Doorstop, Tasmania

REBECCA WHITE, MEMBER FOR LYONS: Well, can I first thank Vince and his team here at Western Junction Sawmill for hosting us. We've been joined by Minister Murray Watt, Minister Julie Collins and my federal colleagues here in Tasmania Anne Urquhart and Jess Teesdale. The TFTU are also here, they're the union that represents the workers in the timber industry in Tasmania, along with other members of peak bodies, Nick Steele, just to mention him wherever he's gone, to show that together, we have a very clear plan for supporting Tasmania's timber industry.

There's been a lot of misinformation shared which has caused uncertainty and, in fact, scared some people about what the Federal Labor's intention is for this industry in Tasmania, and it's not the case. We are very strong supporters of Tasmania's forestry industry. We understand its vital importance for regional parts of our economy, but also the opportunity this presents for growth in the industry, whether it's in native or plantation timber and the products that it produces that are high value and highly sought after that create opportunity for jobs but also economic prosperity here in our state.

I'm very proud that we've been able to have the Minister for the Environment visit Tasmania today, along with the Minister for Forestry, to speak directly with the industry about what these changes mean and provide details that are based in truth and fact about how we can provide jobs and opportunity for the forest industry here in Tasmania. I'll pass it across to Minister for Forestry.

JULIE COLLINS, MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FORESTRY: Thanks, Rebecca. It's terrific to join you and our federal colleagues here at Western Junction Mill. This mill is one that has had investment from the Albanese Labor Government to retool, and is doing some great work with hardwood timber. So, we can see first-hand here what retooling can do in terms of hardwood plantations. What we want to do is, we want to see the forestry industry continue to grow here in Tasmania, we want to see high value timber coming out of Tasmania. What we want to do is invest here in the local communities.

We’ve announced, last week, $300 million. $150 million of that will be available through the National Reconstruction Fund to help retool and to help those businesses adjust going forward. But importantly, we've also got $150 million also for grants for industry and for business and for workers to make sure that we can work with them to improve the forest industry here in Tasmania.

But I need to be very clear, we're not ending native forest timber. What we're doing is we're supporting the Timber Fibre Strategy that the industry themselves developed with government. This is something that we have invested in as a government. The Timber Fibre Strategy, and making sure that we implement that, will make sure that we have a timber industry going into the future that's strong here in Tasmania and across the country, and that's what that investment is about.

We also, of course, have said that the environmental protections changes that were made last week are about better protecting the environment but also better for business so that we can get faster yeses and faster nos. And I'm happy to hand over to Murray Watt to talk to you about what that legislation means particularly for Tasmania.

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Thanks very much, Julie, and thanks to our Tasmanian Labor members for standing up so strongly over the last few months for the Tasmanian forestry sector, and for all jobs across all industries in Tasmania. This is actually my second visit to this very mill here at Western Junction where I've met Vince, Danny and their team who do such good work here supplying Australians with the kind of timber products that we need. I was here as the Forestry Minister about two and a half years ago, where we announced a $2 million grant to this facility that has allowed them to bring in new equipment to take them up the value chain and ensure that, not only they have more jobs but they have better jobs for the workers here well into the future. And that's the kind of approach that the Albanese Government has taken again when it comes to our environmental protection reforms.

For those of you who have been following these reforms, they have been desperately needed by this country for five years. It was five years ago that the then Morrison Government received recommendations from Professor Graeme Samuel outlining that our current national environment law was fundamentally broken, that it was failing our environment, that it was failing business and it was failing our community. And last week we finally managed to pass reforms through the Senate to actually change that - to deliver stronger environmental protections and quicker approvals for businesses.

Now that sort of balanced approach that we took with those reforms overall is exactly how we've approached the changes that we've made regarding the forestry sector. We are expecting the forestry sector to meet strong environmental standards in the same way that we expect the mining industry, the aquaculture industry, the housing development industry, the renewables industry to meet high environmental standards. So, nothing different there between the forestry sector and every other industry that provides jobs here in Tasmania.

And at the same time, we're supporting business development by providing that $300 million Forestry Growth Fund that is a vote of confidence in the Tasmanian industry to make sure that it grows, not shrinks, and that it does move higher up the value chain. To be making higher value products, which is the way to make sure that there are good, well-paid jobs in this sector for many years to come, at the same time as ensuring that we protect Tasmania's beautiful environment that the whole country and the whole world knows about.

So it's that balanced approach that we've sought to achieve with the reforms as a whole and also with the forestry sector. And that's why we're so confident that this sector has a long way to go, has a long, bright future ahead of it. And that's why we're here standing with both the industry and the union today.

We're all happy to take questions.

JOURNALIST: Forestry being under national standards wouldn't have been part of a deal with the Coalition. How did you land on getting rid of RFAs?

