The Australian Senate voted against a Bill proposed by the Greens to end native forest logging federally. By reading the Hansard speeches, it seems that native forest logging is still on the agenda for the Australian Labor Party government, but, like their NSW state counterparts, they will include a transition for forestry workers to plantation timber in their new laws.
The Greens’ Ending Native Forest Logging 2023 Bill sought to repeal the Regional Forest Agreements Act 2002 and to amend the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 to subject logging to the same environmental standards as all other industries, forcing loggers to apply under the EPBC Act.
Labor Environment Action Network (LEAN) has a proposed National Forest Protection and Workforce Plan for Australia which is up for discussion at the ALP National Conference in August, 2023.
The ALP view on native timber logging:
From Hansard:
Senator Linda WHITE (ALP, Victoria) Thursday 15 June 2023: The government does not support this bill, the Ending Native Forest Logging Bill 2023.
Unfortunately, it’s another political stunt by the Greens political party that shows, again, they are far from understanding the considerations necessary for being a responsible government for Australia.
It’s another example of their endless addiction to putting social media clicks ahead of consultation, consideration and meaningful environmental reform that responsibly balances community and environmental impact.
The bill just ignores a whole lot of real-world factors and considerations that a government would ignore at its own peril, if we supported this bill.
This government is anchored in the real world, so that’s what we are doing with our environmental reform agenda because that is the strategy we took to the last election and that is the mandate the government has when it comes to environmental protection.
Professor Graeme Samuel’s 2019 review into the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act showed us the EPBC Act is outdated and requires fundamental reform: Australians do not trust that the EPBC Act is delivering for the environment, for business or for the community.
I take that to mean our current framework isn’t getting the balance right between nature and the environment, and the industries and communities that rely on the longevity and sustainability of our environmental and natural world for their economic prosperity.
That’s why the government released the Samuel review into our environmental protection framework and responded to it with the government’s Nature Positive Plan.
These actions show you that Minister Plibersek is committed to rewriting environmental laws to better protect the environment and also to giving certainty to communities and the industry.
What that does not mean is that the government is going to steamroll into communities, as the Greens and this bill would have us do, and start dictating to them exactly what they should think and do. It might come as a surprise to the Greens, but government doesn’t work that well that way.
You have to consult with people, you have to bring people with you and you have to explain change in a way that people hear you, and you have to persuade them. That’s not what this bill does.
The bill fails to acknowledge the native forest industry requires careful consideration and consultation. It’s an industry managed across various Australian jurisdictions.
It has impacts on workers and communities, and so requires a more thoughtful approach than this bill proposes—which is not what the Greens are proposing here. But I suppose there are no surprises there; consultation is not the Greens’ political style.
This bill doesn’t adequately acknowledge that this very issue is already being addressed by the government.
Part of the Nature Positive Plan released by Minister Plibersek is a commitment to getting everyone on board the national environmental standards to existing regional forest agreements.
As they currently stand, regional forest agreements exist as long-term agreements with four states and set out requirements for sustainability and conservation of native forests.
There are 10 agreements in total in commercial and native forest regions—five in Victoria, three in New South Wales and one each in Western Australia and Tasmania. Many of these agreements have been in place since around the year 2000.
When they were implemented, they ended a history of dispute over forest use and were underpinned by the principle that Australia’s forests should be managed for everyone.
Back then the Commonwealth’s role was to coordinate a national approach to integrating environmental, social and commercial interests in native forests.
It did not happen overnight; there was widespread consultation to identify government obligations, regional objectives and interests, and broad forest uses as well as the nature and scope of the forest assessment.
The process also included areas of forests that needed protection and which parts could be used for commercial purposes.
The assessments also determined what the forests meant to the industries and the people in each region, including Indigenous Australians.
This is a process of government and it’s what managing complex issues and balancing interests looks like.
It isn’t particularly sexy; it can be laborious. But it is necessary to getting a sustainable long-lasting result.
This approach to government seeks to bring people along with you, which is not something I would expect the Greens to understand, especially given they have never actually been in government.
Instead, the Greens are seeking to throw away those useful and productive agreements and flatten the whole process to suit their agenda.
As usual, the Greens are ignoring everyone who doesn’t 100 per cent agree with them.
That consultative and coordinated roll that the Commonwealth played in establishing those original agreements has not changed, and that is a good thing because that is what the Commonwealth should do.
However, the time has come to revisit those agreements and make sure they are updated and fit for purpose in contemporary Australia, which is what Labor is doing.
This is especially important after 10 years of neglect from successive coalition governments that not only ignored Australia’s environment but also treated our natural world with outward contempt.
Currently, the government is consulting with industry, regional communities and those states that have regional forestry agreements about updating and applying new environmental standards to those agreements.
These environmental standards will be stronger and better reflect the changes in the forest industry and environment protection practices.
