Senator BROWN (10:24 AM) —I want to make it clear to the committee that I did not imply that Senator Hill, the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, is overseas trying to pull the rug from under a good outcome from the global warming conference. I said straight out that that is what he is doing. Let me explain that. Senator Hill and this government want to have plantations which have less than two per cent of the terrestrial carbon locked up in Australia counted as sinks. That is, when you put in plantations after you have knocked down giant forests and released huge amounts of carbon dioxide to worsen global warming in the country, you do not count that going into the atmosphere but you do count the little seedlings put in afterwards, which absorb a skerrick of carbon dioxide. It is a terribly dishonest approach to the environment, accounting for the little bit that is put in there as a replacement but not accounting for the massive release of greenhouse gases. It is an approach which is authorised by Prime Minister Howard through the regional forest agreements he has signed, which allow the destruction of Australia's grand forests by the woodchipping corporations.

Senator Campbell was talking about government members taking direct bribes from woodchipping corporations. I have to leave that to him; I have never implied any such thing. What I have said time and again in this place—and the record will show it—is that 80 per cent of Australians want the destruction of native forests stopped but 80 per cent and more of politicians—that is, the government and the Labor Party—want it to continue. In fact, it is increasing under the regional forest agreement legislation. Prime Minister Howard signed the agreements and then the big parties backed the legislation. The Labor Party fortuitously brought in amendments which have seen that legislation stall in the Senate; nevertheless, they backed the regional forest agreements. These are a prescription for the destruction of Australia's forests at the greatest rate in history. I repeat that 150,000 log trucks are carting away Tasmania's grand forests, rainforests, tall forests and the wildlife that goes with them, because it too dies. All of it is murdered by this process of cutting down the trees and firebombing the region. A firestorm follows as incendiaries are dropped and then 1080 poison is put into these ancient ecosystems to make way for the little seedlings of attenuated eucalypts or pines, which are put in afterwards and which Senator Hill is overseas arguing should be counted as a plus for Australia in terms of global warming: do not count the destruction of the forest but count the seedlings that go in afterwards.

All of this is authorised by the regional forest agreements against the wishes of the Australian people. How can it be that 80 per cent of Australians want that stopped but 80 per cent and more of politicians want it to accelerate? The only thing I can see that gives some sort of logic to this bizarre situation is the massive donations made by the woodchip corporations to the big parties. They are a matter of public record, and if Senator Campbell or anybody else wants to dispute them I suggest that he goes and looks at them. I am not going to reiterate how on at least one occasion those donations arrived on the same day that a previous Labor minister made a massively favourable decision against the public interest and in favour of the woodchippers. Three huge donations from three big woodchip corporations went into the coffers on that very same day. If there is some other explanation as to why the Labor Party or the coalition parties are so out of touch with the feelings of Australians as a whole about forests, let us hear it. But until we do get an alternative explanation, I believe that the influence of the woodchip corporations on the politicians who vote that way has to be taken as effective.

I want to come back to the amendments in hand and reiterate that all that these amendments do is ensure that at the federal government level there is a public environmental assessment to make sure that substantial renewable energy sources, which are favoured—they get government certificates which make them hot property on the electricity market—are actually ecologically sustainable. The government does not want to support these amendments and the Labor Party does not want to support these amendments because woodchipping, for example, is going to be one of the sources that gets accredited and gets this gold plated certificate on a market for what is called renewable energy—that is, it should be ecologically sustainable. But it is a cheat—it is not sustainable. It is a straight cheat. There ought to be an environmental impact statement, and I will tell you why there should be. There would have been one under the existing environmental legislation that we had in this nation until June of last year when the Democrats combined with the government to get rid of the legislation—which would have seen an environmental impact assessment in this situation—and to bring in the EPBC bill which said, no, leave it to the states. Senator Campbell is absolutely right, Mr Temporary Chairman: it was put back to the states.