MURRAY WATT: Well, first of all, we haven't got rid of RFAs. I can understand why you might think that because of some of the things the Federal Coalition have been saying in the last few days. They are telling people that we're ending native forestry - not true. They are telling people that we're ending RFAs - not true. And I challenge the Coalition members who are saying that to show me in the legislation where it says those things. They can't do that because the legislation doesn't say those things.

What the legislation says is that, just like every other industry in Australia, that RFAs will need to meet the new national environmental standards and that the arrangements for RFAs will become accredited by the Federal Government. Again, exactly the same as we do with every other industry.

Now, you're right, we undertook serious good faith negotiations with the Coalition, and the indications to us from them was that they might be open to applying the standards but that they weren't interested in the accreditation aspect of this. But the fundamental problem from the Coalition is that they couldn't work out who their negotiator in these reforms was and they couldn't work out what they wanted.

I was the negotiator on behalf of the Government for these reforms. I had to deal with multiple Coalition figures who wanted to negotiate on behalf of the Coalition, and every single one of them had a different list of amendments for what they wanted.

Now, if any of you were looking to buy a house or buy a car and you went into the car dealer or the house seller and told them three different positions for what you were prepared to pay and what your conditions would be, they would walk away from you. And that's what we did with the Coalition. If the Coalition was serious about striking a deal with us, they would have worked out who their negotiator was and exactly what changes they want. And instead, they weren't capable of that, so they got left on the sidelines and now they're throwing rocks.

I think it's demonstrated, yet again, to the Australian people that the Federal Coalition are a complete shambles, they are unelectable, and they can't even negotiate really important reforms with the government.

JOURNALIST: But why was this your approach to enforce the standards that these RFAs would have to meet? Why was that your approach to getting these laws passed?

MURRAY WATT: Because the two changes that we've made were directly recommended by Professor Graeme Samuel in his review five years ago. And if you look back in time, Sussan Ley, now the Opposition Leader, was the environment minister at the time who commissioned the Samuel Review, who received his review and embraced his recommendations at the time, which recommended that we should apply the national standards to RFAs, and that RFAs should be accredited by the Federal Government. So, what we've done here is simply follow the recommendations of Graeme Samuel's report, which were embraced by Sussan Ley and the Morrison Government at the time.

JULIE COLLINS: Let's be very clear, though. We have gone to the last two elections saying we would bring regional forest agreements into the national environmental standards - two elections. So we have been very clear from the beginning that was our intention.

JOURNALIST: Why is it then that we don't know what those national standards will be?

MURRAY WATT: So, the idea of developing national environmental standards was actually the centrepiece of Graeme Samuel's review. And what that's all about is providing clear guidance to companies when they're seeking environmental approvals and to decision makers like me about what sort of benchmarks need to be met by projects or agreements in order to be approved. At the moment, we don't have that kind of guidance. We don't have that kind of clarity. So is it any wonder that companies are waiting years to get approvals when we don't have clear standards and clear benchmarks about what's being provided?

Now, to directly answer your question, why we don't know what they are. Until we passed these reforms last week, there was no power to create national environmental standards. So, one of the things in the reforms is giving the Minister of the day the power to create national environmental standards, and they will be regulations - so, they will have the force of law, they'll be subordinate legislation. Now until we had the power to create those standards, we weren't in a position to create them.

But nevertheless, what we've done is actually draft two of the standards regarding matters of national environmental significance and environmental offsets. They're currently on my department's website, open for consultation. They are preliminary drafts. And now that we have the power to create those standards, there will be a formal consultation period around them in the New Year - so people will have a second go at those. And we will, over time, continue to draft those standards. But the short answer to your question as to why we didn't have them yet is because we didn't even have the power to create them, and now we do.

JOURNALIST: But given that they're not finalised yet, how is the industry reasonably supposed to meet them within 18 months

MURRAY WATT: Well, we've just come from a briefing with, around 30 different representatives of the forestry industry in Tasmania, and we outlined to them that one of the conditions of the agreement we reached to pass these reforms was that there'd be an 18-month period to work with the industry around how those standards would apply.

The Greens wanted us to phase out native forestry, and we said no. And I can tell you, the people standing behind me were very loud in making very clear that we would not agree to that, and we didn't. The Greens wanted this change to happen within six months - we said absolutely not. That's too soon - we would need to develop the standards, if nothing else. But we think that 18 months is a reasonable period of time to work with the industry to ensure that they meet the same standards that other industry in this state has to meet.

JOURNALIST: Minister, just on some other issues. Will the Albanese Government pressure New South Wales to keep the Eraring power station open?

MURRAY WATT: Well look, obviously my colleague, Chris Bowen as the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, has direct responsibility for this. But I've seen nothing to suggest that we will be pressuring New South Wales in that way. We have been working with New South Wales around their decision to extend the operation of Eraring Power Station.

