Senator BARTLETT (10:03 AM) —I move:

This motion seeks to refer the Regional Forest Agreements Bill 2002 to the Rural and Regional Affairs Transport Committee for examination and report by 21 March, which is, off course, only two sitting weeks or not much over a month away. It is a very short time frame. Whilst I think the issues that are dealt with in the bill and the various issues that I have outlined in the terms of reference are very substantial and deserve longer examination, the reason I have given it a shorter reporting time frame than would otherwise be appropriate is to clearly demonstrate that this is not an attempt to try to prevent the bill ever coming on for debate. It is not an attempt to put it off into the never-never. It is a very tight time frame. To some extent, it is some recognition of the argument put forward by the government and the Labor Party that this bill has been around in various forms for three or four years and, therefore, there is no need to look at it again.

As I stated the other day, the bill may have been around for three or four years, but the issues that the bill affects have changed dramatically in that three- or four-year period. The Senate has not had adequate opportunity to examine those issues that have developed in that period. For example, when the bill first appeared back in 1998, I think it was, the Environment Protection Biodiversity and Conservation Act did not even exist. That act only came into force a little over 18 months ago. Senator O'Brien made the point the other day, and will no doubt make it again, concerning his extreme annoyance with the process of how the amendments to that bill went through. He has some credence to that annoyance. That again highlights the many ways that this bill will interact with other things that have developed and occurred since it first appeared and since it was given any decent examination by a Senate committee back in early 1999. The very truncated and rushed hearing, inquiry and report that occurred just before the election last year was really so cursory as to be barely worth giving much substance to.

The aspects that I have outlined that I think particularly need to be examined that have not been properly examined in the light of the current situation include the bill's interaction with our obligations under international agreements. I know this federal government has little regard for international agreements and has quite regularly, happily and deliberately breached any number of them in a range of human rights areas over recent times. Others of us in this chamber believe that we should ensure that we uphold our international obligations that we have signed up to. I would have thought the ALP would be amongst those who support us making sure that we do not pass legislation that contravenes commitments we have given under international obligations.

There is a very significant issue in relation to compensation. The compensation obligations are really at the heart of this bill. These have never been outlined. For a government that preach economic responsibility and sensible economic management, this is another area where they are basically pulling the wool over Australian people's eyes and telling us as many distortions as there have been about the refugee issue. For a government that pretend to be about sensible economic management, there has been no attempt to outline what the potential financial cost and compensation would be to the taxpayer or to the Commonwealth if the Commonwealth took action to prevent forestry or mining operations or other activities in regional forest agreement areas.

Let us not forget that many areas will be affected by this legislation. There is any likelihood of things developing over the course of the next decade that would bring information to light—whether on environmental or other grounds—that would strongly demonstrate a need to reduce or prevent forestry or mining operations. Yet, if that occurs, there will be no way of preventing that from incurring enormous financial cost to the taxpayer. Also, we have to ask whether it is appropriate to provide compensation to an industry whose activities are already heavily subsidised and which has no reverse obligation to compensate the Commonwealth or states for damage done to the environment, including water quantity and quality, soils, carbon banks, biodiversity, heritage and landscape.

In the area of climate change alone, to lock us into the risk of significant compensation for so many years at a time when the effects of climate change are only now really starting to be understood—and there is still so much research to be done about what the ongoing effects will be—is grossly irresponsible. The Senate has done a lot of work, the Senate environment committee in particular, into examining the greenhouse issue. The committee, chaired by my Democrat colleague Senator Lyn Allison, produced a comprehensive report—again, in most aspects, not all, supported by the ALP—outlining the complexity, the extent, the ongoing development and the dynamic nature of the greenhouse climate change issue. Yet this bill seems to try and act like it is in some sort of a vacuum that does not have to acknowledge or interact with that reality. This is particularly crucial when you look at the evidence that has come to light since it was last examined properly by the Senate. It is also particularly relevant given this government's ongoing commitment to—and, indeed, in most respects, the opposition's ongoing commitment to—the national competition policy.

A comprehensive report was brought down last year by Marsden Jacob Associates, consulting economists, in relation to national competition policy principles and the removal of unfair advantages. As a result of the legislation that went through this place— without Democrat support, I might add, but with the support of both the larger parties— there was the requirement that the unfair advantages that various forestry departments enjoyed over the private plantation sector in competing for timber and fibre markets be removed. This comprehensive report done by a reputable firm of economists clearly identifies that state forestry departments are continuing to undercut private plantations by subsidising the logging of native forests with taxpayers' money.

The report states that, in all states of Australia, timber from state-owned, established native forests competes with timber from plantations, but not on a level playing field. In all states the playing field is tilted against plantations and farm forestry and is in favour of exploitation of nature forests. It further states that the absence of a level playing field makes private investment in farm forestry and plantations less attractive: it distorts the allocation of wood sources within the forest sector, it encourages greater exploitation of the public native forests in each state, it undercuts competing uses of public native forests—that is, non-destructive uses—and it worsens the Australian environment and resource base.

