Or so the federal government has been telling us.

One reason for the possible continuation of a high inflation rate is pallet supply.

Have you ever wondered why pallets used in the logistics industry are made of wood? 

There is a very good reason – the wood replacement is plastic. 

Pushing, sliding, or dragging plastic over metal surfaces such as the trays of transport trucks or the floor of metal containers will create static electricity. 

This can be a severe safety issue.

So … wood is far more efficient than plastic.

During the pandemic, the worldwide logistics industry lost 20% of its container stock, including wooden pallet stock, for unexplained reasons. 

This has not been replaced and is already impacting worldwide supply lines.

During the Covid shutdown in NSW, some businesses were repairing pallets to keep up with demand.

Timbers used for pallets by a significant Victorian manufacturer are hardwoods. 

They are not high-grade quality logs but small logs that are not species-specific or have no higher value use. 

Small hardwood logs can be used for veneer, furniture making, or interior use if they are high quality.

When the closure of the Victorian hardwood industry was announced, there was an estimated shortage of up to one million pallets.

The Andrews government’s rapid closure of the native forest industry by December 31 means no meaningful Victorian supply will continue.

While timber comes from Tasmanian hardwood plantations, the state’s premier has indicated that interstate hardwood supply will be reviewed to guarantee local supply.

Even if supply was available, the Victorian industry had a more significant challenge of a skilled and trained workforce. 

Under the government’s hardwood industry package and associated industry entitlements, the calculations are that each worker will have a package of up to $250,000 for relocation and retraining. 

Victoria’s miscalculation of the hardwood timber industry workforce means government funding is far below that required.

The Australian logistics industry needs locally-produced wooden pallets. 

There are two sources of timber, softwood timber and native hardwoods.

The softwood supply from burnt plantations will run out in September 2023. 

The remaining softwood timber plantations to be harvested will be needed for trusses and framing in the housing construction industry. 

The pallet industry in Victoria will have no timber and no trained workforce!

Someone somewhere needs to focus on what this means to national supply lines; otherwise, there is the real possibility of stock shortages as the country’s fast-moving consumer goods sector will be stuck in local factories or warehouses awaiting repackaging.

It’s astonishing that the national political debate is not concerned about immediate economic issues that impact everyone.

It was trust in the political process. 

The National media reported that the Federal Treasurer had used old data. 

When it concerned trust in the Federal political process, no one reported that the data was old.  

An internal ALP lobby group called LEAN and its interaction with the Federal ALP exemplify truthfulness in the political process. 

LEAN is an acronym for the ‘Labor Environment Action Network’.  

LEAN says theirs is a network that pushes what they consider to be agenda that ensures the environment is central to the future.

The 49th ALP Federal National Conference will be held in Brisbane from Thursday, 17 to Saturday, 19 August 2023. 

Over 2000 people will be attending.  

LEAN has issued a six-page glossy booklet to all ALP Branches calling for identical motions to be passed against deforestation in Australia and cows “farting and burping”, seriously. 

Each ALP Branch is asked to submit a selfie holding the booklet. 

This is a slick political operation using traditional and digital communications, and over 300 branches have responded.

There is one problem with all this. 

Much of what is written in the booklet is wrong or very selective reporting. 

Indeed, it is an environmental network rounding up the same misinformation peddled for years, reflecting none of the Government’s reports and actions. 

The list of errors in the claims about forestry without examining the cattle issue is lengthy.

Claim:  Forestry is treated as both softwood and hardwood; no distinction is made despite softwood being plantation and hardwood being largely native and some plantation.

Response:  There are two industries here that use different types of trees.

Claim:   Forestry harvesting is counted as land clearing. 

Response:  Forestry replants and regenerates trees. It is the industry’s future. Forestry is not land clearing or deforestation, which is defined as permanent land use change. 

Claim:  There is a continual footnoting of international reports.

Response:  There are Australian reports that look at Australian forests but contradict the material in the LEAN brochure. There are Government Reports that warrant citations on Australian native forests. 

Claim:  All timber should be in plantations. 

Response: In reality, this means finding available land that is usually already used for other agricultural operations or clearing vast areas of new land to replant Australian hardwoods. They cannot be serious.

Claim:  Carbon is stored in forests so do not harvest them.  

Response:  Carbon sequestration is a complicated scientific issue. But commonsense does help. What is not disputed is carbon is stored in trees. Growing trees sequester carbon. Mature trees do not sequester significant amounts of carbon because they have stopped growing. Young trees are constantly needed if trees are to store carbon continually. 

Claim:  Native forest hardwood is mostly used in woodchip products.  

