Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Just on the outskirts of my home town of Melbourne, you can find the tallest flowering plants in the world, the majestic mountain ash of the central highlands. These spectacular forests form the catchments that provide clean drinking water to over three million Victorians. They supply our city with fresh air and are home to some of Australia's iconic animals, including Victoria's animal emblem, Leadbeater's possum. This same story is repeated throughout Australia. In the west, Tourism Western Australia proudly proclaims that its 100 native forests make up one of the world's biodiversity hotspots, with over 12,000 species of wildflowers. But right now, all that is under threat. Hectare by hectare, our forests are being destroyed by logging. And it is all completely unnecessary. There is no strong case to continue logging and woodchipping our native forests—economically, socially or scientifically.

This Saturday is United Nations' International Day of Forests. It is a day to recognise the value of forests, which are home to more than 80 per cent of land animals, plants and insects, and provide shelter, jobs and security for around 1.6 billion people. It is the perfect moment to learn about the benefits we all rely upon from our native forests, to acknowledge that the way that we have been managing them has failed both local industries and local communities and to re-evaluate our practices, based on the most up-to-date scientific evidence.

The big business agenda we have come to expect from Tony Abbott and coalition governments around the country is killing—