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FOREST PRACTICES (PRIVATE TIMBER RESERVES VALIDATION) BILL 1999 (No. 40)

Second Reading

Mr LENNON (Franklin - Deputy Premier - 2R) - Mr Speaker, I move -

That the bill be now read the second time.

The Government recognises that private timber reserves are an integral part of the State's commitment to encouraging and fostering the sustainable management of private forests. The intent of Parliament in 1985 was to ensure that forestry, as a major industry with statewide importance, was covered by a statewide planning scheme in the form of the Forest Practices Act and Forest Practices Code. This intent was reinforced by Parliament in 1993 with the enactment of the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act, which excludes forestry activities within private timber reserves from the provisions of planning schemes. This intent was again reinforced by Parliament in 1998 with the enactment of changes to the Forest Practices Act and the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act that clarify that private timber reserves can be declared over land without the need for separate approvals from local government, except where forestry is a prohibited use under local planning schemes.

The administrative processes for dealing with applications for private timber reserves were recently subjected to a legal challenge. In reviewing its processes, the Government has identified some minor administrative flaws in the application process. These flaws relate to the form of delegations that were set up on the basis of legal advice in 1994 to allow Private Forests Tasmania to assist the Forest Practices Board in the administrative processing of applications. The flaws are of a minor administrative nature and have not detracted from the rights of all parties under the procedures laid down in the Forest Practices Act. The Government has moved to correct the administrative flaws through the issue of new delegations between the Forest Practices Board and Private Forests Tasmania.

This bill is introduced to provide that any previous decisions made with respect to the declaration of land as a private timber reserve are not invalidated as a result of any administrative flaws that were incurred during the processing of those applications.

This bill will maintain a secure environment for investment in private forestry within the State and help to deliver commitments in the Regional Forest Agreement for the sustainable management of private forests. It will reinforce the support of the Government for investment in private forestry through private timber reserves and will send a signal to opponents of private forestry that the Government will not allow continuing legal challenges on technical procedures to undermine its commitment to the development of private forestry. I commend the bill to the House.

Mr HIDDING (Lyons) - On this side of the House we will be supporting this bill which is perfectly consistent with the position we have taken on this issue. This issue is that there was an agreed playing field some time ago back in 1985 when the Parliament intended that all issues relating to the planning of the forest industry were to be on the playing field of this Parliament under the Forest Practices Act and Forest Practices Code. This was reinforced in 1993 with the enactment of the LUPA act which excludes forestry activities within PTRs from the provisions of planning schemes. That is clearly the intent of parliament.

Some people have chosen to exercise their legal right to test this at law. It is not a matter for me to comment on. It is their perfect and proper right to do it. But it is also the duty of this Parliament to harden up whatever it decided back then to ensure that the will of the Parliament then is at least continued.

One of the problems that this State has had over many years is the issue of sovereign risk, and I have spoken about this before in this House, and it is something that the State of Tasmania unfortunately in the investment community around the world has been tagged with as being an unhealthy place to invest because of a political climate and circumstances in the State that would suggest that your investment was at risk from other than natural factors. There is always a degree of risk in investment but you can account for most of those but it is particularly difficult to account for risk of a political nature, by its very nature it could be all over the place.

I remember with some sadness a discussion with the chief executive of a Pacific region international company, a major industrial company, who had a substantial investment in Tasmania in a mining resource - but they are also in forestry and petroleum - that was simply, by the stroke of a pen in this House, taken off them when a national park was declared over their mining resource and they were basically just booted out of this State. They said, 'We don't want your money, we don't want your investment and you had better not trust this State ever again for any further investment'. This person in front of a number of other very senior people in the industrial community said in no uncertain terms to me 'Tasmania is a basket case. You would be a nut case to invest there'.

The only way to combat that - there is no answer you can give that in terms of words - is for this Parliament to give a clear undertaking that when it says that A means A it cannot mean B. It needs to be backed with the full force of legislation and if there are glitches and hiccups in the enactment of the intent of this House then they need to be fixed up.

As the minister said, this bill is intended to provide that any previous decisions made with respect to the declaration of land as a PTR are not invalidated as a result of any of these glitches during the process of those applications. This will maintain a secure environment for investment. We support the minister in that effort and I hope by our clear words that we say to the rest of the world that Tasmania is open for business and ready to talk to anybody who wants to invest in this State for a resource-based investment or otherwise, and that the political climate in this State also backs up the reality.

