Dr WOODRUFF – Madam Speaker, the Matter of Public Importance today is protecting lutruwita Tasmania’s forests. It is World Biodiversity Day today, and what a wonderful celebration of the wonder of nature. People around the planet would understand, if they look around them, if they walk outside, the beauty and the value of the natural world that is the basis of all life on Earth and it sustains us.
Here in Tasmania, we have some of the most incredible biodiversity on the planet. In our world heritage wilderness areas, the best wild places on the planet are protected. We know that on World Biodiversity Day today we also have a call to action to protect the vanishing wildlife and forest communities in lutruwita/Tasmania, in Australia and across the planet, so it is not a happy message.
We have lost the greatest majority of the world’s forests in only a couple of hundred years. We have done a very good job of that, but we have people in Tasmania who understand and who every day care about and want to protect and look after our beautiful wild places for us today, for future generations, for their intrinsic value and with, and on behalf of, and standing next to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community, the palawa/pakana, who have cared for this place, this island, for tens of thousands of years.
The Greens have been very disturbed to see the shift to the right in the Liberal Party during the election campaign. The language, the anti-science language, the anti-environment language has stepped up further now that we have got the Honourable Eric Abetz as the Minister for Forests. It is concerning and I know that Mr Abetz bristled at being called a climate denier, but just this week on WIN News, in response to questions from journalists, we heard him say:
I heard every year there was 10 years until some non-return tipping point. Well after you have heard that for 28 years in a row, I think you are entitled to ask a few questions about the robustness of the science.
Members – Hear hear.
Dr WOODRUFF – What is so concerning about that is it shows that Mr Abetz and many other people in the chamber who have just hear heared that do not have their eyes open and are not looking and listening to the scientists and the changes in the world around us. We have got permafrost thawing. We have got the collapse of ice sheets. We have got mass deaths in northern European forests. We have got extreme bushfires, tornadoes, rainfall. I do not actually know what more of a tipping point you would want to look at, but these are all being described as tipping points for the planet. We are in 2024, and by 2030 scientists are saying 1.5 degrees.
We have a race on Madam Speaker, and here we are. The Liberal and Labor Parties are championing big business; they are continuing with the ongoing extraction mortality for lutruwita/Tasmania, while the science tells us that we have to protect our forests, protect them for their carbon rich values, for their mass carbon stores, instead of logging and burning them as this government does, and the Labor Party supports. Millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide are going into the emissions every year and we need to be protecting them.
We stand with the communities around Tasmania who are mobilising, who are peacefully protesting, who are looking after forests like Quamby Bluff in takayna, ancient areas of forest there on the lower reaches of the Franklin River, the North Tarkine, the confluence of Arthur River. At these places, roads are being pushed in, continued destruction for beautiful animals and birds that can be found nowhere else on earth. The masked owl, the spotted‑tailed quoll, the Tasmanian devil, the azure kingfisher, eagles, sea eagles. These all exist in these forests that are being destroyed apace with the Liberals and the Labor Party both supporting going into 40 000 extra hectares of carbon rich forests. The Greens are with the community, and we will be standing there protecting those natural values, protecting the forest for future generations and we know we have Tasmanians behind us.
