The Australian Forest Products Association (AFPA) has congratulated the Federal Labor Party for supporting Australia’s sustainable native forestry industry, despite the Andrews government announcing it would shut it down in Victoria.
In the Senate last night, the Coalition and Labor parties voted against a Greens motion attacking native forest harvesting and calling for its abolition.
CEO of AFPA Ross Hampton said he welcomed the support of the federal Labor Party for the native forestry industry and the state-federal Regional Forestry Agreement regulatory framework that underpins it.
“I congratulate Labor for joining with the Coalition to vote against the Greens motion that calls for the phasing out of native forest logging,” Mr Hampton said.
“I also note that Senator Gallagher stated that Labor continue to support Regional Forest Agreements (RFAs) as they ‘seek to balance competing economic, social and environmental demands on native forests.”
Senator Jonathan Duniam, Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources confirmed that the Morrison Government is completely against the Andrews Government’s reckless decision:
“We condemn the decision by the Andrews Government to shut down native forest harvesting in Victoria. It’s something that we hope they see sense in and look to reverse rather than pushing ahead pig-headedly and not listening to what the community has to say.”
Victoria is the only jurisdiction that is yet to renew its RFA framework which expires in March next year, despite the Federal Government’s efforts to extend them for a further 20 years as they have in the other states with RFAs – NSW, Western Australia and Tasmania.