So, Minister, you have our full support for a speedy resolution of this to put things back to the way they were intended by the previous Parliament.

Ms PUTT (Denison) - I will be opposing this bill. I am absolutely amazed at how many times the Government can get it wrong in trying to pander to the forest industry. But the reason it has come to light of course is because the community is very, very hot under the collar out there on the ground and they will be unbending, and unending and unyielding in their attempts to make sure that what the Government is doing, or allowing to happen, across the State with respect to taking forestry out of local planning schemes does not occur, and it will not be the last time that they will look for ways to remedy this situation. So I am just making quite sure that the Government knows, as I am sure they do, that that is the case.

This second reading speech is a pretty strange speech. It downplays the problem and in fact I think tells an untruth about what has happened compared with what is in the fact sheet. You cannot even admit up-front that you made a second major stuff up. Instead you say, in this second reading speech:

'The administrative processes for dealing with applications for private timber reserves were recently subjected to a legal challenge. In reviewing its processes the Government has identified some minor administrative flaws in the application process.'

The truth is concerned citizens identified the flaws in the administration process and the Government was forced to recognise that they would lose an upcoming court case unless they brought this validating legislation in to retrospectively fix up the mistakes, that is what happened. Why can you not even say that? At least in the facts sheet you go so far as to point out that you had to seek the Solicitor-General's advice and got the advice that components of the administrative processors were not covered by valid delegations although you do not say that the reason you had to seek it was because you were on the ropes in terms of legal proceedings. So why can you not even say that, why can you not even tell people on the public record so that when they look in the future they can see why this was actually happening? It makes it look as if an all-wise, all-seeing government was just raking over things looking for a few minor flaws and found them. Well that is not what happened. You made a second major stuff up and now you are racing in here to fix up the problem for your mates in the forest industry again.

The whole problem with what is happening here is the exemption from planning schemes. That is the root of my objection to this and it is why the Greens have objected all the way through since 1985 to the creation of private timber reserves that do not have to abide by local planning schemes. We had the member for Lyons with his heart on his sleeve for the Liberal Party worrying about investors.

Mr Hidding - What a dreadful thing to worry about.

Ms PUTT - What this legislation does is say 'mud in the eye' to investors in tourism, mud in the eye to investors in clean, green agriculture, mud in the eye -

Mr Hidding - Let's them know exactly where they are.

Ms PUTT - of investors who have bought into residences for lifestyle reasons. All those investors' money can be taken away, their investments can be ruined as long as you do not touch a single forest industry investor in being able to have their way and have a special exemption from the laws of the State that apply to everybody else. That is what you are arguing for and I hope you are aware that that is what you are arguing for: that the planning laws that apply to everybody else should not apply to Forestry and you think that is fair.

What if you are somebody who has invested in tourism in the Meander Valley. Let us say the Meander Valley since this is the area where the council has actually brought forward the case against a particular private timber reserve that precipitated this particular validating legislation. Ten per cent of that municipality now has been made over to private timber reserves. In that municipality it is affecting the community planning for tourism.

Mr Hidding - What do you say to the guy at Weegena who has a few acres and he wants to plant trees and he is not allowed to by the local government? What about Alan Andrews at Weegena - what do you say about that? Why can't he plant trees?

Ms PUTT - I'll tell you about that. I'll tell you what I'll say to him.

Quorum formed.

Ms PUTT - As I was saying, what this legislation says is that people who engage in this one activity do not have to adhere to the same laws that apply to everybody else in the State. It exempts them from planning law and while we have had an argument advanced that it is to protect investment it protects their investment at the expense of everybody else's investment, investment in clean, green agriculture, investment in tourism, investment in residing in an area and developing a lifestyle in that area. And that is the reason why the Meander Valley Council persists in objecting to private timber reserves and in taking legal action to try to prevent them from going ahead in key areas that have been designated for other activities within that municipality.

