Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Indeed, Senator Colbeck! We have a magnificent resource in Australia—the most renewable and sustainable form of building material—and yet 30 years ago the Greens embarked upon a campaign to destroy the jobs of Australian workers and the Australian timber industry. And for all their pious comments, as they wring their hands during debates like the one we are having today, they do not understand that in the time when these forests were actually harvested sustainably there were people there managing those native forests and removing the fuel loads. People—that is, the forestry workers—were there and able to deal with bushfires when they broke out, but the Greens succeeded in shutting down most of the native timber forest industry in Australia and that has meant that these forests remain unprotected. For all the hand-wringing there were more trees destroyed in the Australian bushfires of earlier this year than all of the logging that has gone on in Australia since Australia was started. And do you hear the Greens complain about that? Do you hear the Greens asking for removal of fuel loads? You do not. It just shows the hypocrisy of the Greens political party on these issues.

Question agreed to.