government's proposed method due to validity and integrity concerns.

I urge the Albanese government to reject the methodology, and I urge the Minns Labor government to remove the moratorium on native timber harvesting, to come clean on its real agenda and to rethink the size of the park. I'm incredibly disappointed that, yet again, Labor governments, state and federal, are attacking another legitimate primary industry, attacking the workers and their families who rely on the timber industry and attacking regional communities by killing jobs and industry.