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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 7 Hansard (18 October) . . Page.. 1766 ..

MS HORODNY (continuing):

Individuals from all walks of life who would not normally be active have come out and been willing to be arrested to draw attention to the political stalemate that is the woodchip debate. Individuals who may not normally have been involved at such a level of protest have felt compelled to become involved because of the strong feelings they have about the injustice occurring in our native forests.

There is no doubt that the timber industry in Australia must be restructured, and be restructured now. It is economic madness to keep propping up one destructive sector of the industry at the expense of another, namely, the plantation sector, which is sustainable and does not impact in any way on the values of our native forests. The native forest sector of the industry continues to be subsidised in the form of low tree royalties and continues to devastate our forests and to perpetuate the myth of an industry which is sawlog driven and merely utilising waste by turning residue into woodchips. How can a sector of the industry which is ever shrinking, that is, the hardwood sawlog sector, provide an ever increasing amount of woodchips for the export market? It is not rational economics to continue subsidising this industry.

Numerous reports have underlined the extent of the financial subsidies in Tasmania, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia. The New South Wales Public Accounts Committee in 1991 looked at the issue of subsidies to the industry in New South Wales in the 1990-91 financial year and concluded that in that one year alone New South Wales taxpayers had subsidised the timber industry to the tune of $16.2m. Similarly, in Victoria the Auditor-General's report of 1993 stated that Victoria was downgrading logs from sawlog quality to woodchip quality and was losing the State millions of dollars annually.

Here in the ACT we are affected by this level of subsidy because when the Commonwealth cake is cut up for sharing around the States and the States cry poor there is less money available for everyone. There is absolutely no doubt that we could implement in this country right now a transition strategy which, over a 12-month period, could stop the logging of our forests, transfer workers into existing plantations and start saving money immediately. To argue for the continuation of an industry which is responsible for the decimation of large areas of wilderness and responsible for driving many species to extinction, particularly those that have specific habitat requirements such as that provided in those ancient forests, and to argue for this industry to be supported, is ludicrous in anyone's language.

The "Australia's Plantations" report clearly shows that in a very short period, from two to five years, Australia's plantations will be generating all the wealth and all the jobs in Australia's forest industries - up to 45,000 jobs by the year 2000 - and most of that in regional centres. When the accumulated subsidy to this industry over the last several decades amounts to over $6 billion it is simply madness to keep going as we are. The industry argues that jobs will be lost, but what is the real truth about jobs? Economists like Clive Hamilton have analysed the employment impact of woodchipping.

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