Response:  Woodchips are one of the lowest-value products from a forestry operation. There is a hierarchy of use for harvested timber which requires the highest value use first – this is never published by environmental organisations because it does not suit their narrative. The list includes hardwood flooring, furniture, building cladding, railway sleepers, mining timbers, constructions timbers, specialists’ timbers for interior use, and utilities such as power poles, bridges, wharves, girders and piles. They all carry sequestered carbon after harvest and beyond. The harvested tree is replaced with one sequestering carbon as it grows. This information is in GovernmentGovernment reports.  

We will see what the ALP National Conference does with the LEAN push.

There are many interests in play. 

The CFMEU has members in Tasmania and NSW that are in the forestry industry. 

The Victorian Government’s cessation of native forestry is turning into a dog’s breakfast. 

The flow of policy issues and the impact in unforeseen quarters without the public funds to fully compensate industry and workers or correct policy impacts. 

Similarly, the WA closure is running into trouble with an inadequate compensation package. 

The forests that the forest industry cannot sustainably harvest can be bulldozed for mining – go figure. 

The Albanese Government should be keen not to impact the industry as its sets up a federal election with its overarching objective to secure sufficient soft Liberal votes to plan for a possible third term. 

This is achievable by winning Coalition seats with a reduced conservative vote and the preference flow giving the seat to the ALP. 

Some TEAL seats might be in for a similar play. 

There are key seats in the coming contest in Tasmania. 

The right wing of the federal ALP would not be keen to see the left wing obtain such an advantageous policy change – nor would the left of the ALP in Tasmania.

 In Canberra and clearly, in NSW, most of the Liberal party progressives have drunk the ‘kool-aid’ of the environmental movement’s propaganda on native forestry. 

Only Tasmanian MPs kept the federal party from becoming a quasi-left-wing ALP on native forestry. 

In NSW, many of the Liberal moderates in Government were already operating with the environmentalists in the public service and private sector. 

The National Party purportedly ran the blocker. 

But, today, most of the Nationals in NSW and Canberra only pay lip service to the interests of native forestry. 

It seems that it has become all too difficult for them and might cause issues with their re-election. 

After all, with most politicians, it is always about them!

However, their challenge is the native forestry industry knows who their real friends are. 

In May and June, the NSW Legislative Council has been busy with native forestry.

On June 27, Jeremy Buckingham wedged the ALP into supporting a motion that called for the end of native forestry, the creation of the Great Koala National Park and the transitioning of native forestry industry workers into the growing of medically destined Cannabis.

Buckingham is a former NSW Greens MP who won an upper house seat with the Legalise Cannabis Party.

Two informative points have emerged from the debate:

Minister for the Environment Penny Sharpe noted no agreed facts concerning the Great Koala Park. 

But said the park “was an extremely important contribution”.

1. The Great Koala Park announcement is imminent 

After consultation with conservationists, the forest industry and its workers, an announcement is imminent.

The minister’s statement said: “The environment faces a range of challenges, as does the timber industry”, which suggests a pre-determined outcome. 

This will be made clearer when the name of the NSW government-nominated consultant is announced. 

2. There will be no neutrality with the NSW EPA

On past performance under the Coalition government, there will be no neutrality by the NSW EPA. 

The bias will start with the nature of the qualifications of the consultant. 

There is always the generally time-honoured issue with consultants. 

The money holder for the piper gets to write the tune. And, of course, there will not be a silviculturist within cooee!

The most interesting part of Sharpe’s speech was that she had had a ‘shot’ at NSW Greens MP Sue Higginson’s press conference on the NSW Auditor’s Report into forest regulation.

Her point was: The Greens should have met with the minister on the release of the Report and invited her to the press conference, given her long-term advocacy for the Great Koala Park. 

But politics is again in play here.

So it is big money if anyone cares to review the requests for campaign donations associated with this issue.

NSW Nationals have “bet each way”

Another observation is the comments of Sam Farraway, MLC Nationals; He said:

“Simply stopping [native forest} operations could lead to unanticipated consequences such as fire risks, pest problems and in many ways – from some very quick research – an overall decline in forest health”.

But then, in keeping with the younger National Party MPs, he had a bet each way; he did not support the native forestry industry with an unqualified statement. 

Farraway spoke of proper consultation and the complex nature of transitioning workers from the native forest industry.

The proof is in the pudding. 

The only National Party minister in the last government who put actions behind words was Paul Toole, Member for Bathurst and recently deposed as Party leader.

Mark Banasiak, Shooters, Fishers Party, has been and is the only consistent supporter of the native forestry industry and its workers.

Sarah Mitchell, National Party, on May 31, moved a Notice of Motion, which the ALP supported, that noted: “native forest harvesting in NSW is carefully managed under a robust regulatory framework to ensure the right balance between environmental protection and forestry operations”.

