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

I rise not so much to give a second reading contribution as to make a few observations on the legislation broadly and how we find ourselves here this evening. I'm not going to indulge in a long, personal reflection here, but my journey into politics actually began in 1986, at a place called Farmhouse Creek in Tasmania, where I was arrested sitting in front of the bulldozers that were seeking to destroy beautiful old-growth and mixed temperate forest down there, with beautiful Eucalyptus regnans, the biggest flowering plant on the planet. I was arrested down there, and my mum famously told me that my life would now never amount to anything because I'd been arrested. Looking around me today, she probably had some kind of an argument about that.

The reason I mention that is that, as an activist, forest protection has been a core part of what's driven me into politics. Farmhouse Creek was where I first met Bob Brown, and I've done my best to fight for forests and to represent the need to protect our forest ecosystems for a large part of my life. That's why today I'm really happy that legislation will pass through this place that will end the outrageous carve-out from Australia's federal environment laws that has been enjoyed by the native forest logging industry for decades in this country. It never should have been carved out that logging done under a regional forestry agreement did not have to comply. It never should have been the case that logging conducted under an RFA did not have to comply with the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, and I acknowledge that in the review that Professor Samuel did, he recommended that that carve-out be removed, although it was recommended for the second tranche of reforms.

Removing that carve-out is a significant step towards protecting our forests and, in particular, protecting those parts of our forests that are home to threatened species like that beautiful little bird, the swift parrot, in Tasmania and have been logged towards extinction by the Tasmanian forestry industry for many decades now. I hope that that beautiful little bird—one of the fastest parrots in the world, one of the only migratory parrots in the world—is given a fighting chance of survival by the reforms that we are passing today. It's regrettable that the government wouldn't come at a transition period of shorter than 18 months, and, frankly, I don't understand why they couldn't because there was no administrative reason that the government could not have come at a shorter transition. I can only assume that it was a political decision rather than a policy decision which led the government to dig in so obstinately on an 18-month transition.

We've been waiting for more than two decades for this, in the environment movement and in the forest movement, and I believe that it's a significant win for our forests. I also believe it will hasten the long-overdue end to the native forest logging industry in Australia. Native forest logging is an industry whose time has come, and, in fact, it is well past time that we stopped destroying our native forests in this country. Since colonisation, this land has been subjected to a 'slash and burn' regime that has devastated its ecosystems, including its forest ecosystems. It's time for that devastation to end.

We are living through the breakdown of our planet's climate system. We are living through a biodiversity catastrophe. When you have climate breakdown—and it is at crisis levels—and when you have a collapse of biodiversity—and Australia is at the forefront of that on a planetary scale—there is simply no excuse for a public policy setting that continues to ensure that our native forests are clear felled, mostly for export woodchips, and then the remnants are napalmed and burnt, releasing massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. It's time for that archaic, barbaric slaughter of nature to end.

I want to say one thing to people that work in the native forest logging industry—and, by the way, the forestry industry more broadly loves to spout numbers about how many people work in the forestry industry. But those of us that have been watching this debate—I've been in politics now, in Tasmania, for 25 years or so, and I've been watching this debate very closely. Everybody knows the overwhelming majority of forestry jobs are actually in the plantation sector, not in the native forest logging sector. Here's a little statistic for those who are interested. There are more newsagents in Tasmania than there are people that work in the native forest logging industry. But I want to say this to people that work in the industry: it is absolutely not your fault that things need to change. When circumstances change, when climate change gets worse and when the biodiversity crisis gets worse then public policy has to change, and we absolutely have to look after impacted workers as we undergo the necessary transition out of logging native forests.

I want to say to the government, in relation to the fund that they've established: that fund should be a transition fund; it must be used to help transition people out of native forest logging into not only the plantation sector but also rewilding and environmental management. There are jobs-rich opportunities for people and communities in regional Tasmania, regional New South Wales and other parts of the country in industry sectors that are going to boom in coming generations. What this fund should not be used for is to pay out forest businesses that have, in many cases, already received multiple payouts to leave the industry, have then phoenixed themselves back into the industry and then received more payments to get back out of the industry again. I refer the minister to multiple Australian National Audit Office reports that have confirmed the massive rorts that have gone on in forest exit packages over decades in this country. I genuinely hope that the government ensures that those kinds of rorts—that kind of phoenixing back into the industry—do not occur in relation to this latest fund.

Work with communities. Work with affected workers and impacted workers. Help and support them to genuinely transition into sustainable jobs that are fit for purpose, that will be rewarding for the individuals and communities involved and that will actually contribute to repairing some of the terrible damage that the native forest logging industry has wrought on our ecosystems for far too long.

I want to offer some reflections about negotiations with the Labor Party. This is based on my experience through the safeguard mechanism negotiations and the negotiations around the bills that are currently before the Senate. Make no mistake: the Labor Party has a track record of destroying nature, of destroying our climate and of not giving a fig about protecting ecosystems. This is the minister who came in just after the last election—