Senator SHERRY (9:03 PM) —It is not coincidence that, when looking through the speakers list on this legislation, there are five senators from Tasmania of the 20 speakers listed who will make a contribution. As a senator from Tasmania, as indeed any of my colleagues know on all sides of the chamber, in Tasmania you cannot escape forestry as an issue.

I am pleased to have been in the chamber when Senator Brown made his contribution. Being from Tasmania, I am used to Senator Brown's gross exaggerations. His somewhat hysterical language, some of his use of terminology and some of the examples that he paints to this chamber about forestry in Tasmania are gross exaggerations. I will refer to some specific instances a little later in my contribution. Senator Brown has the habit, and we are used to it in Tasmania, of painting this as good versus evil, black versus white, tourism versus forestry. You can never have a happy compromise according to Senator Brown. As I said, I will refer to some issues that he has raised a little later.

I turn firstly to the origin of the legislation we are considering, the National Forest Policy Statement 1992. The Commonwealth and the states and territories signed the National Forest Policy Statement. That statement outlined agreed objectives and policies for the future of Australia's public and private forests. It provided national goals in 11 areas. I will not go through those because time does not permit.

As provided for in the National Forest Policy Statement, a comprehensive regional assessment, known as a CRA—a joint assessment of all the forestry values by the Commonwealth and the state, an assessment of the environment, the heritage, the economic and the social implications—will lead to the establishment of a comprehensive, adequate and representative reserve system, agreements on forest management and the signing of regional forest agreements, known as RFAs. Where the CRAs are in place, approvals for the export of woodchips for periods longer than one year would be considered. The Commonwealth would be able to meet its legislative obligations under section 30 of the Australian Heritage Commission Act.

A regional forest agreement is an agreement about the long-term management and use of forests in a particular region between the Commonwealth and the state government. The purpose is to reduce the uncertainty—and I stress the word `reduce'—the duplication and the fragmentation in government decision making by producing a longstanding and durable agreement on the management and use of forests. It was in December 1994 that the then Prime Minister, Mr Keating, intervened to expedite the regional forest agreement process. He announced a strict timetable that would be developed for each agreement which would be developed on the basis of technical and scientific assessments of the values of all the forests.

In January 1997, the Commonwealth released details of the agreed criteria for the reserve system. There were three broad criteria of biodiversity for old-growth forests and wilderness: firstly, a benchmark of 15 per cent of the pre-1750s distribution of each forestry community to be protected within conservation reserves; secondly, retention in reserves of at least 60 per cent of existing old growth, increasing up to 100 per cent for rare forestry and community old growth; and, finally, protection of 90 per cent or more, where practical, of high quality wilderness.

I think it is fair to say that, on reflection of forestry issues and the areas that should be logged and the manner in which those areas should be logged, over the last 20 years, the last couple of decades, Tasmania has been strongly divided about the way in which forest resources should be used and the way in which the environment should be protected. If we look at the process that I and others have outlined, it had its genesis in the so-called Salamanca agreement in Tasmania. This was an agreement between the various parties, including the environment movement, I might say, at that time and the then Labor government. I pay tribute to the contribution to that process by my state colleague David Llewellyn and the ongoing development and, I hope, finalisation of this process in the recently signed RFA in Tasmania by my colleague the Deputy Premier, Mr Paul Lennon.

Senator Brown would have us believe that every tree in every forest that is not in a plantation in Tasmania—and I will say something about plantations a little later—is going to be chopped down, ruthlessly ripped to pieces and exported as woodchips. That is the scenario that Senator Brown would paint, but that is very far from the truth, and I can speak with at least some knowledge of the situation in Tasmania.

In my home state, the outcome of the RFA process has been that the total area of Tasmania now within reserves is 2.7 million hectares, or 40 per cent of Tasmania's total land area. As a result of the RFA process, an additional 396,000 hectares of public land reserved, based on the CAR criteria, was placed into those reserves, thus expanding the amount of public land within reserves by an additional 17 per cent. Some 95 per cent of high quality wilderness areas are now included within the CAR reserve system in my home state of Tasmania.

I would contend you can have it both ways. You can have a world-class forestry reserve, a national park or a world heritage wilderness area in this country as well as have certain areas set aside for the use of logging. You can have both. Obviously there is an associated and very important spin-off in terms of tourism in those world heritage and national park areas, and we have that in Tasmania.

Senator Brown would contend that the big corporations have moved in—they were his words—that they have closed in on the small operators and that the major parties are doing the bidding of the woodchip operators. He would argue that there should not be any woodchip exports. It is on that last point that there would be some common ground between Senator Brown and me.

I would fervently hope that we were not exporting woodchips from this country. I would hope that we would maximise the value adding of those woodchips in Australia. But, of course, what is the position of some of the environment movement at least? It is to oppose—at least at the present time—the only practical way of converting those woodchips into pulp or paper products in this country, and that was well demonstrated by their attitude to the proposed pulp and paper mill development at Wesley Vale in my home state of Tasmania.

Some in the environmental movement want it both ways. They argue no logging of native forests, convert over to plantations tomorrow and no woodchips and do it tomorrow. That is simply not possible and not practical. If we were to adopt that as an approach, we would shut down the entire forest industry in Australia overnight. The social and economic outcomes of that would be catastrophic in terms of not just the jobs lost in regional economies, I might say, not in the big cities, but the tens of thousands of jobs lost in Australia, not to mention the thousands of jobs lost in Tasmania, my home state, which has a very significant unemployment rate.

