Mr ZAHRA (5:59 PM) —In rising to speak on the Regional Forest Agreements Bill 1998 , I want to make plain that the forest and forest products industry is an important employer in my electorate and that, unlike Liberal and National Party members opposite, I am committed to securing a long-term future for the workers in the industry and for the companies that employ them.

The ALP has consistently given support for the enactment of legislation which is consistent with the objectives of the national forest policy statement. We reaffirmed this support when this bill was introduced in June last year. Despite these efforts on our part, the government still chooses to take the partisan political line. It refuses to work with Labor to find a bipartisan and co-operative solution. It does the industry and the workers employed in the industry a huge disservice in taking this approach. There can be no better example of this than the rantings of the Minister for Forestry and Conservation which we were subjected to during the last few weeks of the last sittings of 1998. At every opportunity, instead of trying to find a bipartisan agreement, he goes for the cheap shots and attacks Labor state governments which he finds politically expedient to target. Walk away if you want to, Minister, but this is an important issue which confronts everyone in this community.

What is advanced by the minister doing this? How many forest industry workers are better off as a result of these rantings? How many sawmillers are better off? How many loggers and carters have improved conditions as a result of his behaviour? How many new jobs has he created in struggling timber towns?

The truth is that these partisan political attacks serve only the Liberal Party and the minister's ego. It reflects very badly indeed on this government that it has entrusted such important portfolio responsibilities to someone who is clearly not a respected figure in this place and someone who is obviously unable to think above party politics.

In all of the shrill rantings we have heard from the government with regard to the forest and forest products sector, we have yet to hear anything about a strategy for the future sustainability of the sector. Why is it that we have heard nothing about the wood and paper industry strategy? Where is the government's plan for the industry's future? While the RFA process is intended to provide the industry with resource security, the RFA process by itself does not create jobs or guarantee job security. The government cannot simply point to the RFA legislation as though it were a cure-all for all aspects of the industry because that is simply not what it is.

In order for the industry to have a secure future, there needs to be agreement between the government, industry and unions relating to the level of investment, export activities, value adding and downstream processing in the sector. This will not occur while this government continues to take a partisan political position. The government must support this important industry with more than just shrill rantings made at the dispatch box. It must act to improve opportunities for investment and job security in the forest and forest products sector,

This government is pretty heavy on rhetoric when it comes to jobs and supposedly being pro industry. You always hear government members giving speeches about how they are all for jobs. They say they are going create jobs by making it easier for bosses to sack people. There is no logic in this approach of course, and everyone knows it. And there is not one job in it. You guys opposite are pretty predictable and pretty pathetic. Similarly, simply giving companies free access to forests does not create jobs despite the government's rhetoric.

The government's ad hoc and often hysterical approach to this important sector should be condemned. It does not create jobs and it does not create certainty. What we on this side of the house are most interested in is jobs. We see job security in the forest and forest products sector as being linked directly to resource security.

The Liberal and National parties want to give over forest areas to companies without any commitments on jobs. What they are obviously most interested in doing is ensuring that companies make big profits. There is nothing wrong with a company making a quid. But the other consideration, which is even more important and which this government deliberately ignores, is the impact that this legislation has on jobs. As far as I can see, there is no point in allowing companies access to our forests if all they are going to do is sack workers and not invest in the future of the industry.

My colleague the honourable member for Braddon is better placed than I am to detail to this House what has happened in his electorate where Amcor shut down the Burnie pulp mill and put 300 workers out of a job in a region with already massive unemployment. Amcor did not pull out because they did not have resource security. They closed the plant because they had not invested adequately and because there was no requirement placed upon the company by the government to invest in return for access to forests.

What I am interested in doing is working constructively with workers, unions, companies and industry groups and determining what is required to ensure the sustainability and growth of this sector. This is what I will be doing in my electorate.

