Dirty deal the death knell for forestry industry: Ley
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley is warning that thousands of jobs will be lost in Tasmania as a result of the government’s “dirty deal” with the Greens to pass new environmental laws.
Ahead of her speech to the Tasmanian Liberals’ state council on Sunday, Ms Ley warned that the government’s overhaul of Australia’s environmental protection regime, which passed parliament on Friday, was a death knell for the forestry industry on the Apple Isle.
The industry, which employs tens of thousands of workers across the country and has a large footprint in Tasmania, will no longer be exempt from national standards.
Labor has announced a $300 million support package aimed at securing jobs and output as a boost to the sector.
But Ms Ley said the industry was incredibly worried about the future.
“I’m standing in Tasmania right now, where hard-working businesses, sawmills, people in the local forest timber industry are staring down the barrel of something called the life support package,” he told Sky News.
“Well, you can’t put a life support package on the table unless you want to kill an industry. And that’s what’s happening here in Tasmania.”
The Australian Forest Products Association said it had serious concerns about the indigenous forestry sector.
He argued that abolishing Regional Forest Agreements (long-term management plans that allow loggers to bypass federal environmental protection law) would stifle the industry in “greenbelt” and put future plantation investments at risk.
The reforms were passed by parliament after Labor, which had tried to gain support from both the coalition and the Greens by making policy concessions, chose to deal with the smaller party.
Ms Ley rejected accusations that she had not met with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese or worked harder to negotiate a better deal for businesses.
He said the government was in an unnecessary rush to pass legislation before the Christmas holidays and wanted to reach an agreement no matter what.
“This is an unnecessarily rushed, politically motivated, very bad bill.”
He disputed the government’s claims that the new laws would speed up approvals and cited comments from the oil and gas lobby that they would increase electricity prices.
“And now we’ve made this dirty deal, we didn’t do it cheaply,” he said.
But Labor frontbencher Katy Gallagher said the new laws would bring forestry into line with all other sectors and help speed up assessment pathways for projects.
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