Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation, Senator Eric Abetz, and it relates to the current bushfire season. Minister, what threats do bushfires pose to both atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and to water supplies? What actions can be taken to mitigate these threats?

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

I thank Senator Ronaldson for his question and note his interest, both in his capacity as a senator for Victoria and as a member of the Senate committee that looked into these matters. Bushfires are a fact of life in Australia and they pose a significant risk to life, to property and to livelihoods. But, as Senator Ronaldson has alluded to, they also pose a significant threat to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and to water supplies. Let us start with carbon dioxide emissions. Guess what the biggest single CO emission event in recent history in Australia was.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Milne interjecting—

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

Silly Senator Milne says ‘regeneration burns’. In fact, it was the massive 2002-03 bushfires of north-east Victoria and south-east New South Wales, which burned some three million hectares of forest, releasing 130 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That is around one-quarter of Australia’s annual carbon dioxide emissions emitted in just a few weeks. Funny, you never hear the Greens over there talking about that.

What about the impact of bushfires on water supplies? According to the Institute of Foresters, it is very significant. Those very same 2003 bushfires, which decimated the alpine catchments of the Murray River, mean reduced inflow to that river, as a result of regrowth forests, of 430 billion litres of water per year for the next 50 years. Let us put that into context. Campaigning for the disastrous Greens result at Saturday’s Victorian election, the Wilderness Society claimed that sustainable harvesting in the Thomson catchment would reduce inflow by 20 billion litres per year, something for which I note I have seen no evidence.

What I do know for sure, though, is that 40 per cent of Melbourne’s very same catchments are 1939 Black Friday bushfire regrowth, which continues to have a far greater effect on inflows to water storages than the minuscule amount of catchment harvesting. So how can we mitigate these threats? By actively and sustainably managing our forests, not by simply locking them up. By harvesting a mere 60,000 hectares, on average, of forest per year in Australia, not only do we supply a vital human resource; we also mitigate the burning of millions of hectares of forests by creating firebreaks, by building access roads and by reducing fuel loads. We create instead much smaller and localised impacts on water supplies and we reduce the risk of massive carbon dioxide emissions caused by widespread bushfires.

The simple fact is that forestry in this country is sustainable. It is good for the environment and it reduces bushfire risk. It is about time the Greens acknowledged this fact. As we approach this fire season, can I invite the Greens for once to dispense with their kooky, nut-bag policies, to adopt commonsense instead and to support sustainable forestry and thereby reduce the risk of catastrophic fires around the country.