What is often lost in this debate is that forestry and the downstream processing of forestry is a major regional employer in this country. It is all very well for Senator Brown to say that the big corporations have moved in and are reducing labour and reducing employment—I accept that total employment levels have dropped in most areas of the forest industries as a result of technology—but Senator Brown's solution is to wipe the industry out overnight, to not have the industry at all. He wants to get rid of all the jobs and get rid of all the value adding because the jobs in the forest industries have been slowly reduced. He in fact proposes an accelerated process to deal with what he considers to be the problem. Of course, forestry is no different from most other manufacturing processes in this country with the advent of technology.

I was disappointed that Senator Brown used, as an example of the decline in jobs, the manufacturing operation at Somerset, where there are a number of disabled workers. I make particular comment about this because the closure of that operation in Somerset had absolutely nothing to do with disputes about access to forestry resources. As I understand it, it was something to do with the alleged poor management of the operation at the time. It had absolutely nothing to do with the RFA or access to forestry products. He makes mention of those disabled workers at Somerset in a misleading way, using that situation as an example of jobs declining in this industry. He talks about the undue influence of big corporations, but if we were to get rid of every big corporation in Australia—least of all in Tasmania—not just in the forest industry but right across industry, I suspect we would be wiping out half the manufacturing sector in this country overnight. It is not a terribly logical argument from Senator Brown.

We make a couple of comments about plantations, but why do we log old-growth forests? Firstly, hopefully, and I think we are now at that point, we are logging them on a sustainable basis. We log old-growth forests in certain areas in Australia because you cannot immediately switch over to plantations. It will take 20 or 30 years to switch over to plantations for logging purposes in this country, and even then there are certain species of trees that are in demand, not for woodchips but for good quality timbers, that do not grow in plantations. We have two basic problems that the environment movement would have us believe are solved overnight, and they can't be. One of the reasons we log old-growth forests in Tasmania, on a sustainable basis, is that certain species of good quality and high demand timber cannot be grown in plantations. Presumably under Senator Brown's proposed solutions you just say goodbye to that section of the industry

One of the interesting issues about the environmental movement's point of view is plantations. Interestingly, in Europe much of the environment movement is very concerned about plantations because plantations are monocultures. Plantations are single species trees—vast thousands of hectares of crop growing with very little biodiversity within those plantations. That is a major issue of concern in Europe amongst the environment movement today. It has, I would argue, a much more significant impact on biodiversity, the local ecology and the water systems than native forest, both old-growth and regrowth forest, that is logged on a sustainable basis.

As I said earlier in my contribution, we have been dealing with this issue for about 20 years in Tasmania. The Regional Forest Agreement has been completed in Tasmania, the legislation has passed the Tasmanian parliament and my hope is that, with the successful conclusion of the RFA process at a state level and at a national level, we will see the end of at least some of the difficulties we have seen associated with forest industries. It is important for those who rely on the forest industries to have security of resource. That is an important issue. It is also important that there are significant areas of wilderness and world heritage that are put aside for future recreational use and the important tourist industry. As I said earlier, we are fortunate, at least in Tasmania, to have the best of both worlds.

One thing I did learn about this issue long ago is that you have to have a reasonable, logical and scientific process. If you do not have that, you can make short-term political judgments to satisfy particular constituencies, whether it be an industry constituency driven by its short-term needs, or it be the environment constituency with its insatiable demand for preserving every tree. I do not think there would be one tree that Bob Brown could point to in Tasmania that he would be happy to see cut down—he would be opposed to every tree being cut down and there would not be an exception. I can recall Senator Brown being opposed to the cutting down and removal of some disease ridden exotic trees in the Hobart Botanical Gardens. Senator Brown takes the most extreme views. It was not a weed, but it was certainly a threat because of the disease and the fact that the tree itself posed a significant threat.

Senator Quirke —Not even a weed.

Senator SHERRY —Not even a weed can be dispensed with. I do think that is sometimes Senator Brown's position. I find that very disappointing and very sad because you cannot compromise with Senator Brown, and compromise is possible.

With this legislation, and with the legislation that is passed in my home state of Tasmania, we will certainly see a process set in place that ensures adequate reserve systems, that ensures world heritage and wilderness values are maintained, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, ensures that there are areas that are available to the forest industries for their legitimate use. Senator Brown referred to logging and firebombing. The reason you burn a regrowth native forest after logging is to regenerate it. If any senators have seen an old-growth forest that is not burnt after it has been logged, it is an absolute catastrophe; it is a wasteland. What regrows as a result is a total disaster. Fire is a natural part of the forestry ecology in eucalypt forests in this country.

Senator Quirke interjecting—

Senator SHERRY —They are trying it out in Western Australia. Senator Brown raises these highly emotive descriptions when, in fact, they are part of the very essence and survival of eucalypt forests in this country. He never explains that to his particular constituency. I hope that we see at least the end of some of the more rancorous and outrageous contributions we have had from sections of the environment movement and, in particular, Senator Brown. Fortunately, with the setting in place of this process in my home state of Tasmania, and I hope nationally, we have seen some security on both sides of the divide on this issue. We have seen some acceptance and realisation of a reasonable reality and a balance on the reality of this issue.

I would say that I am concerned about woodchip exports. I think there is a real political danger that we will see an unravelling of RFAs unless we see greater downstream processing in Australia, particularly in my home state, of woodchip exports. Woodchip exports are an unfortunate by-product of logging—and they should be a by-product and not the primary purpose for logging forests. But, of course, I have highlighted the hypocrisy of the environment movement when it comes to processing or downstreaming those woodchips into pulp and paper in Australia. That would certainly be of significant benefit to my home state of Tasmania in terms of jobs and the critical problem that we have in our balance of payments in the forest areas. (Time expired)