Senator BROWN (1:00 AM) —as amended, by leave—I move Green amendments (1) to (4) on sheet 2795:

17A Review of the use of native forest residue which includes native wood waste as an eligible renewable energy source

The Minister for Environment and Heritage said in his second reading speech that the rest of the world is copying the legislation. Could he inform the committee just who has copied this legislation? That is my first question. Secondly, the Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation said that this is simply an administrative bill fixing up a few errors that the Senate made. Let us be quite clear that those of us who bring legislation into this place are responsible for it. It is the errors of the government—it is the errors of Senator Hill, the former and much failed Minister for the Environment and Heritage—that allowed the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 to have the shortcomings which we are dealing with tonight. The Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation said that this bill was dealt with late at night two years ago—and here we are dealing with it again late at night. That is entirely the government's failure. This legislation should not be here at one o'clock in the morning. It should have been dealt with much earlier, but I reckon that it has been left as part of a grab bag simply because the government has no interest of any consequence in renewable energy. So do not let the government blame the Senate for its own administrative shortcomings.

The Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation also said that people in the industry had told him that the targets being mooted in amendments before the chamber—that is, five to 10 per cent of new energy to come from renewable energy—are simply not achievable. I ask the minister who in the industry has told him that. It is not good enough just to say that, because that is not what we are hearing at all. We hear people in the renewable energy industry saying not only that the targets of five to 10 per cent are well within reach but also that they are essential if we are going to tackle global warming; so I ask the minister to back up his statements by naming his sources. I also ask the minister what has been the advice of the Chief Scientist as far as this legislation is concerned. The minister said that the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act might fail if it is not amended by this bill. What has been the advice of the Chief Scientist to the government on renewable energy? What degree of future growth in renewable energy has the Chief Scientist said is possible in Australia? Is he one of the people who have said that the targets of five to 10 per cent being looked at by the Democrats, the Greens and the Labor Party here tonight are not achievable? If the minister does not answer those questions—and I note that he is talking to other members in the chamber at the moment—I will ask them again until we do get an answer.

The amendments the Australian Greens are proposing would bring back into this legislation the exemption from so-called renewable energy production of the burning of native forest residue. Under the list of eligible renewable energy sources at page 8 of the legislation, item (j) is wood waste. This quite clearly includes native wood waste. In other words, it includes the native forests being burnt in furnaces in order to be converted into electricity classified as `renewable energy' when it patently is not. Those forests and the ecosystems that are destroyed in this process are not renewable. They are not sustainable—they are destroyed by that process. The Greens amendment would remove that category from that list. Amendment (4) would also do that with a review of the use of native forest residue, which includes native wood waste as an eligible renewable energy source. The amendment would mean that, immediately after the act was brought into law, the minister would have an independent review undertaken into the implications of the use of burning native forests as a renewable energy source.

Mr Temporary Chairman Ferguson, you will know that Forestry Tasmania, for example, plans three forest furnaces: in the south, at Southwood near Judbury; in the north-west of Tasmania at Smithton; and in the north-east, near Scottsdale. Each year, these would burn hundreds of thousands of tonnes of native forest wood and, with it, the habitat of a whole range of native forest wildlife to produce electricity. We understand that, in the main, the aim is to sell that to the mainland through Basslink to help fire the 100,000 new air conditioners a year being put into place in Melbourne. The problem is that it will be sold as green or renewable energy on the Melbourne market to many people who would be horrified to know that that energy is coming from the destruction of Tasmania's wild native eucalypts and rainforest.

The review that the Greens are proposing would include, but not be limited to, an assessment of the implications of the use of native forest residues on net greenhouse emissions, biodiversity and the level of biomass extraction under regional forest agreements and the plantation industry. The review would need to be undertaken by a panel of three independent persons. That is important, because it is quite different from the review forthcoming under the existing legislation, which is chosen by the government. These persons would be chosen by the minister but would include one person representing environmental groups, another representing the renewable energy industry and a third representing the minister. The review panel would complete its review and give a written report on the review within 12 months, and the minister would have to table that review in the Senate and in the House of Representatives.

What is important here is that that review, and the amendments that the Greens are putting forward, are in line with the Labor Party's public commitment to the Greens during the last national election campaign. In a letter to me on 2 November last year, Geoff Walsh, the Labor Party's national campaign director stated:

That is absolutely in line with the amendments. He continued:

That is absolutely in line with these amendments. He then said:

In other words, Labor explicitly committed itself to a separate review to the one under this act. The letter continued:

it moves to a Labor government then being elected—

That component of the election did not occur. We now have the position where Labor is being tested on that commitment to the Greens. We have here amendments which exactly comply with that commitment from Geoff Walsh and it was reiterated in public by the then leader, the Hon. Kim Beazley, a couple of days later. So I expect that we will have Labor's support on this. These amendments ought to be passed by this committee.