The environment is a first order issue in the coming election. Climate change and the Tasmanian pulp mill will be key issues on voters' minds.
It is useful to examine the issue of the mill through the prism of global warming. Climate change is a critical issue and Labor is correct to put it front and centre in policy announcements committing to signing the Kyoto Protocol and enforceable targets.
The CFMEU recognises that climate change needs to be effectively tackled now in the interest of humanity. This is one of several reasons why we strongly support the building of the Pulp Mill in Tasmania.
Let me outline why. The forestry industry is in the business of cutting down trees to make a variety of different products. What many people often overlook is that it is also in the business of planting trees- in vast and growing numbers. Forestry plantations make up millions of hectares (there is a net addition occurring to our forest estate at this time). They are part of the carbon sinks that Australia so desperately needs to properly counteract climate change. A strong and well managed industry can play a critical role in establishing and managing forests and carbon sequestration.
For a long time the environmental movement has campaigned on the slogan "think globally, act locally"- it's a useful catch phrase and can be applied to the case of the Tasmanian pulp mill.
Australia currently imports vast amounts of paper made from timber that is illegally logged in the tropical forests of Asia. It's not plantation timber from sustainably managed forests. It's not re-growth. It is timber sourced from rapidly disappearing tropical forests, places in many cases as breathtaking as the Tasmanian wilderness.
This imported product comes at a massive environmental cost even before you factor in international shipping and transport and the associated emissions that accompany it.
So that's thinking globally. Now to acting locally. Any credible assessment of policy must assess costs against benefits. The pulp mill will be a $1.7 injection into the economy of Australia's poorest state. It will see more than 3,000 construction jobs created while the mill is built. After that around 1,700 permanent jobs in the industry are expected to be created. It is the single largest private sector investment in Tasmania ever. It is estimated that the mill will contribute more than 6 billion dollars to Tasmania over ten years. From an economic point of view the mill would help ease the substantial trade imbalance in wood products. From an environmental point of view, the mill saves the energy costs of shipping Australian wood chips overseas and the costs of bringing them back as paper. As well, the domestic value adding capacity of the mill increases the long term viability of the forestry industry.
The Government's chief scientist has said the mill will surpass world's best environmental practice after complying with 48 stringent preconditions.
Significantly, the mill will not use one log from old growth forest. Instead the bulk of the timber will come from plantations- mostly eucalypt with some pine- and the proportion of re-growth will drop over time.
More importantly the science is now in (and has been for a long time) on the most important environmental issue we all face - climate change.
When you assess the Mill in these policy terms, there becomes very little room for opponents to argue any thing but a "not in my backyard line." Of course the other argument expressly put by some, inadvertently adopted by many is "out of sight, out of mind" - a pretty poor way to approach to these critical issues.
Australia as a rich nation in the region, shouldn't be handballing our environmental challenges to our poorer neighbours. This is irresponsibility of the worst kind. It is even less acceptable to do so at the expense of providing economic security and opportunity to the working families of Tasmania.
 |
 |