It is worth reflecting on past efforts of the Liberal and National parties in this important policy area. Coalition MPs are always saying, `We're so pro industry—we're just so pro industry. Honestly. Just believe us.' They are not, of course. So when they get asked why unemployment is still so high in light of their claim to be so pro industry, the response is always the same, and we have just heard it again: `It's all the Labor Party's fault.' It does not matter that we are not in government, or that we have not been in government for a little while; it is still all the Labor Party's fault. You have to take responsibility for yourselves. You guys opposite have failed when it comes to unemployment and you are being held to account in timber communities.

I am not quite sure how their logic works. In fact, I am quite sure that no-one knows how their logic works. I have noticed that coalition MPs get very paranoid when asked about their position on the forest and forest products industry and jobs in the sector. There is a good reason for this. The reason is this. The coalition has an appalling record when it comes to the forest and forest products sector. Only last year the Forest and Forest Industry Council of Tasmania wrote to the then shadow minister for resources and energy, the honourable member for Perth, with regard to concerns they had about the RFA process. The council wrote as follows:

While this legislation was to be introduced by June 30, the lack of wide industry consultation with interested RFA stakeholders suggested to us that it had been delayed. Its introduction without this consultation meant that most groups have had no input into its contents in the event. This has suited some of these groups, but has raised problems for others.

This from the Forest Industry Council of Tasmania!

Similarly, the CFMEU, the principal union representing workers in the forest and forest products sector, had this to say about the government's RFA bill:

. . . the Union does not support the Bill in its present form as it removes the Commonwealth from its responsibilities to fully implement the National Forest Policy Statement. That is, not only establishing a Comprehensive, Adequate and Representative reserve system and resource security, but also a world class ecologically sustainable value adding forest and forest products industry.

The CFMEU went on to say:

The Commonwealth by passing the Bill in its present form will walk away with the job, in the Union's view, only half done.

This from the CFMEU—a union which has always fought hard to protect jobs in the industry and has always encouraged industry development.

This government has shot itself in both feet when it comes to the forest and forest products sector. Those representing the interests of workers think it is incompetent and those representing the interests of industry think that it just does not know what it is talking about. So, while the coalition government tries to paint itself as being pro-industry and pro-jobs, both the industry and the union representing workers in the sector reject its policy positions and legislative actions.

I am proud to say that I have been for a long time an advocate for the workers in the forest and forest products industry. Even when I was an activist in Young Labor, I always ensured that the view of the forestry workers in my electorate was heard and understood. Similarly, my family have had a long association with the industry. In fact, my dad told me only a few months ago that he had worked on the construction of the Australian Paper plant in Maryvale in the 1950s. My uncle worked at Australian Paper for decades and quite a few of my mates in Traralgon still work there.

I am proud to say that I have a very good working relationship with the CFMEU, which is the principal union representing workers in the sector, and I have visited several of the timber mills in my electorate, including the Brown and Dureua mill in Morwell and the Cuthbertson and Richardson mill in Noojee—where I once took the then shadow minister for resources and energy, the honourable member for Perth, during a visit to my electorate.

I have also been to the Australian Paper plant at Maryvale on several occasions and I have met on numerous occasions with the committee of the CFMEU Maryvale sub-branch as well as with the manager of the plant, Mr Jeff Landels. I want to share with the House my experience at the mill the last time I went there, which was around four or five months ago. I spent the whole day at the mill—starting at 8 o'clock and finishing a bit after 6 o'clock that night. I reckon I would have spoken to nearly 200 blokes on shift that day. What they told me in no uncertain terms was that they wanted resource security. But what they also made clear was that they were not much interested in resource security unless it led to improved job security. And in the Labor Party this is what we are about.

At the time, Amcor had just made a statement basically saying that all assets would be required to make a certain return and that if those assets did not make that return they would be sold. Also, at about the same time, Amcor shut down its pulp mill at Burnie in Tasmania, sacking 300 workers in the process. Understandably there was a mood of uncertainty about the place and workers were concerned about their job security. The workers I spoke to that day understood clearly that resource security for the company alone did not deliver job security. They understood that a decent industrial relations system, strong industry policy, investment in downstream processing and the election of a government which was prepared to intervene to deliver job security to workers was the only way the industry would get a secure and sustainable future.

