Senator WATSON (9:01 PM) —In November 1997, the state and Commonwealth governments signed a regional forest agreement for Tasmania. That was almost two years ago. This 20-year agreement guides the future management of our forests. It is the basis for an internationally competitive and ecologically sustainable forest products industry.

The RFA process had its genesis in the national forest policy statement of 1992, when the Labor Party was in. Broad conservation and industry goals for the management of Australia's forests between the Commonwealth, state and territory governments were clearly set out. The objects of the bill were to ensure that the regional forest agreements between the Commonwealth and the states were consistent with the national forest policy statement of 1992 and to establish the Wood and Paper Industry Council.

In developing the Tasmanian RFA, the regional forest agreement, comprehensive regional assessments of forest values were undertaken. Environment, heritage, social and economic forest values were assessed. Biodiversity, endangered species, indigenous heritage, national estate, world heritage, ecologically sustainable management, forest resources, mineral resources, economic activity, social consequences and industry development were all taken into account.

The RFA provides for establishing a world-class reserve system for forests in Tasmania to safeguard biodiversity, old growth, wilderness and other natural and cultural values on both public and private land. The RFAs produced in Australia to date include two in Victoria, one in Tasmania and one in Western Australia. All four are outstanding examples of negotiated science-based agreements on land use. In fact, they are probably the best such agreements in that regard in the world.

RFAs, however, are not going to remove native forest land use from the public agenda. This will continue to be the subject of keen interest and debate well into the future. As can be seen from the debates in this chamber, there will continue to be immense political pressure from time to time on governments party to particular RFAs that want to overturn those agreements for purely political reasons. Regrettably, the current situation in Western Australia is a case in point.

Since the Tasmanian RFA, provisions have been built into RFAs to allow claims for compensation against the Commonwealth by state governments and impacted industry stakeholders where the Commonwealth breaches the RFA. The efficiency of these, however, is yet to be tested in court. While there are generous compensation arrangements, the sad history of Tasmania tells us that we have to be extremely careful. All we need is another Graham Richardson in Canberra for RFAs to be open to overturn by the Commonwealth, regardless of the compensation provisions.

In Peter Nixon's joint Commonwealth-state inquiry into the Tasmanian economy earlier this year, he reported that Tasmania's unfriendly business environment made it difficult to develop manufacturing industries that would be viable and competitive on world markets. Further in his report, Peter Nixon said that this factor has been associated with high levels of sovereign risk, which is a matter that my colleague Senator Calvert referred to. I think it is quite significant that in sequence Senator Calvert, me and Senator Gibson, who will follow, are all speaking on this important bill and the importance that it will have on the Tasmanian economy and jobs in the bush.

There is the question of sovereign risk. Tasmanians will well remember that it was Bob Hawke as Prime Minister and Graham Richardson as his environment minister who scuttled the Wesley Vale export mill in order to pander to voters in urban New South Wales and Victoria. Wesley Vale should have been built. When you approach the airport at Devonport on the north-west coast, as Senator Sherry frequently does, you should be able to see a state-of-the-art export mill. However, Hawke and Richardson saw to it that the impediments were so cumbersome that the mill could not practically be built.

The senior press gallery journalist, David Barnett, in a recent article published in the Institute of Public Affairs quarterly review of politics and public affairs, said:

For the ALP Government in Canberra, Wesley Vale was another political Godsend. Hawke appointed Richardson to be environment minister in 1988, not because Richo was a famous greenie, but because, as a former NSW ALP machine man, he was a famous political operator.

Hawke and Richardson could not deny that they knew they were playing fast and loose with the livelihoods of the local workforce, as they shifted the environmental requirements on Wesley Vale around, in order to wring every last drop of political capital out of the project.

David Barnett went on to say:

The last straw was when Richo commissioned the CSIRO to draw up a further report and guidelines for such projects. North and Noranda pulled out. As it happened, the Wesley Vale project was within those CSIRO guidelines when they eventually appeared, but the issue in 1989 was not the environment. It was sovereign risk.

Tasmania has suffered ever since that decision. It has suffered in many respects, but mainly because investors have lost confidence in Tasmania. The president of Noranda, Adam Zimmerman, saw to that. He never hesitated to tell everyone who wanted to invest in Tasmania that it was too hard and that Tasmania did not want industries. After all, he had suffered and he knew it well.

The decision has cost Tasmania more jobs than anyone could ever imagine. It has cost Tasmania the opportunity of being a vibrant contributor today. Today, Tasmania is so economically depressed that the federal government has to pour money into the state hand over fist in order to keep it going—a generous federal government giving to a Labor government to look after the livelihoods of the people in that state.

With this sort of history behind us and still hurting us, the RFA legislation therefore includes a mechanism of forcing a Commonwealth government that wants to break an RFA to justify its action here in the parliament. This adds a further disincentive for such action to be taken for the purely political motives that have driven actions like the Helsham World Heritage inquiry in 1987-88 and, of course, the Wesley Vale fiasco.

The forestry sector, and the communities which rely on it, have had to live with the political whims of the Commonwealth now for 20 years. The RFA legislation will be a means of holding the Commonwealth to a degree much more accountable in the future. Without legislative backing, the timber industry and the timber communities of regional Australia remain forever vulnerable to politically motivated attack.

It is the federal government's responsibility to protect jobs in decentralised areas—and I must say it has done it rather well where opportunities are very limited—and I believe that the passing of this bill without amendment will see a huge vote of confidence in the timber industry and regional communities in Australia. Unfortunately, the ALP inspired amendment is a sell-out for all those regional communities. The question is being asked right across Tasmania, `Why are the Labor Party senators supporting this amendment and, therefore, gutting this bill?' The people are saying, `Stand up for Tasmania. Vote for Tasmania and ignore the amendment.'