Senator ALLISON (12:31 PM) —I will continue my remarks from last week on the Regional Forest Agreements Bill 1998 . One lot of evidence pointed to the Western Australian EPA Bulletin No. 912 which had produced a landmark report stating that there was a significant conflict of interest in the Department of Conservation and Land Management, or CALM, and `as long as that is the case, the public will have no confidence in the department or forest management in the RFA'. In fact, the conflict of interest is such that CALM is applying its forest management practices in such a way that it is breaching ministerial conditions that are set under the environment protection legislation of that state. Mr Peter Robertson of the WA Forest Alliance pointed out to the Senate that recent courts in Western Australia had declared that CALM breached its own laws.

In Tasmania there is a serious competition problem, as the state owned logging agency is also the provider of so-called independent advice to the ministers making decisions in that area. There is no way that advice could be regarded as consistent with ecological sustainability and there is no way that the public could ever regard that advice as independent. In other states, royalties provide short-term boosts—albeit very cheaply priced ones—to state coffers, and there is a reluctance to unfavourably match those tangible amounts with less tangible ones, such as the value of clean water from a forested catchment. It is difficult to see why there is such secrecy around negotiated amounts of royalties and why there are claims that it has to be commercial-in-confidence. The forests are on public land, they are a common resource and there is a powerful argument that such secrecy encourages deal making behind closed doors to the detriment of the environment and the economy.

In my home state of Victoria this question of whether or not the economy wins from logging native forests has been examined by the Otway Ranges Environment Network. A total of 1,665 hectares of forest in the Otways is currently planned to be logged to the year 2000 in 113 individual coupes, 73 per cent of which are to be clear-felled or subject to group selection. Logging areas and production volumes have risen dramatically and, as you would expect, forest quality is declining. From the early 1980s the industry started to log regrowth forests. Back in 1919 and 1939 they were logged very extensively.

Now, to be economic, there needs to be a minimum sawlog yield of 100 cubic metres per hectare for mountain forests and 30 cubic metres per hectare for foothill forests. In the 1998-99 season, only 32 per cent of mountain forest coupes will meet that minimum requirement and only 60 per cent of foothill coupes will yield 30 cubic metres. The classification of logs from D grade sawlog to residual has enabled the industry to stay technically below the legislated sustainable yield limit but, in reality, the industry is logging well above sustainable levels.

Something we have always known is that logging is pulpwood driven. In 1990-91, 70 per cent of timber logged ended up as pulp. That percentage rose in 1997-98 to 87 per cent. This is not just some estimate; it comes from the Victorian state government's own documentation on royalty volumes. But the government still claims that no forests in the Otways are specifically logged for woodchipping and woodchipping is only a by- product of sawlog harvesting. Obviously, this is plain nonsense.

Let us look at the economic significance of logging and sawmilling in the region. Hardwood logging and sawmilling employs just 211 people in the region—only 1.7 per cent of the work force—and employment in this sector is steadily declining, as it has been for many years. The industry generates revenue in the region of just $20 million a year, almost half of which comes from pulpwood sales. Royalties of a mere $1.3 million were collected for the public purse from logging in the Otway native forests in 1997-98—$480,000 from sawlogs and more than $800,000 from pulpwood. It is not easy to get exact figures but, on reliable data, OREN estimates that it costs the Victorian state government $2.3 million a year—and, according to independent studies, this figure is conservative. This means that the Victorian taxpayer is subsidising the logging industry in the Otways by at least $1 million every year.

I believe, too, that there is a conflict of interest in the major political parties deciding on this bill at state and federal level. Back in 1997-98 the ALP received $197,500, the National Party $49,000 and the Liberal Party $279,000 from the forest industry. A number of senators here have investments in the woodchip industry, and I hope that they declare their potential conflicts of interest before each and every vote on this bill so that their decisions may be viewed in that context.

In conclusion, the RFA negotiations have been conducted by state departments with significant conflicts of interest and will be voted on by some senators who, it could be argued, have potential conflicts of interest too. It is difficult to see how a fair and objective process could take place in such a climate, and it is reasonable to assume that the RFAs can have little public confidence as a result.

It has unfortunately become clear that the government has focused on propping up a declining industry while inhibiting a growing plantation industry. The legislation will fail to prevent job losses in the favoured sector, inhibit jobs growth in other sectors, destroy areas of ecological importance, discriminate unfairly against other industries and values, limit a developing industry sector, provide complex legal uncertainty, entrench RFA agreements that are flawed, expose the Commonwealth to potentially unlimited and, in some cases, unjustified compensation, fail miserably in its stated goal of implementing the NFPS, fail miserably in resolving community, political and industry conflict over Australia's native forests, fail miserably in embracing the aspirations of indigenous people from areas under an RFA and misdirect government subsidies to prop up a flawed process.

For all of these reasons the Democrats believe the RFA legislation is not ready for parliament at this stage. The legislation should be set aside until a genuine RFA process has been negotiated and until legal inconsistencies are evaluated and resolved.

The Democrats cannot support this legislation at this time with so much uncertainty attached to it; with its destructive job effects; its destructive effects on valuable native forest areas; its destructive effect on water catchments—particularly, as I have mentioned, in the Otway area where many of the Geelong people and others in the area depend on that water for their resources; its drain on the public purse; the potential for open-ended compensation claims; and the unusual protection of decision making from review or scrutiny for extraordinary periods.

The Australian Democrats are totally opposed to the Regional Forest Agreements Bill. We urge all senators to think about the reality of the implications of this bill and the cost to present and future generations.