The member for Lyons was asking me just before that quorum call what I say to somebody who wants to plant trees on their land. What I say to them is you are most welcome to plant trees on your land if it conforms to the provisions of the local planning scheme. If it is an area where it is a permitted use - go right ahead. If it is an area where it is a discretionary use go through the right processes and see whether you will be allowed to do it, just like anybody else has to do if they want to conduct any form of developmental activity or investment-type activity. That is what I say - and if it is a prohibited use, well, do not do it. Just like you say to someone who wants to build a foam factory - you say, if it is a residential area you are probably not going to be permitted to.

You probably have to go through a process if it is a discretionary use within an area, but if it is permitted go right ahead. That is exactly what should apply to people growing trees. The same as everybody else, and what it would make them do would be look for the areas where it is appropriate to be growing them in terms of the way the community has planned their future development. That is what is happening now and it is going to be serious, this is actually going to have serious adverse economic implications for people who are investing in other areas.

The reason I raised in question time this morning what is happening to the rating base in Burnie was to illustrate with the most extreme example that we have in the State at the moment what this legislation is allowing to happen.

Mr Green - Is that correct that the Burnie Council is borrowing money?

Ms PUTT - That the Burnie Council is having to borrow - yes, that is my understanding. What has happened there is that North owns 41.44 per cent of the municipality, North Forest Products, and the majority of that is land that is used for private timber reserves and they only have to return a small amount of rates because of the rating that takes place for that sort of activity. In fact, they are going in and hauling out infrastructure now in areas like Meunna where you can go and see where the power has been pulled out, you can see the houses that have been bulldozed down, you can see the dairies that have been bulldozed down and if you have not been to have a look at them you should do so.

Of course, all of that depletes the community infrastructure and depletes the rating base so that you are not only getting this spread across prime agricultural land which is really upsetting people there - and again go and talk to John Kelly and a few others at Upper Natone, go and see the people that have the only dairy left in Meunna and see how it is going and you will understand the concerns. You have a rating base being undermined; I have heard reports second-hand that the head of the Local Government Association has basically said that the Burnie municipality in terms of its rating base, because of what has happened with private forestry, is a basket case.

Quorum formed.

Ms PUTT - So wee have a municipality in Burnie where because this has gone right out of control, their rating base has contracted significantly and it is stacking up long-term problems. On top of that, the erosion of prime agricultural land is beginning to be of major concern to people in the area, particularly where you have this plantation establishment eating up the entire landscape at places like Upper Natone and Meunna where they were previously the areas that were used for growing seed potato. People are now advancing the concern that they will not be able to produce seed potato in Tasmania, that we are going to have to look elsewhere and that will be a problem for that industry.

There are also all the social problems that come along with it. I have somewhere a copy of a letter that was written to Mr Kelly by two real estate agents operating in his area saying that the value of his property had dropped $20 000 since the private timber reserves or the forestry plantations are being put in on the agricultural land next door to his place. I have been and seen it and it is the equivalent of sticking a 50 foot fence in right next to the house in terms of overshadowing and of course they have already had some problems associated with spraying on that adjacent property. Forestry is refusing to put fences in and telling them that they can just like it or lump it when they lay the 1080 baits and the animals come across onto their property and their dogs are then in trouble.

So it is a huge affront and an impost on people's lifestyle when this sort of thing happens and they are not going to take it lying down. This guy is not a Green - you go and meet him, you will know. If something like this did not happen to him, he was never going to pick up the phone and talk to a Greens member of parliament, that is for sure.

There are all sorts of people who were just going about their normal lives who are being alienated by both major parties because of this sucking up constantly to private forestry above everything else. What is happening is that in Burnie the woodchip pile has been described by the consultants in their report as a decaying symbol of the past and here is the Government hell-bent on allowing as many private timber reserves to proliferate all across the State wherever they may choose to be as they want to without any sort of overall coherent plan. And what I am trying to say is if you do not have a coherent plan for where this sort of development is going to occur and you do not make sure that it synchronises with the community planning that is going on at local government level, you are going to run into big problems.

The only way to make sure that these things do fit within the planning outline that communities have drawn up for themselves through their local council is to say that private timber reserves also have to get the same approvals that apply to everybody else. So then the local government can protect their scenic values, they can protect their water catchments, they can protect the tourism values of their areas, because at the moment they can designate that they want to do that in particular parts of their municipality and it can be blown away, absolutely torn to shreds by private timber reserves coming in willy-nilly all over these zones with the council basically having had its hands tied behind its back, unable to do anything about it, because this Government persists in bringing in legislation to ensure that local government gets no say. That is what is happening.

