Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I'll take that injection by Senator Colbeck. It is absolutely true that those forests will be clear-felled.

Senator Colbeck interjecting—

I was there last month, Senator Colbeck. I've seen the devastation that the logging industry has wreaked on coupes very close to the ones where those people were arrested, and I tell you now: the logging industry will clear-fell those forests.

In doing so, they will release massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and will destroy habitat for some of the most beautiful creatures in Australia, including numerous listed threatened species, such as the Tasmanian devil, which I actually nominated back in the day onto the Tasmanian and federal threatened species register.

I thank those brave forest protesters not only for standing up for our old forests and for standing up for the carbon that is sequestered in those forests but also for standing up for the habitat and for beautiful creatures, many of which are unique to our country and exist nowhere else in the world, and who rely on those forests for their very survival. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.