Mr SIDEBOTTOM (8:31 PM) —If there is any place in Australia where a Regional Forest Agreement is under the microscope, it is in my electorate of Braddon on the north-west coast of Tasmania. Mr Ken McKenzie and friends from my electorate are visiting today. I had no idea they were here, so it is nice to recognise them.

For well over a decade, Tasmanians have been divided over the question of resource security, environmental protection, the preservation of social and cultural practices and sustainable forest management. It has been a torturous path to consensus. My electorate has felt every blow. Not everyone is happy and they never will be. On the one hand it is important to protect the environment, guarantee a resource and nurture an economically viable and sustainable industry, but there is also a clear expectation that this process will attract investment and, most importantly, secure and grow jobs in the wood and paper industries. I call it mutual obligation: where a resource is secured, there will be jobs; there will be value adding and there will be downstream processing. It is simple—local resource, local jobs.

Today, however, security of resource, world's best forest practices and preservation of conservation areas has not led to real job security in the bush; it is more a case of job insecurity. In my electorate it is a classic catch-22 situation. Resource security to date has been accompanied by a sense of job insecurity within the industry itself. Burnie lost its pulp mill and hundreds of jobs. Why? Because Amcor decided not to invest in jobs. It simply did not want to, and it did not have to. Only last week came the sombre news from within the industry that North Forest Products' decision to cut harvesting and haulage contracts could cost some 120 direct and indirect jobs in my electorate. Again there is no sense of mutual obligation between gaining security of Tasmania's valuable timber resource and job creation through value adding.

This government talks loud and long about mutual or reciprocal obligation between people on the dole and society, people on benefits and society, and young people who cannot read or write and society, but we do not hear much about corporate responsibility to the community, particularly multinationals, transnationals and the very rich. That said, I appreciate the commercial reality of doing business. But what of social responsibility and good corporate citizenship? Historically, where I come from the forest industry has been built around access to the people's resource. If timber companies want the public's resource, then not only must it be adequately paid for, it has to be earned.

While it is impossible to legislate for investment in downstream processing, the loss of jobs highlights why we must strive for some form of mutual obligation in the RFA process. Because of the absence of a true Commonwealth sponsored industry development policy, I have reservations about legislation which removes export controls and gives a blank cheque to future RFAs without scrutiny by this parliament. Those controls have been seen—and still are by some—as an industry development lever. An industry which is environmentally responsible and economically sustainable with jobs is the key to the success of Regional Forest Agreements at state and federal levels. Any RFA must be accompanied by a comprehensive industry policy that grows jobs, not just trees and profits.

Make no mistake. Tasmania's forests and forest industries are a crucial part of my state's economy. The industry generates hundreds of millions of dollars a year and is the lifeblood of thousands of jobs. It has been estimated that forest industries in Tassie are six times more important to the state's economy than they are anywhere else in Australia. In my electorate, they are vital. For example, two large sawmills in the Circular Head area each employ over 100 people and collectively a further 50 timber harvesters and logging contractors. More than 20 sawmills are scattered throughout the region, many in country towns and hamlets that survive on the timber industry.

There is also a string of processing industries from furniture makers and specialist timber manufacturers to pallet makers. There are downstream processing success stories like the Smithton sawmills of Britton Brothers and Gunns' Timbers who are tapping into national and international markets. The north-west coast of Tasmania is synonymous with paper making and is also a significant player in the woodchipping industry.

Braddon is steeped in the history of the Tasmanian forest industry. Only recently the new Tasmanian Labor government has introduced the RFA (Land Classification Bill) 1998. This has been accompanied by the state government's industry growth plan. It is a 20-year plan focusing on establishing a world-scale forest resource, new harvesting techniques and developing new sunrise processing industries in the state. It is a long term strategy based on maximising our valuable forest resource and the economic and social benefits that should flow.

This plan is in line with the intention of the 1995 Wood and Paper Industry Strategy, developed by the previous federal Labor government, which set the wheels in motion for regional forest agreements now being taken up around Australia. The federal Australian Labor Party has consistently given in-principle support to the legislative enactment of the objectives of the National Forest Policy Statement and has reaffirmed such support on the introduction of the original bill in this House on 30 June 1998. Before this, the Australian Labor Party had clearly affirmed its support for the wood and paper industry, as demonstrated in its current national platform.

Not only does this principle endorse the RFA process of balancing the economic, environmental, heritage and cultural factors involved but it clearly incorporates within the RFA a commitment to industry development, a commitment to downstream processing and a commitment to value adding—in short, mutual obligation. The amendments proposed by the Labor Party ensure that out of an RFA—be it in Tasmania, East Gippsland, the Central Highlands of Victoria or anywhere else—a commitment is made to implementing an industry policy that will provide job security for the current work force and grow more jobs by value adding the resource and not see it go out as woodchips or unprocessed whole logs.

