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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 5 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1239 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

Hemp can produce up to four times the amount of paper that forest or plantation clearing can and up to three times more fibre than cotton, without the need for chemical treatment. Due to the extremely favourable weight to strength ratio of hemp fibre, it still is found in current manufacture. Hemp rope and hemp fibre are still widely available in hardware stores for plumbing purposes. Some of the finest linens in the world are a blend of hemp and cotton. It was hemp that gave denim its strength and durability. Irish linen is, in fact, cotton and hemp. Bibles are printed on hemp paper because of its strength, durability and lightweight character.

As I read this speech, I find myself being taken back to speeches that were delivered in this house in former times by Dennis Stevenson.

Ms McRae: Except that he had a very nice jacket on, Mr Moore.

MR MOORE: Indeed. In fact, on a number of occasions when he spoke in this chamber he did wear his hemp jacket. I am not able to match that. I do have a hemp hat at home. My daughter has a hemp hat. I actually have a hemp tie, but it did not go with what I am wearing today. This one is probably made of plastic.

Mrs Carnell: What difference does that make?

Mr De Domenico: When has that made a difference?

MR SPEAKER: Order! It beats a hairshirt, Mr Moore.

MR MOORE: Indeed, Mr Speaker; but I am sure that most members are conscious of what it feels like to wear one of those. One of the things that I remember about Mr Stevenson in this chamber is that he began one of his speeches by saying that hemp had one bad use and a thousand good uses. Indeed, we talked about the bad use being smoking. Its good uses, which he went on to talk about, included the use of paper for Bibles and so on; but he also said that hemp paper was used for making cigarette papers. I thought there was some irony in recognising that as a good use when he found only one bad use.

Many countries in Europe are realising the potential of hemp in agriculture and paper production. In fact, in France there are already 8,000 hectares under cultivation for hemp. South Australia, New South Wales and Western Australia are also experimenting with and researching the possibilities of large-scale production of hemp and hemp products. The potential for this crop to bring great relief to farmers relying on cotton and wool is enormous. It also has a potential to redeploy those in the timber industry away from logging forests and into harvesting hemp. The Dutch have collected some 200 different strains of the plant which grow between the latitudes of 28 and 58. Certain varieties of the plant thrive in the Ukraine and Holland, others in the tropics, and others in between. In the south-west of Western Australia the Government is experimenting with paper production from strains exported from the Ukraine and imported into Australia. Australia currently imports, through Australian Newsprint Mills, of the order of $1.6 billion worth of hemp fibre a year in order to supplement wood fibre in quality paper production.

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