She admitted that she was new to the subject, and for a first attempt, her speech read well. She was Education Minister in the previous government.

The June 27 Auditor-General Report

The Legislative Council commented on the NSW Auditor-General’s report on June 27 following its tabling of the forestry regulation on June 22.

A fair report, but Sue Higginson MLC asked a question without notice seeking to paint the Forestry Corporation of NSW into a corner for failure to ensure compliance with its contractors.

The charitable environmental NFPs had been using the issue with approaches for donations as June 30 approached.

The Nature Conservation Council has run two Facebook entries with large donation buttons high in the content using the Higginson view of the Report. 

In her reply, the ALP Minister noted that both the NSW EPA and Forestry Corporation of NSW had been found to have failures of compliance checks. Most of these were in low-risk areas. A point that never appears in the Greens’ rhetoric.

Other issues on native forestry operations included:

• Sue Higginson 24 May 2023 Native Forestry Questions Without Notice: Forestry Corporation of NSW loss.
• Sue Higginson, 24 May 2023 Native Forestry Questions Without Notice: Take Note the poor state of Forestry Corporation forests.
• Sue Higginson, 31 May 2023, Native Forest logging, general statement.
• Sue Higginson 11 May 2023 Forestry Amendment (Koala Habitat) Bill 2023

So, how can we assess the political state of play?

Assessing the political state of play.

The ALP government is seemingly playing a straight bat with a strong, detailed election commitment. 

The impact of that election pledge will depend on how the NSW EPA ideologues seek to influence the ALP Cabinet’s decision with their submissions.

There has been plenty of anecdotal evidence of their approach in the last three Coalition governments.

The National Party says they are committed to a native forestry industry, but their performance overall is poor.

Missing in action, some might say.

The current mob of MPs is not like their predecessors in, say, the Greiner government.

To be fair, the same assertion might be levelled at some members of the Federal National Party parliamentary room. 

One only needs to start with the current parliamentary leader who nailed his colours to the anti-forestry mast when he was Minister for Agriculture in the Morrison government. 

A similar remark might also be aimed at the current Liberal Party Deputy. Both, as ministers, took advice without question or consultation.

To be scrupulously fair, this assertion can be applied to many Parliamentary Executive Members and their staff. If it’s not on the front page, then they are not interested! 

Tom Saunders, ABC’s metrologist, said Sydney faced its coldest May in 53 years. The mean temperature – average of all minimums and maximums – was sitting at 15C, the lowest it has been since 1970. 

Well, this is where the NSW businesses and workers in native forestry industry are sitting – out in the cold, regardless of the mean temperature. The missing piece in all of this is the performance of the board and executive of Forestry Corporation of NSW. 

Commentary is for another time but in short, three words: silent, underwhelming and apparently impervious to political winds and threats.

The reason why it is the ‘first test’ for the ALP is the current voting structure of the NSW Legislative Council.

If the ALP concedes to the Greens then the Bill will become law. 

With the election of Ben Franklin (Nationals) as president and Rod Roberts (One Nation) as Deputy Speaker, the likely voting on a forestry matter is:

1. Government supports the anti-forestry measure. Opposition opposes the government: for 21, against 16, unknown 3.
2. Both major parties support ant forestry measure: for 29, against 2, unknown 3.

The two known MLCs for forestry are from the Shooters, Fishers, and Farmers. The unknowns include an MLC from the Liberal Democrats and two MLCs from One Nation.

The Coalition is an unknown commodity given that the last two times forestry matters went to the Upper House, the Coalition fractured.

Changes to the NSW Forestry Act: Forestry Operations in ‘Koala Habitats’

The Forestry Amendment (Koala Habitats) Bill 2023 proposes an amendment to the Forestry Act in its integrated forestry provisions: Part 5B. 

What is sought is an integrated forestry operations approval process prohibiting forestry operations from being carried out in koala habitats.

It is the Greens’ method of closing native forestry by the Forestry Corporation of NSW’s definition of harvesting on NSW state government-owned land.

A seemingly simple proposition. But look a little deeper, and the facts reveal another story – one not apparent on the first read.

‘Koala habitats’ are defined in the Bill as an area of regional koala significance or an area declared by the minister, by order published in the Gazette, as Koala Habitat.

An ‘area of regional koala significance is defined as the area of regional koala significance identified in the Koala Prioritisation Project – Areas of Regional Koala Significance Dataset – as in force on November 2 last year and published on the SEED map on the NSW government website for ‘sharing and enabling environmental data in NSW’.

This SEED map is in the public domain. 

