Senator MURPHY (12:16 PM) —I said that I would not get up in this debate again until I came to my amendments. Unfortunately, when you have these sorts of debates issues come up and senators say things that, if they need to be corrected, should be corrected at the appropriate time. Senator O'Brien spoke earlier about his knowledge of shipments of logs from Tasmania. He alluded to the matter of logs being shipped to Finland or Korea, or both, and that they were the only logs he was aware of that were being shipped out of Tasmania. For the record, logs have been shipped to China from Tasmania, from both private and public forests. Indeed, I should have taken the time to check the quantity, but I think either 10,000 or 20,000 tonnes or cubic metres went to China.

This is not the first time that logs have been sent to Korea. As Senator O'Brien indicated, some of these logs are being sent away for the purpose of trialing the material to determine its suitability for processing into veneer or plywood. Back in 1996, I think it was, we sent a significant shipment of logs from Tasmania, through the port of Hobart, to Korea supposedly for that purpose. It was organised through a Korean by the name of Mr Simon Kang. If I recall correctly—and I must check my information on this—at that time it was found that the wood was not really suitable.

With regard to trials, earlier I mentioned the industry development plan for Tasmania and spoke about the South African company Kortas Veneer. Kortas Veneer's parent company is actually a Korean company by the name of Sam-O. The interesting thing about it is this: it has undertaken a feasibility study—in fact, it is not quite correct to say that, because it was actually a pre-feasibility study—funded jointly by the Commonwealth, the state and the company. It cost about $150,000. I understand that the pre-feasibility study has been completed but that the results have not yet been made public. I also understand that the amount of money expended will probably be mentioned in the five-yearly review of RFAs, and I find that rather intriguing. Although they are not out yet, I understand they will come out shortly—which is another process I find quite interesting.

We have a review of the RFA process that is supposed to assess how it is all going. On this occasion, which is the first occasion for Tasmania, for instance, the five-yearly review process has been conducted by the Resource Planning and Development Commission—which is interesting. Again—and I say this to the Minister for Forestry and Conservation and his officers through you, Mr Temporary Chairman—there was no public process. The terms of reference—which, unfortunately, I did not bring down with me—which were established by the state minister were so limited that it would have been almost impossible for the Resource Planning and Development Commission to make any real assessment of how the state was going in delivering the objectives and some outcomes of the regional forest agreement. They would have had to rely entirely on the advice given to them by the state authorities, because the terms of reference were so restricted. The only capacity for the public to have input into this debate in respect of the review was to make some comment about the terms of reference.

The draft review report, which is imminent, will be available for public comment. That public comment comes in the form of me and/or other members of the public being able to write in and say, `We think your findings in this or that aspect of the report are inaccurate.' That is the end of that—no further public debate, no further public input. Obviously, the Resource Planning and Development Commission will take note of the public comments that they receive and, hopefully, will write back to those who write to them. They will probably say, `We don't agree with you. On the great volume of evidence that we were given, we have concluded thus.'

I come back to my point that this is where the problem lies in this process: there are no checks and balances. There is no real capacity for anybody to go out there and take account of what is really happening. That is the issue we must address. To suggest that the Commonwealth take a position of greater monitoring of what is happening with the management of the forests is not to suggest in any way that we are somehow seeking to block the ability of an industry to develop or to threaten the security of resource to the industry. What I have been suggesting is merely that we want to make sure that what we are told is being done is actually being done. That is why we must pursue these matters.

I cannot understand anybody in this chamber saying, `We do not want checks and balances; we will have an argument about constitutionality.' It is not for this place to determine constitutionality; that is a matter for the courts. If this parliament puts matters that are unconstitutional into legislation, it is the right of the states and territories to challenge that. It is not for us to determine that, and so I cannot understand why, on those grounds, we would reject suggestions for improving legislation we are to pass through the parliament. Even if it is only my view that what I have suggested by way of an amendment will improve the legislation, it is not for this parliament to question the constitutionality of that; that is a matter for the courts. Therefore, it comes back to this point: either we are prepared to take the steps that we think can deliver greater integrity to the system because we will have more checks and balances or we are not. That is what we should stand up and say: we are prepared or we are not. It is that simple. I note what Senator Brown has proposed. It has been proposed before. I also note what has been proposed by the Labor opposition. I am happy to support either approach, but at the end of the day we must take up the responsibility of putting in place a mechanism that will give credibility to this process and restore public confidence in it because right now there is none.

I know that the minister has said on a number of occasions that there are all manner of people who are supportive of just getting this legislation through. Of course there are. This is a funny debate: it has been going on for umpteen years and it has often been the case that there have been two very polarised views. That is an unfortunate consequence of what I think was bad government policy at the time and poor government management of the issue at the time. That is what has happened; nevertheless, by the same token, the great bulk of people have a view that there is no credibility in the process. That is what we ought to seek to rectify. It is our public responsibility. I would urge that at some point, as I have said before, we actually take that step, and I sincerely hope we do.