Who would have imagined in 1995 that woodchips from Tasmanian forests, used to make pulp at the Burnie paper mill, would be exported and the pulp to make the paper imported. But that is exactly what is happening. The challenge is to re-establish confidence, investment and jobs in forest based industries—a challenge this government seems to be neglecting. If we are seen to be increasing imports of processed forest products, whether they be pulp, paper or enhanced timbers—as we have constantly heard in this House—only to see the export of woodchips or unprocessed logs, then people will question the real worth of a Regional Forest Agreement.

The best way—in fact the only way—to encourage value adding is not through resource security alone but through an industry policy attached to it. We need RFAs, we need a comprehensive industry policy and we need them complementing each other. Only then will we see resource security, environmental protection and a viable, sustainable industry delivering jobs.

The Burnie pulp mill closure and the recent threat to ordinary forest workers' jobs in my electorate underscore the lack of an industry policy by this government. These tragic events starkly expose this government's lack of industry policy, and no amount of trumpeting about the recent Tumut mill incentive package changes this fact. The Burnie workers and their combined unions sought to save their pulp mill in the face of no coherent industry policy. They met with the Prime Minister, but what happened? There was no response from John Howard to their pleas for help, nothing from the then Minister for Industry, Science and Tourism—because he had nothing to offer—and ditto from the then minister for regional development.

So what did the government do in the wake of this policy vacuum? Ominously, they sent the ministers responsible for social security and finance—the mortician and the bagman! The former member for Braddon declared, `One can't interfere with commercial decisions.' Well, I have news for him and those of his ilk. We can affect commercial decision making by underpinning such decisions with a coherent, comprehensive wood and paper industry strategy and complementary industry policy measures. Isn't that exactly what Minister Wilson Tuckey boasted when announcing the Tumut pulp mill so-called incentive package? No subtlety there, Minister, about affecting commercial decisions, particularly in marginal coalition seats. I suppose Braddon had been written off electorally by the time the former member got onto the issue.

The recent events in Burnie are an example of what will happen when resource guarantee is not matched by an industry policy which works towards downstream processing and value adding and when it is not complemented by government and industry commitments to investment and jobs—in short, mutual obligation.

What was this government's attitude to these objectives when they came to power in 1996? They talk as if it were just yesterday. It was 1996! How much more time do you need? A letter dated 17 July 1996 from the then Minister for Science, Industry and Tourism, Mr Moore, confirmed an endorsement of the strategy. It states:

The Government has endorsed the strategy, which includes a $38 million package to promote development of internationally competitive wood and paper industries based on ecologically sustainable management practices. The strategy is complementary to the development of RFAs and the Forest Industry Structural Adjustment Package, which create resource security for the industry and facilitate restructuring. It will help create a stable policy environment, allowing industry to confidently plan and invest in value added activities.

What has happened in the light of this 1996 post-election endorsement? As far as the industry is concerned, the only thing this government has succeeded in achieving is a 40 per cent increase in export woodchips. How many jobs have been created? The executive summary of the Wood and Paper Industry Strategy of 1995 says:

The Wood and Paper Industry Strategy is a four-year Commonwealth initiative to encourage investment, value adding and jobs growth.

Investments of between $4 billion and $66 billion are at present under consideration. Industry and unions predict between 15,000 and 25,000 jobs over the next decade.

But what in reality has happened since? There is no Wood and Paper Industry Strategy, no council and precious few jobs. The original terms of reference for the Wood and Paper Industry Council, I remind you, were:

a) to advise the Government on the implementation and further development of the Wood and Paper Strategy

b) to promote job creation, industry development, value adding opportunities and investment initiatives, including at the enterprise level

c) to act as an agent of change in the industry until RFAs are finalised and implemented.

What has this government done in relation to these terms of reference? It has set up, under pressure, the largely ineffectual Wood and Paper Industry Forum, and little else. Where is the Wood and Paper Industry Council, properly constituted, empowered and resourced? What does it tell people about the recent decision of the Minister for Forestry and Conservation to convene meetings of stakeholders to develop a wood and paper industry action agenda? Even the most optimistic assessment of this decision would conclude that the existing industry forum is ineffective and that whatever strategy exists presently is not working.

When it was established, the Wood and Paper Industry Strategy was widely acknowledged as the blueprint for achieving further downstream processing and value adding in Australia's forest products industry. It also was committed to ecologically sustainable native forest management practices in Australia and internationally.

The RFA is about not only resource security and environmental protection but also world best practices in sustainable forestry management. To foster the growth of our forest industries, all countries must be encouraged to adopt similar ecologically sustainable forest practices. The world must recognise that Australia will not tolerate the importation of wood products from sources which are not sustainably managed and do not live up to the high standards of forest management demanded here. I call on this government to exert maximum pressure to ensure the World Trade Organisation adopts environmental certification for ecologically sustainable forestry and, in the meantime, to apply measures to ensure wood, pulp and paper products imported to Australia come from sources which meet international environment standards for forest management.

For many years, uncertainty over access to our forest resources and the environmental wars waged on the battlefields of our forests—many of these in Tasmania—have discouraged investment in value adding and downstream processing. But I believe that with regional forest agreements that live up to the expectations of investors, industry workers and their families and, importantly, the owners of the resource—that is, the public—there should be no excuses. In short, there should be mutual obligation.