Dr WOODRUFF (Franklin - Leader of the Greens) - That was very moving testimony that you read, Ms Haddad.
Mr Speaker, I want to speak tonight about the destruction of Tasmania's native forest and in particular, the recent destruction of critical swift parrot breeding habitat. This critically endangered, beautiful little swift parrot - the fastest parrot that we have - visits us every year and relies on our flowering trees for food and on those huge gums - blue gum, Brooker's gum and black gum - for breeding in.
They come here to Tasmania, especially from Victoria and south-east South Australia and they travel here looking for a place to raise chicks and to live the life that they have as the fastest and most colourful little parrot. They are so loved by Tasmanians and so are the beautiful giant ancient forests that they inhabit.
Last week, we saw another image posted online of a century old tree being driven through Hobart on the back of a Victorian-plated truck on its way to be processed. This is now the second we have seen in just a couple of weeks. We saw a video of the largest giant tree that has been seen for many a long year on Tasmania's streets.
At least they are ones that we can see; because these are typically now trucked under the cover of darkness so that everyday Tasmanians do not see what is being done with our resources and in our name by the state owned Forestry Tasmania, which trades as Sustainable Timbers Tasmania. It is like a funeral parade along the streets of Hobart - these giant trees that are carbon rich. They are ancient, like nothing else on Earth; some of the tallest flowering trees on Earth. We continue to see what is, essentially, the secret transport of these trucks; because when people understand, when they see what is going on, as in the video image a couple of weeks ago, that went viral - not just nationally, but internationally.
The Guardian Australia and other newspaper outlets made it global news. People cannot believe that, in an age of climate emergency, we could countenance destroying forests like this. Only in Tasmania - we do it so well here. Forestry Tasmania confirmed on Monday night the latest giant tree that was trucked along Macquarie Street was from Coupe KDO22 Senior Kermandie in Tasmania's southern forest. The southern and eastern forests of Tasmania are critical for the swift parrot. The gums that they feed from have sporadic flowering patterns and they flower at different intensities and in different locations each year. It means it is incredibly important to have a spread of diverse, intact forests for the swift parrot to feed on.
Forestry Tasmania confirmed that they had detected swift parrots flying overhead of the coup that they clear felled - and will no doubt burn soon - but they had not identified any foraging or nesting activity within the harvesting boundary. Well, how would they know that it had not flowered yet? We now understand that the forest assessment practices for critically endangered species are currently moribund in Tasmania. They do not function. Clearly, they take no notice of the evidence that is prepared and provided from citizen scientists who are there, on the ground, with the evidence of their recordings and the observations of birds, bird sounds, the video footage of masked owls and swift parrots and all the other critically-endangered species, which disappear into more of the clear-felling processes. We know that there were swift parrots in that area. We know that Forestry Tasmania left us three trees in that giant forest. All the rest of the giants were taken. Three trees remain because they had nesting sites.
We want to thank and support the work of the Bob Brown Foundation volunteers and all the other people who are on the ground in Kermandie in that forest, and they are continuing their protest action in that coupe. Long may they continue their work. We know that they are running non-violent training courses on a regular basis in Tasmania, because people want to step up and protest at what is being done in the name of Tasmanians with our public money.
Forestry Tasmania's annual report showed that it made an operating loss. That is just the operational costs that they are required to report; it does not include the maintenance that they no longer do of these existing road network or all of the other stuff that has been carved off. We do not really understand; but by their own measure, they made an operating loss. They harvested 6000 hectares of our critically beautiful native forest - much of it was old growth forest - but they only prepared 5800 hectares for regrowing. They are still working towards FSC but they will never get it, because of their forestry practices. They are making a financial loss on their logging operations; they are cutting down more than they regrow; they have made no progress towards FSC; and now they are hiding much of the old growth forest that they log. As well as this, all of their stores are massive carbon stores. In a climate emergency we have to keep them in the ground. No wonder Tasmanians collectively do not support this practice any longer and will stand up against it.
