Senator BROWN (3:37 PM) —Pursuant to contingent notice, I move:

In moving this motion for the suspension of standing orders I note that Labor has objected to my general business notice of motion being treated in the usual way. I will read the proposed motion:

One has to presume that the government and/or the Labor Party are not going to support this motion. It is not only a very important motion about Tasmania's future; it is an important motion about Australia's future. I want to come first to the business of Tasmania's Styx Valley, which has recently grown enormously in prominence in Australian public discourse. Until 1998, when the Wilderness Society and the Greens recognised not only the magnificence of the forests in the Styx Valley but the enormous threat through clear-fell logging for export woodchips that was already eating away into the valley, Australians by and large did not know about it. We now do.

Let me describe it. This is a valley of some 23,000 hectares, tucked in the central mountains of Tasmania, on the southern and western sides surrounded by the World Heritage wilderness of Tasmania. The valley itself has world heritage values but it has been kept out of nomination for World Heritage listing by political and monetary considerations. The valley is now known to contain the tallest hardwood forests on the face of the planet. To date, the tallest tree that we know is there is 96 metres high. That is the length of a soccer field or a hockey field turned on end. The trees in the forest would extend right up beyond the roadway of the Sydney Harbour Bridge into the archway and overshadow the Opera House if they were to be measured up in Sydney. Yet trees up to 85 metres high are being destroyed under the licence of the Tasmanian government and through the regional forest agreement signed by Prime Minister Howard, and, with them, the species-rich habitat and the rainforest understorey. That includes the vulnerable, rare and endangered species that I have listed.

The process there is one of logging the forests and they are taken out by Gunns for woodchips. We know from today's announcements—you can read this on page 2 of the Hobart Mercury—that for the first time in Tasmanian history the export of woodchips from Tasmania's grand wild forests, its eucalypt forests, its rainforests, has exceeded five million tonnes per annum. That is almost a doubling since Prime Minister Howard signed their death warrant in 1997 under the regional forest agreement.

What else has happened since then? There was a promise of 1,000 extra jobs. There was $80 million plus of taxpayers' money put into the logging industry. In fact, hundreds of jobs have been peeled off. Since woodchipping got going in 1970 in Tasmania 5,000 jobs have been lost, but more than 2,000 of those have been lost since 1990, when woodchipping really got under way in Tasmania in its modern sense, and jobs are continuing to be shed. If you are in Tasmania in the vicinity of the Styx Valley you will see the signs from log truck drivers saying `A fair day's pay for log truck drivers', who are doing an extraordinarily long term of work for very low pay. This is a scandalous situation.

The one study done into the Styx Valley showed that, while 13 jobs are provided there in destroying these forests, hundreds of jobs would be created if it were to be protected and if it had tourist amenities as a national park and world heritage exhibit glorifying our state, keeping our iconic forests for the whole of this nation and extending them, along with Cradle Mountain, Port Arthur and the Franklin River, to attract visitors from all over the world. It can be done. It should be done. That is the long-term welfare of Tasmania. It is in the Commonwealth's hands to do that. This has been blocked by the Labor Party in Tasmania. Under Mr Latham's leadership, here is a first challenge: break away from the Howard destruction of our grand forests and wildlife and make a stand for future generations. Let us see Latham Labor put an end to this destruction of the great forests of Tasmania and these icons for this nation. (Time expired)