Senator BROWN (7:40 PM) —If only the parliament as a whole had the social conscience and awareness of Senator Lundy, I think we would have a far better outcome for the nation. I draw to the Senate's attention some reaction to the lovely little book which I distributed in the Senate a week or two ago called Forest-Friendly Building Timbers . You will remember that this was a booklet which explains to people how they can build their houses, put up a picket fence, fix the chook house and do any number of things through buying timbers which come from plantations and not from our native forests. This book was produced by Earth Garden Books, a little ethical production group in Victoria. It has been endorsed by, and is being distributed through, BBC Hardware—and that is a feather in their hat—a chain selling wood right around this country.

Today, however, the empire has fought back. The woodchip corporations, no doubt through the National Association of Forest Industries, a multimillion dollar funded industry lobby group, have issued a letter to the producers of the booklet and—after a two-page dissertation from their lawyers—have demanded that the book be withdrawn from circulation; if not, they are threatening to seek an injunction from the Federal Court tomorrow. This is so typical of the big woodchip corporations in this country. They are in the business of slapsuits so that they silence legitimate debate in this country about an issue which is before this parliament at the moment.

The letter that is sent on behalf of the National Association of Forest Industries claims there are inflammatory comments in the booklet but is itself full of inflammatory comments. It comprehensively fails to come up with any fact in the book which is wrong. The closest it gets—because this is the only place it uses figures—is in its claim No. 3 where it says that the book says on page 10:

. . . that less than 18% of native timber logging of an old growth coupe in East Gippsland ends up at the sawmill.

NAFI says:

In fact, currently two thirds of the logs harvested in East Gippsland end up at sawmills.

So they confuse deliberately what is happening in one coupe and a claim made about that with what is happening across a broadacre area of country.

It is typical of this big cartel, which is smashing down our forests and making billions of dollars at it, to come back with this sort of reaction to stifle comment and debate in this country. It is a dreadful reaction, and I only hope that the producers of the booklet and those who are being threatened by this untoward action stand their ground. If there is anybody listening to this who wants to get a copy of the book, they need only ring my office and I will do my best to see that they get one as part of the dissemination of legitimate information in the debate leading up to the Regional Forest Agreement legislation, which is before the Senate.

I will not be taking legal action against a source of information which is before the Senate and which is wrong. It comes from the forest industries and it misleads senators trying to work out what to do about the Regional Forest Agreement legislation, which I maintain should be thrown out. Earlier this month, all senators were approached through the mail by the Deputy Premier of Tasmania, Paul Lennon. He forwarded to them a document from Forestry Tasmania—the former Forestry Commission of Tasmania—in which a series of claims were made about facts and figures on national forest issues. It was in reaction to what Deputy Premier Lennon says was the recent inquiry into the Regional Forest Agreement. He is referring there to the Senate inquiry, which he appeared before. It turns out that the document he supplied to senators is riddled with factual errors.

We are not talking about opinions here; we are talking about real errors. For example, on the page dealing with imports and exports, and this is the major issue in the document, the claim is made by Forestry Tasmania and the Deputy Premier that the imports of broadleaved or hardwood sawn timbers is 195,600 cubic metres. In fact, it is 59,000 cubic metres, an error of 300 per cent. The value claimed in this document—I ask senators to keep this in mind because the document will be in your offices—of the imports of broadleaved or hardwood sawn timbers for 1997-98 is $1.405 billion. In fact, it is $51 million. That is an error of many hundreds of per cent. The document says that the value of exports is $275.3 million but in fact it is $15 million. The volume of exports, as stated in this document from the Deputy Premier and Forestry Tasmania, is 10,400 cubic metres. In fact, it is 17,240 cubic metres. The mistakes go on and on.

This document repeatedly refers to the figures as if they encompass hardwood logging—that is, logging of old-growth forests—but in fact they include plantations. The document is loaded to give figures which would impress the reader with the need for cutting into native forests as against plantations when in fact they are loaded in the opposite direction when it comes to figures dealing with softwood plantations in Tasmania. We get to the point at the back of the document where it claims that 120 jobs have been created since the Regional Forest Agreement in Tasmania. What it fails to say is that 240 jobs have been lost—shed out of the industry. So twice as many jobs have been lost as this document claims have been created. It is a misleading, disreputable and fault-filled document.

Senator Abetz interjecting—

Senator BROWN —You do not have to take my word on that, Senator Abetz—objecting from opposite.

Senator Abetz —I never would.

Senator BROWN —In the parliament the Deputy Premier of Tasmania was challenged by my colleague the Green MP, member for Denison, Peg Putt. Last Thursday in the Tasmanian parliament, the Deputy Premier had to get to his feet and agree that there were errors in this document. His final paragraph says:

I will just read the figures into the Hansard . . .

That is the figures correcting his errors. He then goes through a list of figures, many of which I have just given to the Senate. At the end he says:

So, I apologise to the House.

Forestry Tasmania, in writing to the Deputy Premier, begins its letter:

I regret to inform you there is an error in the information provided to you . . .

And so on. Those misleading figures were given to every member of this Senate. In the parliament, under questioning by the Greens, the Deputy Premier of Tasmania had to apologise and withdraw the figures, which are wrong. But has any senator received that apology from the Deputy Premier of Tasmania or Forestry Tasmania? Has there been any move to correct the misleading information sent to every office in this Senate? The fact is there has not been any such move. The Deputy Premier of Tasmania is knowingly leaving the incorrect facts with the senators whom he has lobbied in this place. I ask: what level of behaviour is that? This is a studied effort to mislead senators as they make up their minds about important legislation before this place. It will be left to me to write to senators to correct the record.