Mr McARTHUR —I wish to refute the wild and unfounded claims of the Otways Ranges Environment Network about the harvesting of timber in the Barwon Water Otways region. The OREN are claiming that the harvesting of timber will have a detrimental effect on the collection of water by Barwon Water for the Geelong region. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Barwon Water Authority works with a very stringent forest code and obviously the drought over the last two years has been the major feature of the reduction of water into the catchment in the Otways.

When things get difficult for the OREN people, they immediately shift the argument away from the scientific basis of the RFA. The government is committed totally to the sustainable and balanced RFA in the Otways and will not accept the questionable arguments of the OREN group who have no scientific evidence to back up their claims that the water quality of the Barwon Water catchment is affected by logging operations.