But what I'll also say is that the reality is that, right around the country, we are seeing our coal-fired power stations reach the end of their lives. In different states they're coming to the end of their lives at different times. They're also becoming more unreliable and, at times, breaking down, and these are some of the key issues for power price rises that we're seeing.

So the solution to that, to the fact that our coal-fired power stations are reaching the end of their lives, is to build more energy. And the cheapest, quickest way we can provide the energy that we need is by delivering more renewable power. And to bring it back to these reforms that we've just passed, one of the big advantages of these reforms is that it will speed up the approvals process for the new renewables that we need, just as it will speed up the approvals process for other important things like developing more housing.

JOURNALIST: Minister, should Australians be concerned about AEMO's blackout warning?

MURRAY WATT: No, I don't think they should. I mean, we will be working as closely as we can with state governments to ensure that there is full and reliable electricity supply, not just this summer but for every summer coming forward.

But we do need to acknowledge as a country that, as I say, the major form of power that we've used over the last few decades, being coal-fired power, is reaching the end of its life. There has been no private company willing to build a new coal-fired power station in this country for decades, and that's because they know that it's a far more expensive way to provide power than building renewables.

What private companies and governments are doing is investing in the cheapest form of power we've got available to us, and that's renewable power. So it would probably be a good idea if the Tasmanian Liberals actually started to read a few facts and a few reports from CSIRO and the Australian Energy Market Operator that says, renewables is the way to go to deliver cheaper power prices, rather than continuing to run their crazy culture war against renewables and against net zero.

JOURNALIST: Minister, on Eraring - the Energy Market Operator says supporting infrastructure, including synchronous condensers, won't be in place by 2027. Is this a failure of Transgrid to get the power grid ready for the coal plant's closure?

MURRAY WATT: I'm not going to comment on that degree of detail. Again, my colleague, Chris Bowen, can provide you with that sort of information, and the New South Wales Government. But what I do know is that the New South Wales Government passed legislation to speed up the delivery of some of those equipment items that are necessary for the extension of Eraring. But as to how that's going, you'll probably need to direct that to the New South Wales Government.

JOURNALIST: Minister, on perhaps what is the biggest waste of taxpayers money - the BOM website, is there an update on that

MURRAY WATT: Well, I'm pleased to let you know that, once I leave here today, I'll be flying back to Canberra to undertake Senate Estimates, and I expect that we'll be getting a few questions about this at Senate Estimates this evening. What I can say, and you may have seen, I was very concerned about the public complaints that we were seeing when the BOM changed its website. You may have seen that I had a meeting at the time with the Acting CEO to explain that I didn't think the website was meeting public expectations.

That meeting has led to a number of changes being made to the BOM website. But I have a very firm view that the public and taxpayers deserve value for money from their taxes, and they deserve high quality information from the BOM. We have a new CEO, who has only been in the job for about three weeks. He started after the issues emerged with the BOM, and already he's taking great steps to make sure that the website is changed in a way to make it most usable for the public.

JOURNALIST: Just quickly on the forestry one - the last question on forestry for me, if that's okay? The Opposition, both federally and at a state level, are saying that whilst the legislation doesn't rule it out, it does make it difficult to do what forestry does. What's your response to that?

MURRAY WATT: Well, so they've backed down from one day saying, it's going to end native forestry and that's what's in the legislation, and now it's been exposed that it's not and now they're clutching at straws with this argument.

We are here today in a timber mill with the timber industry, with the timber union, working with them about the future of this industry to ensure that it grows and that it meets strong national environmental standards. The Tasmanian Coalition, they’re sitting on the sidelines throwing rocks. I'll leave it for Tasmanians to work out who they believe.

JOURNALIST: How do you guarantee to people in the forestry industry that they won't drown in red tape as a result of these changes?

MURRAY WATT: Because we're here working with them, that we've agreed to an 18-month period to work with the industry around these changes. And because we've got $300 billion on the table to support this industry in the future. Where's the Tasmanian Government's money?

JOURNALIST: Where will that $300 million go? Will that go to millers? Will that go to workers?

JULIE COLLINS: As I said earlier, $150 million of it will be through the National Reconstruction Fund and that will be available for things like retooling of mills. So, some of our mills that might want to move to plantation will need to adjust some of their equipment inside their mills, so it can help with that in terms of concessional loans through the National Reconstruction Fund. We've also made forestry a pillar in terms of the Future Made in Australia to allow the National Reconstruction Fund to be able to do that.

We also have the $150 million in grants which we'll work through with industry and, as I said, that's also available in terms of making sure that we can train the workforce and move the workforce up the value chain when it comes to making sure that we get the best available use of our timber fibre.