We have just heard, I am sure everybody knows, about what is going on with the scare about the dioxin in the food from Belgium at the moment. We know that people are pretty touchy about contamination of agricultural products. When you have Forestry coming in, in the upper catchments of areas that are trying to convert in Tasmania to organic or near organic; to try and green up and be cleaner; where you have the Government actually saying in their Budget that that is a direction that we want to go in; where they are saying they are starting initiatives in that direction and you allow private timber reserves to willy-nilly go in upstream of that with all their spraying regimes including atrazine which is still being sprayed on private land here in Tasmania, is highly mobile in the environment and is quite likely to end up on some of these farms, then you are storing up big problems.

That is what I am saying about the need for coherency in this: that you cannot just pander to private forestry without making problems for all the other investors on the land. What do you say to those people when their investment comes to grief because of the impacts of private forestry that could not be restrained by a local government even though they wanted to? 'Oh, sorry chaps, we actually thought that forestry investors were much more important than you people with your clean, green agriculture', is that what you are going to say? What about tourism, what about what Meander is saying about tourism, about how they will have - on the Western Tiers there is a fabulous landscape, absolutely fabulous. There are areas that should be kept timbered to keep the tourism potential and one of those happens to be at Mole Creek where a certain private timber reserve has been resisted by that council for some period. Of course it is what has led to this legislation in the Parliament today.

So there are tourism zonings where this particular council would like to keep some forested areas so that when tourists go in, they actually do have an enjoyable experience of the natural environment. With this legislation, council can do all they want to to encourage that, people can invest in their tourism ventures, in their accommodations, all that sort of thing, private forest reserves go in and whack! the whole lot gets a crew cut. Tourists are not impressed, tourists in fact get extremely upset and distraught because in many States of Australia and around the world people have never seen clear-fell logging and it is not a pretty sight and neither is what comes after it. When they go past and see clear-fell logging and signs up saying '1080 bait laid' and ask a few questions and discover that not only do we treat this beautiful environment in such an appallingly barbarous way but we also go round and poison all the native animals that dare to come back into the area afterwards and allow them to die lingering miserable deaths, they are absolutely shocked and flabbergasted and that is what the Government is allowing here today as well, that sort of impact on our tourism industry. People do not come back when they have had an experience like that and they do not go away and give good reports. In fact what they do is go away and say, 'You know those people in Tasmania, you know you have heard all of these stores about them, gee they are true - in fact it is even worse than that. You should see the way they treat the most beautiful places, you would think they were a bunch of barbarians' and that is what I am objecting to here.

What about people investing in ecotourism? What about sprays in catchments? What about our comparative advantage of being clean and green? What about putting our requirements for the export trade in agriculture at risk? Why cannot you even consider that we should be looking at these things and working out where to fit forestry in and where to leave it out, rather than allowing a kangaroo court of three jumped-up blokes on the Forest Practices Board to decide where private timber reserves will go with absolutely no reference to any other form of planning in the State at all?

That is just craziness. We need to have coherent planning about this. We need to have local communities being able to have an input and we need to make sure that other people who invest are not disadvantaged. You cannot have it any other way and actually have some sort of a coordinated development plan for an area or for the State in toto.

Just as Burnie is getting into deep financial strife because of what has happened to their rating base, just as Meander is now finding that increasingly large segments of their municipality are given over to private timber reserves whether or not they want them, so it is starting to happen up and down the length of the State and the community objection to this is not going to stop. They are going to find every single possible way they can to find loopholes in this legislation and good luck to them, I hope they find more. I hope you have to keep on embarrassing yourselves by coming in here and having retrospective validating legislation, which of course is the most undemocratic of legislations.

You have had to do it twice already this year because you have stuffed up twice. Well I hope they can find a whole lot more stuff-ups and I hope that at some stage you get away from - take off the rose-coloured glasses about everything that Forestry does is great and never gets in the way of anything else and actually have a think about some of these issues and about how you are going to coordinate development in Tasmania because if you do not, our clean, green image is down the drain, so is ecotourism, so is tourism, so is a lot of clean, green agriculture.