Do you know what happens in Tasmania as far as this is concerned? The state will do an environmental assessment. Forestry Tasmania has employed a public relations company to hold public consultations. At the meetings that have been held so far, packing out halls in places like Huonville and Sandfly—and I hear that there is one coming up at Judbury this week—the opposition to this Southwood proposal to burn 300,000 tonnes of woodchips in a furnace, coming out of the tourism jobs sustainable forest of the Huon Valley, and to ship that across to Victoria through Basslink to be sold as green power is vociferous. People have been mobilised down there who have never been involved in any sort of activism or community campaign before in their lives. They see not only the wild forests but also the woodlands which are the backdrop to the beautiful Huon Valley being sent through these furnaces into an electricity market and sold as green power in a monumental deceit by the government, which comes through this legislation. As far as an environmental impact assessment in Tasmania is concerned, let me say first that the mayor of the local government down there has endorsed this process. There are local government elections coming up this month right around Tasmania, and one of the issues for the southern municipalities will be this travesty of the Southwood project.

But beyond that the Deputy Premier of Tasmania, Paul Lennon, was forced to announce this Southwood project when Tasmanian Greens MHA Peg Putt put it to him in the parliament a couple of weeks ago. It appeared from what happened in the parliament there that the Premier himself was not ready for the announcement. The Deputy Premier was, however, and swung into gear, but he has endorsed it. Effectively, what happens in Tasmania is that you do an environmental assessment and the minister overrides it, so you are left with no accountable situation at the state level. But what happened with the EPBC legislation last June, over 12 months ago, is that the government and Democrats said, `Let's leave it to the states when it comes to the destruction of these forests.' What I am trying to do through these amendments is to say, `You can't do that. This is nationally significant territory.' This is a federal matter; that is why we have got this legislation before us. If you are going to have large energy sources selling as green power onto the Australian market then let us have an environmental impact assessment at the federal level. Let us try and undo the damage that the EPBC legislation has done in terms of overriding public input.

This is an opportunity for the Democrats to make good the massive error they made last year when they allowed that legislation to be guillotined through this place. Senator Allison might like to put another point of view. I would welcome that, because I do not understand how the Democrats could have done that 12 months ago. Let me reiterate: under the existing environmental legislation, you would have to have a national environmental impact assessment here. But since the Democrats-Howard government environmental legislation went through in June 12 months ago you do not have to anymore. It is a massive step backwards as far as the environment is concerned, but it is also a removal of public input to what is a very important matter for a very environmentally aware Australian electorate. So these amendments, which need Labor Party support, simply say, `Let's bring the public back into this again.' They need Labor Party support, and I cannot understand why the Labor Party, which opposed the EPBC bill, will not support them. At least they try to make good some of the damage done by the passage of that legislation and try to restore some of the public right that is involved here. All they do is say, `Let's make sure that a form of power production is ecologically sustainable.'

Finally, let us go back to the Derby tidal power proposal in the Kimberley. All of us have seen pictures of the massive tides squeezing through those narrow, rocky gorges into the coastal inlets of north-west Western Australia. These tides are up to 10 metres in size. When the tide goes in and fills the basin and then drops, there is this phenomenal bottleneck event where you actually get a cascade created by the flow of the sea water back into the sea itself by this magnificent natural phenomenon. The tidal power scheme that is being proposed there would put a cement dam across that, and that would end this remarkable natural phenomenon for somebody to make money and sell green power. I do not accept that. If the government really believes it is ecologically sustainable, what does it have to lose by having an environmental impact assessment about which the public, and particularly local environmentalists concerned about this, can have some say? That is what these amendments do. They say, `Let's let the public have a say at the national level, as they would have been able to do up until 12 months ago when the legislation was changed.' It is rock bottom reasonable territory as far as the environment is concerned. Again, I commend these amendments very strongly to the chamber, and I am looking for support both from the Labor Party and from the Democrats to ensure that they stand.