This is a report, I remind the Senate, from a reputable firm of economists looking at the issue from the aspect of competition policy and unfair subsidies. It shows not only that we will be bleeding the taxpayer at federal level with no examination of how much that will be but also that it will be locking in an ongoing system of the taxpayer being bled at state level, paying for incentives for greater destruction of native forests. It is hard to think of a greater absurdity when we are talking more and more about the need to move to a triple bottom-line approach that looks at values not just economic but also social and environmental. This is one of those where it fails on all counts. To prevent the Senate from examining properly the validity of assertions such as those I have just made I think would be very negligent. This is not just a matter of saving trees because of some nice emotional attachment to them—not that there is anything wrong with doing that; this is a comprehensive matter of social and community impact, and of economic impact as well as environmental values.

There has been ongoing reduction in employment since RFAs have come in, despite their supposed aim, and this legislation needs to be examined for the adequacy of whether or not it ensures that workers' entitlements are protected. It might be fine for the woodchip company to get millions of dollars in compensation, but is there any surety that any workers who might lose their jobs would be able to partake in that compensation? We need to look at the current level of monitoring of RFAs. When the bill first came forward, obviously there was not the scope to be able to look at that. Now that we are in a place and at a time where we are looking at locking in this legislation for a significant period of time, we should not be doing so without being able to inform ourselves of what the current level of monitoring of RFAs is.

We also have to look at the current status of review of all the RFAs that have reached the five-year review period. How adequate is the current process? What is the current level of compliance of all aspects of RFAs? Significant amounts of evidence exist and more is coming forward all the time. This does not concern just environmentalists. The views of environmentalists are more and more being shared across a much broader spectrum. Whether you are in Tasmania, Victoria or New South Wales, the message and the concerns are constant. In terms of the adequacy of compliance, at least from the evidence I have seen, I would say that Tasmania takes the cake in terms of completely and dramatically ignoring a lot of its compliance requirements, and it breaches them on a regular basis. Tasmania has many things to be proud of, but that is certainly not one of them. But there is evidence across the board that there is inadequate compliance with existing RFAs.

Should we as a legislative chamber be considering and contemplating passing legislation that will have dramatic long-term financial and environmental impacts without looking at whether the RFAs that this bill will lock in are actually being followed and what mechanism there is to remedy breaches? Does the bill adequately ensure that there are provisions, punitive or otherwise, to actually enforce the RFAs and remedy breaches if compliance is not adequate? The issue of the level of enforcement of RFAs that currently exists has to be examined. It would be negligent of us not to, and it has not been done adequately. The very fleeting hearing done whilst the Senate was sitting in the final week of last year simply was not adequate enough to examine and explore all those things. It was obviously done in an atmosphere in which a clear attempt was made to steamroll the bill through the chamber amongst the mass of legislation that always gets jammed up against the Senate in the final sitting week at the end of the year, particularly in the final sitting week before an election. We should not kid ourselves that there has been proper examination of all these issues.

It is no secret what the Democrats views are on this issue and about the legislation as a whole, but I think committee processes are not simply just about reinforcing your own prejudice. They are about getting the evidence out in a public way, on the record, and in a way that can be tested. The committee process provides a chance to have the assertions that people such as Senator Brown and I make about RFAs tested by others, as well as providing us with an opportunity to test the assertions of those who are in favour of RFAs. But that opportunity would be denied the Senate if the government get their wish of just bringing this bill on for debate straightaway. That would be inappropriate. As I said the other day, it is a particularly appalling signal from this government about their priorities.

If you add the events of the last day or so to the government's wish to have this matter down in the history books as their first legislative act of a new parliament, coupled with their first major report tabling showing widespread deceit across three departments on a crucial issue, the lack of credibility that is now part of the Howard government is going to mark and stain their government for their entire three-year term. Setting that aside, the government's first legislative achievement of ramming through the Regional Forest Agreements Bill 2002 will hardly be a great start to the environmental credentials that are supposedly part of the commitment and the focus of the government and which were outlined in the Governor-General's speech the other day. It is a clear example of why the Australian public are so cynical about the political process and of why we need to re-examine the way we operate and ensure that our responsibilities as legislators are actually complied with and fulfilled in a much more comprehensive and responsible way.

The terms of reference I am putting forward also suggest examining any new data relating to species, habitats, ecosystems, mapping accuracy and social and economic impacts which were not available when the comprehensive regional assessments were prepared. Plenty of that information has appeared since that time. Again, the Democrats believe it would be negligent for the Senate not to examine those items of new data before we move on to the passage of this piece of legislation.

I urge the Senate to support what is an important but brief examination into this area. The terms of reference outlined build upon those put forward to the Senate by Senator Brown in September last year—you may notice the similarity of some of the words— particularly in relation to current levels of compliance, enforcement, monitoring and new data. All those things need to be examined if we are going to attempt an informed judgment on these bills—not even to make an informed judgment on these bills but so that there can be some level of confidence in the public that there has been proper examination, that their views have been tested publicly, on the record, in some sort of meaningful way. That is what this motion is about and that is why I urge the Senate to support it.