Senator Brown asked the Minister representing the Minister for Forestry and Conservation, upon notice, on 5 March 1999:

(1) What is the total number of people employed in Australia's wood products and paper industries?

(2) (a) of these how many are employed in industries based on native forest wood, plantation wood and imported wood, Australia-wide and state

by state; and (b) what are the volumes of wood cut in each category to which the employment figures relate?

Senator Hill (Environment and Heritage) —The Minister for Forestry and Conservation has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question:

(1) Australia's State of the Forest Report 1998 produced by Bureau of Rural Sciences estimated that 84 200 people were employed in 1995 (see Table 1).

(2) (a) Employment associated with the native forests, plantation and imported wood component of the industry is not recorded separately.

(b) The number of people employed that relates directly to the volumes of wood cut by category is not available. However, ABARE has produced data on major forest products for 1996-97 and 1997-98 (see Table 2).

Table 1: Direct employment in the forest sector (in thousand)

Source: Bureau of Rural Sciences, Australia's State of the Forests Report, 1998.

Table 2: Australian production of wood and paper products manufacturing