Prime Minister Albanese at the AFPA members’ dinner, Canberra
Yesterday’s deal between the Greens and the Federal Government to ban the National Reconstruction Fund from direct investment in native logging projects, coal and gas has been described by the Opposition as another disgraceful broken promise to Australia’s forestry industry. Source: Timberbiz
The deal secured the passage of the NRF bill through the lower house on Thursday and gives Labor a likely pathway to pass it in the Senate with the support of the Greens and crossbench in late March.
Australian Forest Products Association CEO Joel Fitzgibbon described it as “a shameful victory for politics over sensible policy”.
Mr Fitzgibbon said it was time to “start staring the Greens down”.
In their original NRF plan, the Albanese Government pledged that $500 million would be reserved specifically for support across the agriculture, fisheries and forestry sectors. This was a centrepiece of their pre-election promises to the forestry industry.
And, on 17 May 2022, the then Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese, also wrote to forestry workers in Tasmania that:
“I promise you that if I become Prime Minister, a Government I lead will not shut down the native forestry industry.”
Mr Albanese also described the very concept of a Federal Government excluding the forestry industry from a manufacturing strategy as “shameful”.
Shadow Minister for the Environment, Fisheries and Forestry Senator Jonno Duniam said the actions of the Government yesterday clearly betrayed all of the now Prime Minister’s promises.
“Adding to this chaos, the Government’s Forestry Minister Murray Watt has already been caught out in recent weeks, breaking a range of further promises to the sector,” Senator Duniam said.
“Extraordinarily, he has even breached the Regional Forestry Act – and failed to hold, or apparently even schedule, a promised cross-sector roundtable to discuss all aspects of the future of the industry.
He said that Mr Albanese also said in his letter of 17 May 2022 that “the Liberals have gone into overdrive saying that Labor will listen to the Greens (and) this is nothing but a desperate scare campaign”.
“The reality – as exposed by the Government’s actions – is that those warnings were entirely correct.”
The AFPA welcomed the Albanese Government’s assurance that the Australian firms which add value to native forest product in mills and manufacturing plants around the country remained eligible for NRF support.
“The forest and forest product sectors appreciate the Albanese Government’s ongoing support for our industry, support not altered by the hollow Greens stunt,” Mr Fitzgibbon said.
“It has been made clearer that the Greens are not genuine supporters of the manufacturing sector and the jobs it creates.
“The sustainable, selective, responsible, sophisticated, and lawful harvesting of our native forests is crucial to our economy and jobs.”
