Senator O'BRIEN (3:48 PM) —The opposition will not be supporting this motion for the suspension of standing orders. This is a proposed resolution which deserves to be debated at the appropriate time when Senator Brown moves a general business item, because we will be debating it to establish that it represents matters which are not factual. Let us look at the question of the half-truths in this motion and others which the Greens seek to sell to the Australian people.

The facts about the Styx Valley are that most of it has been working forest since the 1930s. Over 80 kilometres of logging roads have been built in that valley since that time in order to harvest stands of timber. Much of this harvesting was done by the former Australian newsprint mills in order to produce newsprint at their Boyer mill instead of importing it. Today, Norske Skog continues to produce newsprint from this forest in this valley, which is, I say again, regrowth forest following past fires and logging. The forests in the valley continue to be a very important resource of very high-quality sawlogs and veneer logs supplying a number of sawmills and the veneer plant at Boyer in the Derwent Valley.

Current land use arrangements in Tasmania's forests including the Styx Valley were made as a result of the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement in 1997. The environmental, social and economic values of the forest were studied as part of that process and a balanced outcome was agreed to by the Tasmanian and Australian governments. During that process, very few submissions from the Tasmanian community mentioned the Styx. Only small parts were ever nominated for the Register of the National Estate or were part of the Wilderness Society's greenprint for a World Heritage area. Most of these areas are now in reserves.

The Styx Valley catchment is approximately 34,000 hectares—3,000 of which is private property. Of the 31,000 hectares of public land, 8,400 or 27 per cent is in the Southwest National Park, including representative examples of very tall eucalypt forests and rainforest and a further 9,200 hectares or 30 per cent are in other types of reserves including the tallest forest stands over 85 metres in height. Over half of the Styx is thus protected. Much of the remaining forest available for sustainable wood production has already been harvested and regenerated, so it is not old growth in the main. The forests of the Styx are being harvested; they are not being clear-felled for woodchips as outlined, because they produce very high-quality sawlogs and veneer logs. But you will see in the motion that is what Senator Brown would have the Senate and the Australian public believe. They are being logged for high-quality sawlogs and veneer logs. I say it again: pulpwood is an inevitable by-product of this harvesting; some of that pulpwood is used for domestic paper making and some is exported. That is the situation that we are looking at in relation to this motion.

I note in today's Sydney Morning Herald that an agreement between forest companies, Canadian Indians and environmental groups to conserve around 50 per cent of Canada's sub-Arctic boreal forest is being hailed by some environmental groups as:

That is high praise for an agreement that conserves, in that case, 50 per cent of old-growth forest. If only the Australian Greens were able to recognise that the Tasmanian RFA protects 86 per cent of old-growth forest on public land and 68 per cent overall. If the Canadian agreement is a world-class agreement, what does that make the Tasmanian agreement? It makes it the best in the world.

Under the RFA, nearly one million hectares of old-growth forest are protected from logging, and it is worth noting that less than three per cent of old-growth forest will be logged over the next 10 years. But I would not expect Senator Brown or the Australian Greens to tell the Australian people about that fact—and it is a fact. What we see with this motion today is a proposal which would have the Senate mislead the Australian people. It is important that it not go through on the nod. When Senator Brown has the opportunity to debate it in general business, no doubt he will take it, but we will not be supporting a suspension today when there is other important business before the Senate.

Question put: