Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation, Senator Abetz. Will the minister please outline to the Senate the Howard government’s approach to balancing forestry jobs and conservation in Tasmania? Further, is the minister aware of any alternative policies in this area, which is of critical concern to Tasmanian workers and their families?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Parry for his question and note his longstanding interest in supporting a sensible balance between jobs and conservation in Tasmania. I can say to Senator Parry that I am aware of an alternative policy to the Howard government’s very balanced approach in this area. The policy announced by the Tasmanian Greens yesterday would be a disaster for Tasmania’s sustainable forest practices and for Tasmanian forest workers, their families and their communities. The simple fact is, according to their own policy, the Greens want to lock up more forest in Tasmania, preventing it from being sustainably harvested or, indeed, used for tourism. This is despite the fact that after the Howard government’s Community Forest Agreement over 40 per cent of Tasmania forests are now unavailable for logging and an astonishingly high figure of 100 million trees are protected. But, of course, for the Greens that is not enough. They always want more, even if it costs sustainable forestry and tourism jobs in Tasmania and even if it means sourcing our timber from the unregulated forests of South-East Asia and South America.

With this new policy, the Greens have once again moved the goalposts. First, it was old-growth forests. Then it was native forest. Now we even have the prospect of regrowth forest not being available for harvest. Despite all their pretences of supporting tourism jobs in Tasmania’s forests, the Greens simply want to lock the forests up totally and utterly. To the extreme Greens, trees really do come before humans and their sustainable jobs—even tourism jobs.

The scary thing is that it is entirely possible that in just a few weeks the Greens may be in a position to implement this job-destroying policy in an accord with the Tasmanian Labor Party. That would see the productive and renewable forests, such as the Weld, Blue Tier and Wielangta, being completely shut down. Jobs will be clear-felled and confidence in the Tasmanian economy will be severely damaged all because the Lennon Labor government is so desperate to hang on to power. They have already bankrolled the Greens over Recherche Bay and refused to rule out a minority government with them. Less than a year ago the Tasmanian resources minister had this to say about Recherche Bay:

The Tasmanian Government has achieved the appropriate balance between protecting cultural heritage values and allowing the land owners access to and use of the land.

I agree. What has changed since April last year? Nothing, other than the grubby attempt by Paul Lennon to hang on to power with a Greens-Labor accord. My message to the Tasmanian forest workers and tourism operators who rely on the forest industry is very simple and straightforward: as with the last federal election, only the Liberals can be trusted to protect their sustainable jobs and their communities.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sterle interjecting—

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Sterle, your colleague is on his feet.