We are doing that consultation work with the flaws of the environmental protection framework at the forefront of minds and with a keen awareness that, in fact, a sustainable renewable forest industry also acts as a net carbon sink for Australia.
Native forests are valuable stores of carbon. In 2020 alone they sequestered 39 million tons of carbon dioxide— that’s not a small amount at all.
It is also worth pointing out that Australia’s forestry product industry underpins the economic prosperity of many regional communities.
The sector contributes nearly $24 billion to the national economy per year. Forestry jobs are also good jobs if the industry is managed properly and constructively, and they are sustainable in the long term.
Currently, about 51,000 people are directly employed in the industry. Beyond the economic interests of regional communities, and like many primary and agricultural industries, forestry also underpins the social networks and fabric of many regional towns and communities. I’ve seen this myself when travelling around Australia as part of the Senate committee on rural and regional affairs and transport.
I don’t profess to be an expert on agricultural industry policy, but anyone who has spent five minutes in regional areas that rely on agriculture or primary industry realises how important these things are to local identity and as a source of pride as well as a source of jobs and incomes.
That is something I often think the Greens party ignore or forget. They come into the Senate and try to pull off these political stunts by putting up something extreme.
They are neglecting the fact that there are families that they haven’t spared a thought for that would have been directly impacted by this legislation.
I want to confront the allegation that Labor’s been missing in action on the environment. That is just not correct.
I want to put some facts on the record that point out the government’s record on the environment and its reform agenda. As I alluded to earlier, after a decade of nature neglect by the Liberals and Nationals, Labor is now doing something on reforming our environmental protection laws.
Even when they received reports showing Australia’s natural environment was in trouble and that environment protection laws needed reform, not only did they do nothing about it they didn’t even release the report to the public.
In contrast, the Australian government under Labor has committed $1.8 billion in the most recent budget to protect the Barrier Reef, to protect native species, to clean up waterways, to fund the Environmental Defenders Office and employ a thousand new Landcare rangers.
Something that has also become very close to my heart in the environment portfolio is the ongoing campaign to protect the unique biodiversity of Macquarie Island, which sits far south of the mainland—halfway between Tasmania and Antarctica. This rocky outcrop is an incredibly diverse and interesting place, home to 13 different species of seabird as well as fur seals and elephant seals.
The Albanese government wants to make sure Macquarie Island, along with all of its unique inhabitants, is protected and preserved for the future. That is why Macquarie Island Marine Park will triple in size, adding an extra 385,000 square kilometres to the high-protection area. This is an area the size of Germany.
The Albanese government is acting on the environment, just like Labor governments before it. We are making substantial changes and improvements not for social media likes, retweets or shares but for long-lasting changes for the better of the environment.
Again, the government will not be supporting this bill.
See also: Ending Native Forest Logging Bill 2023, Hansard speeches
1. A National Forest Protection & Workforce Plan for Australia
2. NSW Nationals motion on the Forestry Industry, 31 May 2023
3. Legal challenge to New South Wales Regional Forest Agreement (RFA)
4. Native forest protections are flawed, logging laws value industry over environmental protection
Greens response to the vote:
Senator Janet Rice responded on Twitter after the Bill was voted down:
BREAKING: Labor sided with the Liberals to vote down the Greens’ bill to end native forest logging, ignoring state Labor governments, their constituents, scientists, and the vast majority of Australians who want our environment protected for future generations.
When we are in the midst of a global extinction and climate crisis, there’s no excuse for Australia to continue this environmental vandalism.
Only a total ban on native forest logging will protect our precious native forests and the wildlife that call our forests home.
If Labor had supported the Greens bill, we could have closed the loopholes used by the logging industry to circumvent our national environment laws and immediately ended all native forest logging across the country.
The Regional Forest Agreements have allowed for decades of reckless destruction of native forests across Australia, pushed native wildlife to the brink of extinction, endangered our water supplies, heightened bushfire risk and made the climate crisis worse. They must be scrapped.
The Greens will keep fighting for our climate, and are willing to work with Labor to fix our broken national environment laws, ensure a just transition for forestry workers, and protect what remains of our precious native forests.
All Labor need to do is come to the table.
Thanks to @SenatorThorpe and @DavidPocock for their continued efforts in fighting to protect native forests.
The Greens proposed Bill to end native forest logging:
During the second reading the proposed Ending Native Forest Logging 2023 Bill in the Senate, Senator Janet Rice made the case for the Bill:
Senator Janet RICE (Greens, Victoria) 9 May 2023:
The Ending Native Forest Logging Bill 2023 seeks to end the destructive logging of Australia’s incredibly valuable native forests. It repeals the Act which enables logging, and which has provided an exemption from our environmental protections for far too long.
The Commonwealth Government has a fundamental responsibility to protect our environment. That’s reflected in international commitments that the Australian government has made on the international stage, and that have been enacted through the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
Despite those requirements in legislation, there is a loophole that entire truckloads of logs are being driven through. That loophole is contained in the Regional Forest Agreements Act 2002.
