MATTERS OF URGENCY
Senator McKIM (Tasmania—Australian Greens Whip) (16:37): I move: That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency: The need for the Government to cease all public subsidies to the native forest logging industry, and to use all available Commonwealth powers to end native forest logging in Australia. What we now know is what we've suspected for some time, and that is that Labor and the Liberals are colluding to ensure that Tasmania's precious, beautiful native forest estate is being destroyed and plundered using public subsidies and that some of the logs from that plunder are being shipped across Bass Strait using public subsidies and then being milled in Victorian timber mills using public subsidies.
Every step of the way, this mendicant industry is destroying nature, emitting massive amounts of carbon and bleeding the Tasmanian, Victorian and Australian taxpayers. Like leeches on the public purse, this environmentally destructive, socially destructive, climate-destroying industry is bleeding the public purse because it cannot stand on its own two feet to survive.
Four Corners last night laid this whole sorry, sordid saga bare, and it is the Tasmanian taxpayers, the Victorian taxpayers and ultimately the Australian taxpayers who are being ripped off every step of the way by this mendicant industry, which would collapse in an instant if the public subsidies were withdrawn from it. Not only did Four Corners lay this whole sorry, sordid saga bare and make it obvious to the Australian people last night; we were faced with the Tasmanian logging minister—forest minister—Mr Felix Ellis, blatantly lying about what was going on.
He confirmed that whole logs were not being exported across Bass Strait from Tasmania's public forests, when, in fact, they are. One of the people who has the contract on behalf of Neville Smith was interviewed on Four Corners and confirmed that Neville Smith was shipping whole logs across Bass Strait, so the Tasmanian forest minister, Felix Ellis, was caught out blatantly lying on Four Corners last night.
Make no mistake: native forest logging destroys nature, and it emits massive amounts of carbon while leeching off taxpayers. The Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme was not designed to be exploited in such a way, and the Commonwealth should immediately close the loophole that is allowing whole logs to be exported across Bass Strait while being subsidised by the Tasmanian Freight Equalisation Scheme.
They should also prevent diesel fuel credits from being used by the companies that are transporting those logs, I might add. If state governments, particularly in Tasmania and New South Wales, won't act to stop native forest logging, the Commonwealth government should use all of the many powers that are available to it to shut down native forest logging in Australia.
Our native forests are too precious. They are too sacred. They are too beautiful.
They are home to too many complex, amazing creatures and fabulous complex ecosystems to keep sacrificing to prop up a mendicant industry that is a destroyer of nature, that contributes so massively to climate breakdown and that bleeds the taxpayer dry at every opportunity. The time to end native forest logging is right now.