Media release – Scott Morrison, Prime Minister, 21 February 2022
$86 million on offer to grow Australia’s plantation estate
The Morrison government will invest more than $86 million over five years to support the establishment of new plantations for our future wood supply.
The government will partner with states and territories to deliver this through a grants program, backing in a key component of the National Forest Industries Plan.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that timber was a critical national resource and the government was committed to securing its future supply.
“This program is about getting more trees in the ground and securing an Australian supply of timber for future generations,” said the Prime Minister.
“Australia has 1.77 million hectares of plantations and we want that to grow further, that’s why we’re making the largest investment of any Australian Government in this space for more than 30 years.
“Getting more trees in the right places will help to meet future demand for wood products, which at a global scale is expected to quadruple by 2050.
“The farming, fishing and forestry sectors are projected to be worth $84 billion in production value this year and my government will keep doing everything we can to see that grow even further.”
Minister for Agriculture and Northern Australia David Littleproud said this program would have long-lasting benefits for rural and regional communities.
“This program will create jobs in regional Australia, not just in the planting phase, but in 25 or 30 years’ time when that wood is harvested and processed into a truss, a timber frame or an engineered wood product,” Minister Littleproud said.
“We want to partner with states and territories who own and manage forestry resources to plan for the future and turbo-charge this industry.
“Forestry is a renewable, sustainable industry that continues to create jobs in the regions and delivers quality, Australian-made products for this country.”
Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries Jonno Duniam said that this commitment was a clear indication that only a Morrison Government could be trusted to back-in the future of the forestry sector.
“In contrast to the Labor party who are intent on shutting our sustainable, world-class forest industries down, we are focused on growing them,” Assistant Minister Duniam said.
“We have worked hand-in-hand with industry to address the immediate and long-term challenges facing this sector, and will continue to back them in every step of the way.
“Whether it is opening access to carbon credits, providing support following the Black Summer bushfires, or this important $86 million investment in growing our plantation estate, our government will always support this sector and the rural communities that rely upon it.”
For more information on the program visit: www.awe.gov.au/agriculture-land/forestry.
Media release – Bob Brown Foundation, 21 February 2022
Morrison’s killing more trees than he’ll plant
‘A pale shade’ of Bob Hawke’s billion trees’ – Brown
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s plan to plant 150 million trees to cut down for industry within three decades is a very pale shade of Bob Hawke’s 1989 promise to plant one billion trees to save ecosystems, former Greens leader and environmental campaigner Bob Brown said in Tasmania today.
PM Bob Hawke’s announcement of one billion trees in 1989, which led to the set-up of internationally applauded Landcare, showed an environmental understanding which is entirely missing from PM Morrison’s tree-planting announcement.
On 9 July, 1989, Hawke argued that: “Environmental problems today, more than ever, are global. In just over 200 years since the Industrial Revolution, human activity has significantly increased the earth’s temperature, threatening the onset of the greenhouse effect. Huge areas of the world’s tree cover have been destroyed and we are obliterating thousands of living species. We have polluted the world’s oceans, seas and rivers, degraded the earth’s soils, damaged the fragile Arctic and Antarctic environments.’
Brown says that “Liberal Senator Duniam’s admission on ABC radio this morning that former Forestry Minister Eric Abetz’ 2006 managed investment schemes to promote plantation forestry ‘had terrible outcomes’ underscores what a debacle the continued diversion of taxpayers’ funds into private enterprise forestry has been for both major parties. While thousands of hectares of the plantations failed and have been bulldozed in recent years, logging provides less than one percent of Tasmania’s jobs. The Liberals are tied into the logging corporations against the public interest. Far from ‘capitalism can do’ is a clear case of capitalism failing and ongoing government subsidies intervention being a big loser for the average taxpayer.”
“If the last lot of managed Investment Scheme plantations failed because they were planted in the wrong place without adequate rainfall and subject to weeds and invasive species, why will this lot be any different?”
“Two tree-killer questions for the Prime Minister to answer while he is in Tasmania:
1. Why did his Minister for the Environment, Sussan Ley, on 6 February, reject mining company MMG’s offer to protect large trees in the Tarkine rainforest where it plans a toxic waste dump for its Rosebery mine? Ms Ley told the company not to spare the big trees. Scientists say the forest giants are likely to provide critical nesting sites for the Tasmanian masked owl which Ley lists as threatened with extinction.
2. With the United Nations calling for the protection of native forests as a key action to address to global warming and biodiversity loss, why does the Prime Minister subsidise the logging of these very rich carbon stores throughout eastern Australia and in Tasmania and now subsidise plantation forestry?
If so much public money is needed for trees to be cut down in a few decades to meet the current ‘shortage’, how come wharves at Burnie, Bell Bay, Hobart and elsewhere are stacked with timber for export?”
Media release – Julie Collins MP, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Member for Franklin & Chris Lynch, Labor Candidate for Braddon, 21 February 2022
Three Years of Forestry Failures Under Liberals Highlighted in Somerset
The Morrison Government cannot be trusted to deliver for our forestry industry after nine long years of neglect.
This week marks three years since Scott Morrison’s visit to Somerset to promise his government would plant one billion new trees by 2030.
Senate Estimates last week heard the Morrison-Joyce government has so far managed to meet just over 1% of this target.
Having failed dismally to deliver on this announcement, Scott Morrison is travelling back to Tasmania with his tail between his legs and a commitment of 150 million trees.
Today’s announcement is a farce.
“It is clear the Morrison government has not done nearly enough to support the forestry industry to help meet its goals,” said Shadow Agriculture Minister, Julie Collins.
“The Morrison government dragged its feet for three years before finally making changes to the water rule, which was holding back investment in new timber plantations, after Labor promised it would do so in 2019.
“Forestry fibre has been excluded from the Morrison government’s Modern Manufacturing Strategy funding opportunities.
“One of the few policies the Morrison government announced to help meet this goal, a concessional loan, only opened for funding applications late last year.
“These failures are a threat to our proud forestry industry and the jobs and investment it supports in the north-west and west of Tasmania.
“It has also contributed to a crippling timber shortage, hurting our construction industry,” Ms Collins said.
Labor Candidate for Braddon, Chris Lynch, said: “This is business as usual for the Morrison government – make an announcement and then let the actual job slip into the never-never.
“We’re seeing it here in the north-west with the stalled Cradle Mountain Cableway, the long-delayed new ship loader for Burnie Port and the non-existent road building works to end the ‘Cooee Crawl’.
“They’re all years behind schedule, but the tree planting program is even worse. At the current rate, it will take centuries to plant the billion trees,” Mr Lynch said.
Ms Collins said only an Albanese Labor government can be trusted to deliver for our forestry industry and the jobs and communities it supports.
Forestry is part of Labor’s $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund, which will help to value add to the sector and unlock new jobs and investment.
“Unlike the Morrison government, Labor will work closely with industry and all levels of government to help grow our forestry industry in Tasmania,” Ms Collins said.
“It is time for the Morrison-Joyce Government to start delivering on its promises or timber shortages will only grow more dire.”