For far too long, these regional forest agreements, or RFAs, established between the federal and state governments, have exempted native forest logging from the environmental protections we have in place. These agreements cover significant parts of Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia, and New South Wales.
RFAs were allegedly intended to protect complex ecosystems, and ensure threatened species were protected, as well as provide sustainable timber supply, and protect jobs. In their 2020 report, Creating Jobs, Protecting Forests? The Wilderness Society concluded that RFAs have failed on every front.
A crucial issue is that forests form part of the traditional lands of First Nations peoples around Australia. They are crucial habitat for their totem species. When governments heedlessly damage native forests through destructive logging, we are threatening generations of First People’s heritage.
In addition, native forests form a critical habitat for precious wildlife, many of which are threatened or endangered. Sadly, as well as the climate crisis, Australia is facing a biodiversity crisis. More than 1,800 plant and animal species, and ecological communities, are at risk of extinction. No other country has seen more mammals go extinct in the last two hundred years than Australia. The koala, Swift Parrot, and Tasmanian devil are just some of the species at risk because of loss of their forest habitat, including from logging. I want to particularly mention the Greater Glider and Wollert/ Leadbeater’s Possum, both of which have been threatened by logging in my home state of Victoria. Every time we clearfell an area of mature intact forest we are destroying the homes of these endangered species.
Forests also have incredible benefits for our water supply. In Melbourne, we are lucky enough to have some of the highest quality drinking water in the world. A key reason for this is the beautiful Mountain Ash forests of Victoria’s Highlands. It is through these trees’ roots, branches, soil and surrounding ecosystems that Melbourne’s largest water supply catchment is filtered naturally.
Any disturbance to these forests has detrimental impacts on the unmatched quality of the city’s water supply. Without this forest, our water would require intensive, man-made filtering. Logging also impacts on the quantity of water available. A young regrowth forest soaks up considerably more water than a mature forest, reducing streamflows and availability of water for human use. Despite how significant Victoria’s Mountain Ash forests are, a report by the ABC last December exposed the widespread illegal logging of hundreds of hectares of Mountain Ash forests by the Victorian Government-owned logging agency, VicForests.
In their report, the ABC found documents that suggested the Office of the Conservation Regulator, the body tasked with enforcing state logging law and monitoring VicForests, was alerted to the agency’s illegal activity but failed to “properly investigate”. Even after admission by VicForests in 2019 that they have been illegally logging protected areas, the regulator found the allegations of widespread illegal logging “could not be substantiated.”
As well as being essential for wildlife, and their benefits for water, our native forests have massive carbon benefits. We know from research by environmental scientists that native forest logging results in increased carbon pollution, at a time when we need to be doing everything we can to combat the climate crisis. Research has found that logging of Tasmania’s native forests emits almost five tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, including both short and long term emissions. In NSW that figure is almost four tonnes per year; and in Victoria it is more than three tonnes per year. It is unbelievable that in the midst of a climate crisis, we are subsidising environmental destruction that is worsening the climate crisis. It must end now.
Logging and destruction of our forests also increases our fire risk. Despite the hysteria and attempts to deflect from the climate crisis by the Murdoch media, there is clear evidence that logging increases the risks we face. An expert review by Griffith University found that “Logging can make native forests more flammable and lead to greater fire severity for decades, while ‘mechanical thinning’ can also increase fire risk.” That review found that “Native forest logging increases the severity at which forests burn, beginning roughly 10 years after logging and continuing at elevated levels for another 30+ years … The likelihood of “crown burn” (when the forest canopy is burned) is about 10% in old growth forest versus 70% in forest logged 15 years ago.” This is a disastrous situation in the context of increasing fire risk to forests due to global heating.
We also know that when we preserve and protect our forests, there are benefits across our communities, including through tourism and recreation. A key part of Australia’s appeal on the international tourism market is our reputation as a place where visitors can visit and be inspired by unique ecosystems and see incredible wildlife unlike anywhere else in the world. Logging native forests is not only destroying precious forest, but undermining future jobs that could last for lifetimes. Ecotourism is a growing sector, and we know that jobs in tourism can be an important sustainable way to support regional communities, and can help people connect with nature, and understand how precious our forests are.
The federal Labor party, since taking government, has comprehensively failed to address this multi-faceted crisis. There are vague statements about the need to protect our precious forests; but there is no action. The federal government has failed to act when the courts found that the Victorian government was failing to uphold its commitments under the Regional Forest Agreements. Government should act, but it has failed to.
Native forest logging has had its day. It is destroying our environment. This bill would end the destruction. It would close the RFA loophole, so that the limited environmental protections we have in place would genuinely apply to forests, offering some level of protection that’s greater than what we face now.
We can act, we can create change and protect our forests.
I commend this bill to the Senate.
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