Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

The proponents of the legislation we are dealing with here seem to have a bet each way when it comes this legislation. They say it's terrible and it's bad and it's written by these awful people in Labor, but they're backing it; they're signing up to it. Have your cake and eat it too, Australian Greens! That's exactly what's going on here.

I will say that I understand that the amendments before the chair are identical to the government's amendments relating to unacceptable impact. Hopefully, the government will support these amendments when they're moved. I want to reflect more generally on the debate before—

No? We'll talk about it later, I'm sure, Minister. I have to commend the minister for being able to pull off this deal. It was masterful. I don't like it. I think it's terrible. I think it's dirty. I think it's dodgy. But you did a great job of getting this mob down here, the Australian Greens, to again name a price they were willing to pay. Of course it's the shutdown of the native forest industry. The workers out there are screaming into the phones now on radio stations across the country, and they're providing comments to journalists in print and the TV newsrooms. They are wondering how a Labor government that once used to stand for the worker has today said that they will sign the death warrant of the native forest logging industry.

The Prime Minister, ahead of the 2022 election, wrote a letter to Tasmanian forest workers committing that he would never do this. He reiterated that commitment in 2025, saying he would never do this. Guess what, he's gone and done it now. There's a bit of a concern now in Tasmania; I think there's a missing person report for the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Ms Collins, who's nowhere to be seen on this issue. Has she popped up to justify what the government have done? Has she popped up to defend this dirty, dodgy deal with the Greens?

The Greens are celebrating. I heard Senator McKim on the radio just before I went on, and I gave Senator McKim credit for consistency. The Greens have always been consistently against native forest logging. The only ones who've been inconsistent here are the government. They're the ones who've changed their position today by supporting this arrangement that the Greens put to them. I did commend Senator McKim and the rest of the Australian Greens for at least being consistently against this industry for its entire existence. They've never once changed their position, but the government now have.

As I said before, at the last two elections—in which promises were made around reduced power prices, and those promises were broken—promises were made to the native forest industry and its workers around their industry being protected, particularly in Tasmania, but they are going to see this unacceptable impact of shutdown. I would be interested to know what detail is out there on this $300 million—I think the government is calling it a growth fund, which I find rather odd, given you can't grow an industry that you're shutting down. The words are interesting, and it's kind of cute, but there are hardworking men and women out there who are now very, very concerned about their futures because of this deal done at the eleventh hour, as we prepare to rise for the year, by the Labor Party, who once used to stand proudly for the forest workers of this country but have now sold them out to the Australian Greens.

We heard Senator Faruqi before celebrating how the handbrake is going to be put on this industry and how there is now a spanner in the works. They were the senator's words, I believe. She nods in agreement. That is something the Greens are celebrating, so the government cannot get away from this fact. As I said earlier today, the Greens would not have signed up to this deal if it didn't mean we were going to kill that industry by a thousand cuts.