Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise briefly to comment on some of the points that have been made in relation to Senator Fielding’s orchestrated appearance in the chamber. All I would invite him to do is actually read and consider the detail. I think he might then reflect that his words were not as well chosen as they otherwise might have been. But I say in relation to Senator Fielding that I accept that what he says is in good faith and that he is just personally mistaken as to the outcome of the agreement between the government and the opposition.

Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about the Australian Greens. They seem to live in the world of believing that if you repeat a myth often enough, time and time again, and then pretend to sound sincere in saying it, that somehow myth is turned into a fact. Facts are facts, irrespective of how often somebody wants to repeat a myth. The simple fact is that there are huge tracts of plantation in Tasmania which will be the feedstock for the pulp mill. We all know that. Do we engage in native forest harvesting in Tasmania? Yes, we do—for the high-quality timbers, for the craftsmen, for veneer logs, for sawlogs. But are there special practices under the forest practices code to ensure that threatened and endangered species are looked after? Yes, there are. Senator Brown knows that. He in fact raced to the Federal Court and lost. He appealed to the High Court and lost. We know the facts about this but, unfortunately, Senator Brown and the Australian Greens just find it necessary to come in time and time again to repeat their myths. The simple fact in relation to the pulp mill is that if it does have a furnace in relation to its operations it will be using the black liquid that gets extracted out of the woodchips. The fibre gets turned into the paper and a waste product, the black liquor, will actually be the fuel. It is genuinely renewable. It will be grown in a plantation, will be a waste product from the papermaking operation and we can harness it as a fuel source. And, as we know, in Tasmania more trees than are harvested are planted each year. As a result, Tasmania’s forest estate is in fact growing. Even if you were to burn the totality of the tree, which of course we do not, the carbon dioxide that is released by that tree would be absorbed by the growing of the new tree that is always planted in its place.