Senator BROWN (6:55 PM) —In noting the Gippsland Regional Forest Agreement between the Commonwealth and the state of Victoria, the first thing I have to do is concede to the Labor Party that they were at the cutting edge of the regional forest agreement process—and how many thousands of hectares of Australia's forests have been cut since that process began? It is proceeding, of course, at the greatest rate in history but we have now had it overtaken by the Howard government, which has a reprehensible environmental record around the world.

Just two weeks ago I delivered to the German government pictures of the firebombing and destruction of Tasmania's forests, which goes on while this government is off to the next round of meetings on global warming, pretending it does not occur, discounting it but wanting to count the seedlings that it puts in the ground as an offset to industrial pollution. It is that sort of studied ignorance and deception which the Greens will never allow to go not commented upon. In commenting on this particular agreement between the logging industry and the other logging industry—that is, the Victorian government, the Bracks government, and the Howard government, and what unholy bedfellows they make when it comes to the destruction of forests—that $333 million of taxpayers' money has gone into propping up the logging industry through the regional forest agreement process. But, as far as the production of jobs is concerned, that has not happened. In the case of the Tasmanian agreement, since it was signed in 1998, instead of jobs being secured, some 800 people have been sacked from the industry. There has not been a comment by the Tasmanian Labor government or any process of redressing that, nor will there be anything similar from the Labor government in Victoria. They are co-villains in signing these regional forest agreements—against the wishes of 80 per cent of people in all the opinion polls—with the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr Howard, for the continued onslaught on native forests in places like East Gippsland. Everybody knows these days that it is not warranted, that there is a plantation establishment in Australia which already—

Senator McGauran —You are against plantations.

Senator Sherry —You don't support plantations. But you wanted plantations—that is the hypocrisy of it.

Senator BROWN —I will tell you why I do not support more plantations: we already have more than enough for this nation's needs. People on both sides of the house rip into me about this because they do not like the facts being placed before them. They will twist it, but here is a fact: there is a plantation establishment—and it has grown to maturity in Australia—which is meeting more than Australia's total wood needs. In fact, under these regional forest agreements, in the last 12 months 600,000 cubic metres of logs were exported overseas, largely to Korea, out of our plantations without downstream processing, without jobs, without the economic return that this country should have had for investment in those plantations, because the regional forest agreement process uses public money to subsidise the destruction of native forests against the wishes of the Australian people. It does that because the woodchip corporations, amongst other things, are such handy cheque writers for the coffers of the big political parties. So we have this extraordinary situation where 80 per cent of Australians want this destruction stopped because they know that it is unnecessary and that there are alternatives, but 80-plus per cent of the political establishment votes for it, like members of this chamber. There is a failure of democracy there simply because of the power of the woodchip corporations.

Senator Sherry —Rubbish!

Senator BROWN —Senator, you will have your opportunity to get up and defend that statement. You do not like it, but that is the fact; that is the political dynamic of what is happening here. This regional forest agreement sells out not only the people of Gippsland but the people of Victoria as a whole.