Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

My question is: how do you intend to manage the standing provisions within the act, which I know the Samuel review indicated should be expanded, which is of concern? As I indicated in my previous contribution, we already know that environmental groups don't always tell the truth. I go back to 1981, when the Wilderness Society were opposing the construction of coal-fired power stations in Tasmania, rather than renewable energy, and there's the recent action where a court found that one of the environmental groups was actually fabricating evidence against a proposal so that legal action could delay or stop the proposal.

My genuine concern is that that process will return with the removal of the exemption and that the forest industry will be killed off by a thousand cuts through that process. You'll say that that wasn't your doing. My view is that the removal of the exemption is what does it. How do you intend to ensure that the industry isn't subjected to a continuous flow of legal actions, which will effectively make it very difficult if not impossible to operate?