Extract from the CURRENT HOUSE HANSARD
Database
Date: 17 November 1997 (16:52)
Page: 10474
GRIEVANCE DEBATE
Timber
Ms HANSON (Oxley) (4.54 p.m.) I must voice my deep concern, indeed anger, at both the federal government and the New South Wales state government's savage and unnecessary cuts to timber resources and the mismanagement of the jointly funded forest industries structural adjustment package. The native hardwood industry has become the victim of an extremist and unrelenting conservation agenda allied with the federal government hell bent on globalisation, regardless of the resulting misery and destruction. The nature of the reduction in access to native hardwood not only is unwarranted but also does not allow regional timber towns the chance to adapt. The compensation available to forced exits is totally inadequate and a further slap in the face to hardworking Australian timber families. It is necessary to repeat some of the rhetoric contained in the government's national forest policy statement and compare it with reality. It states:
The governments agree that it is essential to foster a dynamic and efficient forest products industry that offers employment opportunities and economic benefits for the nation.
. . .. the governments must establish clear and consistent policies for resource development, providing secure access to resources and consistent environmental guidelines.
. . . . . .
. . .
A range of sustainable forest based industries, founded on excellence and innovation, will be expanding to contribute further to regional and national economic and employment growth.
. . . . . .
. . .
. . .. governments acknowledge their role in seeking to minimise any adverse social and economic effects of the structural adjustment process, particularly where alternative employment is not always available.
The Prime Minister (Mr Howard) went to the last election stating `small business is the engine room of jobs growth'. Most of the enterprises ruthlessly culled by the coalition in this and other industries have been small businesses. Mr Prime Minister, you have steered the ship on to an iceberg, your engine room has flooded and our neighbours to the north are already bidding over the rights to salvage the wreck of the once good ship Australia. Your sacrifices on the altar of free trade may pay homage to your lords the internationalists, but they reduce your own people to a life of bitterness and in some cases poverty.
Based on evidence presented by Professor Roy Powell of the University of New England, the special committee of inquiry regional study tour concluded that reductions in log supplies of 50 per cent in New South Wales would result in the loss of 2,500 jobs and about $800 million of domestic product. Industry figures estimate that around 500 small timber industry businesses will be unviable and forced to close. Countless dependent businesses and associated jobs will also be forever lost. What a great plan! Did you really think of this on your own? It is appropriate to quote Don Page, the National Party member from Ballina, from the report New South Wales forest policy: failures of the Labor government. He states:
Extensive areas of productive forest, which have sustained rural economies and jobs throughout NSW for decades, have quickly been declared national park and wilderness. This action has occurred before Regional Forest Agreements have been completed.
When the sawmill in Glen Innes closed, the local mayor said that the loss of such a major employer was a calamity. How true of so many cases everywhere, yet so understated. The mayor of Tenterfield said that the government's actions had devastated the community, posing additional hardship to already struggling rural families. The mayor of Grafton stated that you could see a look of despair on the faces of country people. In Bombala the mayor described log reductions and sawmill closures as a fatal blow. At Wingham and Mount George the story was the same, with the closure of local mills and the loss of related engineering businesses. Even the Kempsey brickworks, which was designed to run on sawmill residue, may now also be forced to close. Other closures and similar upheaval and misery have occurred in the towns of Eden, Captains Flat, Gloucester and Wauchope.
Already some 50 per cent of native forest in New South Wales has been locked up before the completion of regional forestry agreements and comprehensive resource assessments. The government's work to destroy this industry is clear and almost complete. So much for the coalition's commitment to small business. So much for the coalition's commitment to jobs. Quite simply, so much for the coalition. Despite over the last two years the honourable member for Gwydir, now Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Anderson), being made well and truly aware of the facts and acknowledging the severity of the situation, he has done nothing just another example of the treacherous behaviour displayed by the Nationals to the bush.
The New South Wales Timbers Association was formed from small businesses fighting for the survival of their industry. They have faced only hostile state and federal governments. It is only since the New South Wales Timbers Association commenced a class action against the New South Wales state government and federal government over allegations of mismanagement of the forest industry structural adjustment package that the minister has ordered a departmental investigation.
The $120 million provided by the state and federal governments was never going to be enough to compensate hundreds of business owners and thousands of sacked employees. Yet this fact was dismissed with the same disdain rural Australians are experiencing everywhere. This money was split, with $60 million provided by the New South Wales state government being set aside for redundancies and the remaining $60 million of federal funding being allocated for business exit programs.
One of the conditions imposed by the federal government was that an independent tribunal was to be responsible for the allocation of federal funds for business exists. However, the New South Wales Minister for Land and Water Conservation has appointed a committee of industry stakeholders, consisting of Forest Products Association members, Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union members and Department of Primary Industries and Energy personnel. Anyone with eyes and ears knows that this is not an independent tribunal.
The sum of $40 million has been earmarked to purchase private forest for inclusion into the reserve system, and another $30 million has been reportedly set aside as grants to encourage value adding in the industry. This was not the intended use of compensation money. Also, to date, all known value added grants have gone to members or affiliates of the Forest Products Association's conflicts of interest caused by this government's collusion.
I give the example of a viable family business, established for 22 years, which had its access to resource slashed by half. This business employed 34 people and had liabilities of $1.2 million. This family business received a $400,000 exit package, leaving them with an $800,000 bank liability. This family was deemed to be asset rich and, therefore, not eligible for social security, despite having to fund $12,000 per month to satisfy the greed of the banks. Sadly, this family now has to sell the family home and other assets in a depressed market. This is just one of the many heartbreaking stories being played out across Australia the despair arising from such circumstances sometimes ending in suicide.
In spite of all the coalition's electioneering rhetoric about helping small business, hundreds of small Australian hardwood businesses will close and many will face bankruptcy and destitution as a result of unnecessary resource cuts and inadequate business exit packages more Australian families destroyed by your internationalist and anti Australian approach. You do not care now. But your time will come.
As with most of this government's policies, they have got it all wrong. This industry is another example of the disgusting treatment received by the sugar, automotive, clothing, textile and footwear, citrus, poultry, pork, and other industries. I will continue to stand up even if I am the only one to do so and say what needs to be said. Never in Australia's history has small business weathered so fierce an attack by a supposedly friendly government. Never in our country's history has the future of Australian industry and manufacturing looked so bleak indeed, it clearly facing its end.
At the next federal election, we will offer the only real alternative to the Labor coalition agenda to GAP the Australian people and I say GAP, meaning `Globalise, Asianise and Pauperise'. Australians are waking up. You will no longer be able to rob them and pawn their country as they sleep.