John Watson (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A surprising comment came from a Tasmanian Labor senator when he recently said, ‘Timber workers must not be used as election bait by the Liberal Party at the upcoming election.’ Had the senator substituted the word ‘Greens’ or even ‘the ALP’, the senator would have been 100 per cent correct. Since I have been around for a while, I wondered at what point since the 1980s the Labor Party had taken forestry off the hook as election bait and, of course, why timber workers’ hopes have not been realised. The Labor Party’s memory seems to stretch back only as far as their last national conference. They neglect to remember turning their backs on forestry workers at the last election, while they happily fished for big-city votes on the mainland.

Federal Labor’s new forestry policy, which was adopted at the Labor Party’s national conference in May this year, shows that Labor will again go fishing for mainland Green preferences. If Labor does not intend to lock up more forests, then why did they ratify a policy at the national conference which said that they might? Why have they kept their options open again, like they did in 2004? The problem with bringing back the policy of Mark Latham was not lost recently on Labor member for Franklin, Harry Quick. When asked on ABC radio in May this year, Mr Quick highlighted the difficulty with Labor’s inability to be consistent and stick to a position on forestry. He agreed forestry would be an issue at the 2007 federal election, particularly for the seats of Bass and Braddon. He said: ‘It’s a perennial problem that comes and bites us again. You know, we’ve got a name for every bloody tree in Tasmania, I think. We’ve looked at them that often. I just wish it’d go away and we could get on to some serious issues.’ That is exactly the problem: why can’t Labor make a principled decision and stick to it? Labor cannot stick to the very people that it purports to represent.

Of course, there is a great gap in this polarised debate between ordinary Tasmanians, timber workers and environmentalists, who pick fights with machinery and forestry corporations listed on the Australian Stock Exchange. I am concerned that Tasmanians who work in the forestry industry should not be subjected to open-ended criticism and abuse for cutting down trees, planting trees and imagining a future in which a timber industry continues to exist. It should be an anathema for a person concerned about the environment to damn the careful management and selective use of a renewable resource. Let me say, after something like 28 years of representing the people of Tasmania, we have really grown weary and fatigued by this debate and its increasing permutations. Tasmania’s $1 billion forest products industry is the state’s second largest employer.

We have a strategic plan with a five-year review mechanism: the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement, the RFA. A decision to adopt it was made by the Commonwealth and the Tasmanian state government in November 1997 following public consultations. The agreement, of course, covers the whole state. It laid the foundation for the creation of 550 jobs in plantations, intensive forest management and infrastructure development, and was accompanied by a Commonwealth funding package of $110 million to help develop exports and value-adding. Initially the RFA received the support of both the Liberal Party and the ALP at both state and federal levels, as well as across the broad community. The RFA provides the national criteria for the conservation of forest biodiversity, old-growth forests and wilderness. These criteria form the foundation for conserving all elements of biodiversity, old-growth forests and wilderness. The RFA increased the existing conservation reserve system by almost one-fifth. It brought the total reserve system to 2.7 million hectares, nearly half of Tasmania’s land area. As a result, more than two-thirds of the state’s public land is in reserves. The RFA established a program to protect conservation values on private land. So the RFA is both a compromise and a solution to complex and competing claims. No one group got their way or walked off in triumph. That is the nature of compromise.

As Mr Barry Chipman, the Tasmanian coordinator of Timber Communities Australia, said:

Compromise is important in achieving win-win outcomes on difficult land use questions. The key to an achievable outcome is the willingness of all parties to resolve the problem.

So it is disappointing that the 20-year-old fight over Tasmania’s old-growth forests is still not perceived as resolved. Governments, the majority of Tasmanian electors and industry have already reached compromises several times over, but the Greens and environmental groups consistently reject them, while Labor embraces the RFA only when it is convenient. Ironically, the foreword in the JANIS report, which was written a decade ago, begins:

For over two decades in Australia the competing demands of conservation and industry on our forests have been an area of debate and controversy. The National Forest Policy ... agreed by the Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments, provides the framework for a long term solution ...

Fifteen years ago the goals were the same. Labor says they represent the interests of timber workers, but come election time there is not even a faint echo of those voices in the Huon Valley, Geeveston, Triabunna or Scottsdale.

Tasmanian political history is littered with forest compromises. No less than 25 inquiries have been held since 1971. Not one found the Tasmanian forestry industry unsustainable. All of these policy debates, consultations, studies, analyses, agreements and compromises have led to the conservation of significant areas that were previously available for forestry. As difficult as these changes were to communities reliant on timber, they nevertheless accepted the outcomes. Each time they were told that the agreement represented the ‘final lines on the map’. It is not hard to imagine their exasperation. People who work in forestry have had the goodwill to accept the RFA and all other forestry land use compromises. The challenge is for the Tasmanian environment movement to do the same, and for those who live in inner city Melbourne and Sydney to respect the right of Tasmanians to manage and make decisions about Tasmania and its forests. Tasmanians are the custodians of these forests and they are very good at it. Tasmanians consider the interests of their children, grandchildren and future generations. We are surrounded by the beauty of our forests and value the wealth this renewable resource brings our economy.

The Howard government remains committed to developing Australia’s timber resources and generating economic wealth and jobs in a very sustainable way. The forestry industry employs about 83,000 Australians, mostly in rural and regional areas. The coalition showed in the 2004 election that it is a strong friend of Australia’s timber workers, not the ‘fair-weather’ variety. In no government that John Howard leads, or where Michael Ferguson or Mark Baker voice the interests of northern Tasmania, will ideology or short-term political expediency be put ahead of the job security and welfare of timber workers and their families. It is time to give this debate a rest.