The workers at the mill also told me that as well as resource security they were concerned about the cutbacks to services in their communities which the government was implementing. They were concerned about the closure of the CES offices in Moe, Morwell, Traralgon and Warragul. They were concerned about the loss of 100 jobs at Monash University's Gippsland campus in Churchill. And they were concerned about the loss of jobs at the DEETYA office in Morwell. They were concerned that these cutbacks would make Gippsland a region in decline—that the Howard government's agenda would make us a region with no future.

The interests of workers in the industry are not just linked to RFA legislation. They are linked to all those other government policies which affect their communities, such as regional development policies and support for industry—not to mention industrial relations policy.

What I found heartening as I spoke to the blokes there was that nearly all of them were concerned not only for themselves but also for the young people in their local communities who were unemployed. They wanted to know where the jobs for their sons, daughters, nephews and nieces were going to be. They wanted to know what we were going to do to create jobs locally. They understood that our community suffered enormous damage when 47 per cent of our young people are unemployed.

Many of these blokes recounted stories to me of how they got their start in the industry. Often it was a case of them getting a job because their dad worked at the plant. Or, as a number of the old-timers there told me, in many cases there was such a shortage of labour at the time that they were basically employed on the spot by one of the site foremen. These men accept, as do their families, that these days are gone. But they also understand that, because of the cutbacks in services to regional areas and because of the failure of this government to create jobs in regions, their kids will find it hard to get a job—and their kids will not get the same opportunity to get a job or get into training as a kid the same age based in one of the capital cities will.

This is something which this government should be ashamed of. Forcing a 17- or 18-year-old kid away from their families to look for work with little support from Centrelink or the Job Network is poor public policy and is very hard on families who already have enough to worry about.

There has been an attempt by some in the media to try to portray workers in the forest and forest products industry as some sort of redneck breed of men who do not care about the environment. In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth. Theses blokes—and overwhelmingly they are blokes—are people just like the rest of us. They are concerned about the environment and want to see our native flora and fauna preserved for future generations. These are the people who always contribute to activities in their local communities, whether it be by coaching at the local footy club or helping out on a working bee at the local school. These are the people who hold their communities together in the face of declining services in regional Australia and job cuts. These people make an enormous contribution which we should acknowledge.

I want to give just one example of the decency of the working men and women in the forest and forest products industry. Whilst the company I am about to mention is not in my electorate, it is less than an hour's drive from the McMillan electoral boundary and is well known to forestry workers in my electorate. The Dormit company in Dandenong employs around 45 workers, of whom around 12 workers are disabled. A number of them are in supervisory roles. The company won the Prime Minister's prize last year for companies encouraging people with disabilities, and it plans to increase its work force to around 60 this July. This is a company which is interested in value adding. It utilises low grade wood, which would have been previously chipped or burnt, to produce components used to make wooden pallets. All waste products are further utilised into woodchips, sawdust, garden mulch, undersurfacing for playgrounds and firewood.

The company has been operating for nine years and in the last five years has doubled productivity. This is a great success story which those involved can be justifiably proud of. Their success reflects the hard work and decency of their work force and demonstrates the rewards that come from working in partnership with your work force. I think everyone in this place would join with me in recognising the achievement of this company and its outstanding and gifted employees.

My colleague the honourable member for Perth, when he was shadow minister for resources, summed up the key difference between the Labor members in this place and those opposite. He said:

We are absolutely committed to the full implementation of the wood and paper industry strategy and the national forest policy statement. Those on the other side are not. That is the key point of difference here, and that pervades everything in the differences between us.

The member for Perth is right. Those opposite are only interested in making it easier for employers in the forest and forest products industry to sack workers; they are not interested in jobs or job security. Those opposite just do not grasp how important industry policy and the encouragement of downstream processing are to the future of the sector.

Worst of all, the Liberal and National parties have demonstrated that they are not capable of being bipartisan in their approach to the forest and forest products sector, which, as I have mentioned, has become one of the most important employers in regional Australia. The minister's crass and partisan behaviour in his handling of his portfolio demonstrates the contempt with which he clearly holds workers in the sector. It demonstrates exactly why this government cannot be taken seriously when they say they are pro-industry and pro-jobs.