Mr LENNON (Franklin - Minister for Infrastructure, Energy and Resources) - First of all can I say, Mr Speaker, I understand the points of view raised by the member, we have debated these issues many times in the past and I know on most occasions when it comes to this industry we will not agree. But I do acknowledge the point that she made in her contribution that the second reading speech probably should have been a bit stronger in recognition - I acknowledge that point, that is so, and I would just like to put that on record because it is a valid point.

I would also put on the record that I do not mind debating the member and standing up straight and defending myself when I have made an error but actually I did not make this error, it might be nice for the member to actually acknowledge that as well -

Ms Putt - All right, I'll do that, don't you worry.

Mr LENNON - This delegation went back to the Groom Government as a matter of fact and what I am trying to do is to make sure that the intent of Parliament is upheld and let us be fair here there is no suggesting in this validating legislation on this occasion as it was with the last that the legislation itself is flawed, it is the way that the delegation was granted that was flawed and that is what is being resolved here.

The delegation was granted in good faith by the Forest Practices Board to Private Forests Tasmania to administratively process the applications and the member is right: the problem was drawn to my attention via the Forest Practices Board by virtue of an appeal application that had been lodged by, I think, the Meander Valley Council who of course, as the member is aware, identified the original validation problem that we had.

I can accept what the member has said, there are a number of people up there researching with some success at the moment whether there are ways in which they can frustrate the operation of the legislation. Of course, the underlying point in the member's contribution, Mr Speaker, is right - that is, that the legislation should be put in place properly. I certainly would not want anyone to think that we were in any way saying that they should not be able to exercise their legal right. That is what has happened here, there is no doubt, and I am not questioning that either.

The simple fact of the matter is that the intent of the Parliament in 1985 was to provide the secure environment. As I said during the last debate Parliament has the right at any time to change its mind and the member has the right if she so wishes to bring in legislation to seek to have Parliament debate that matter if she wants. I do not anticipate she will have a lot of support for that, more than likely. but that is her right and I think I mentioned that on the last occasion as well. She probably feels, Mr Speaker, at the moment she does not need to do that because they are having a fair bit of success in some of these other strategies so far.

I too hope that this is the last time that we need to have a look at validating legislation for these private timber reserves.

The other general point that I would make at this stage, Mr Speaker, is of course that it was not that long ago that the Green movement in Tasmania, of course, was doing everything they could to encourage people to move from native forest harvesting to plantation based harvesting. Private timber reserves is all about plantation-based harvesting and now the member -

Ms Putt - Saying they should have to get them approved under a planning scheme.

Mr LENNON - as the political representative of the Green movement at a local level in Tasmania, of course, is very much supporting the campaign to undermine that.

That is really, I suppose, where the debate has moved from in Tasmania. When we were looking at our future principally based on native forest harvesting, the member was part of the movement that was saying move the plantations. Now, as part of the forestry growth plan, as those people have stated, we will see there will be over the next decade a significant move to plantation base, and now we are being attacked for that.

I have always acknowledged the fact, I think it is fair to say, that the Green movement will not be happy until the timber is destroyed in this State and they will just move from one campaign to another until that has occurred. The last sector of the industry that will be attacked, of course, will be the softwood industry because they are plantation based now but, of course, they will be the last section if they are successful and certainly, while I am minister, they will not have a lot of comfort, I can assure you, in trying to stop the plantation based industry. But if at some time in the future they are successful then they will move on to the softwood industry, mark my words, because that will mean they will have two-thirds of the industry out of the way and they will go for the last bit.

So, Mr Speaker, this legislation simply ensures that the intent of Parliament in 1985, reaffirmed in 1993, is upheld and that private timber reserves that were processed by the delegation for that period of time are not invalid because of the flaw in the delegation. I do identify it in the legal advice that I received, legal advice that emanated directly as a result of the appeal. And I simply say again in closing, Mr Speaker, I do acknowledge the point that the member made there and it was not a deliberate act on my behalf to try and skate over that, that is why I have made the point of putting it on the record in the summing up.

The House divided -

Mr Speaker after appointing the tellers, having ascertained that there was not at least one member supporting the member for Denison, Ms Putt, declared in favour of the 'Ayes'.

Bill so read the second time.