Modeling from the NSW Environmental Protection Authority

So far, all looks to be in order. However, the SEED map is based on modeling by the NSW EPA.  This government agency does not have ground truth data sets.  There is a map produced by the Department of Primary Industries based on real datasets from which they carried out modeling. 

The EPA decided not to use this material; it went its own way. 

An owner of a rural property checked the SEED map on May 15. His property and those other rural landowners nearby, all have koala populations on their land.  Populations that are monitored and nurtured as native fauna. These properties are not on the SEED map identified as part of the Koala Significant Dataset.

This is nonsense as the area concerned has always been regarded as koala country even if you couldn’t see one. This is just one example.

The EPA mapping was allegedly based on vegetation maps that were created in a rush for the NSW government’s vegetation legislation.

These maps are well recognised as being inaccurate. 

Commentary from a former NSW government employee who knew the system told their aged parents on a rural coastal property affected by drought and then fire, to take lots of photos of the changed vegetation.  The reason: the satellite photos would indicate land clearing and not natural elements.

Satellite surveillance is used with desk audits against the vegetation maps and not ground truthing!

The Greens and the ENGOs know this, so it’s a very ‘inconvenient truth’: the SEED map has a flawed basis and should not be relied on for a purpose like that in the Bill.

The convenient mistruth is to conflate the biodiversity and assertions of deforestation with native forestry.  However, in NSW, it is koalas.

The Greens and ENGOs know what legislation is in place in NSW with state government and private native forestry. To assert they do not know is nonsense given the resources the Greens have with a personal research assistant that has access to a parliamentary library with its research staff and access to government departments.

Native forestry practice, ground truthing, and koalas

The Integrated Forestry Operations Approval (IFOA) conditions and protocols already exist and can be viewed under Coastal IFOA Conditions and Coastal IFOA Protocols (all 350-plus pages) on the Environmental Planning Agency website

The Forestry Corporation of NSW must apply under these IFOA processes to harvest any area if they seek approval under the integrated forestry operation provisions.  For some years, these were the only approvals sought by the Forestry Corporation.

This Coastal IFOA is a detailed and highly prescriptive set of approval requirements created between the EPA and the predecessor to FCNSW.  FCNSW brought to the table forest science knowledge and lots of field experience.

This approval process is similar to an application in NSW for a development application with very strict environmental conditions.

There are no automatic approvals, which can take some time to obtain. Approval is not always forthcoming. The approval is assessed by the EPA.

The Coastal IFOA Chapter 3, Planning Conditions, Division 3 deals with environmentally significant areas (ESAs).  This division details frogs, bandicoots, gilders, indigenous mice, and threatened plants.

Threatened habitats and retained trees are addressed in the chapter, including koala browse trees. Division 4 covers species-specific conditions for fauna, and koala conditions are included. These conditions tie in with the protocols.

There is a big difference between the desktop SEED map and practical Coastal IFOA conditions regarding koala protection. 

The Koala Wars

The former Coalition government created the ‘koala wars’ by failing to address the blurring of biodiversity with native forestry, thereby assisting the Greens and the ENGOs. 

Through political naivety, the former government, in late December 2019, pushed through a State Planning Policy that altered the previous Koala SEPP.

Through naivety or deliberate policy, agricultural and native forestry sectors in NSW were informed in late December 2019 of the immediate gazettal, which was then, through protests delayed to March 2020.  Briefings eventually occurred days before the gazettal.  

The fallout from this is what is known as “the koala wars” when the NSW Coalition cabinet had a public brawl between some Liberal ministers and the National Party.

There are now two Koala State Planning Policies (Koala SEPPS): ‘Koala habitat protection 2020’ and ‘koala habitat protection 2021’, which require koala habitat to be recognized by intensive fieldwork based on vegetation.

The Koala SEPPs and this second part of the Bill acknowledge the only way to determine significant koala habitat is on the ground assessment. The irony is part two of the Greens’ definition points out the flaws in the first part. Another inconvenient truth was publicly ignored.

To progress this issue, the ALP might consider acknowledging the good work done by the NSW DPI Forest Science Group and using their data sets. This will mean standing up to the bullying ideology of the Planning and Environment Science Group sections. The Coalition could not.

With its current heavy compliance and regulation, the ALP might ensure that forestry is politically disassociated in policy from koalas. This does not mean a lack of care and concern for native fauna. The Coalition was never capable of such clever politics.

The ALP Cabinet, unlike the Coalition cabinets, might take forestry advice from:

• Environmentalists in the Department for the Environment, the Department of Primary Industry, and the Department of Housing.
• Business and industry.
• The departments who are responsible for these sectors.
• The relevant two unions

Forestry is a complex industry and not just one silo.

People engaged in forestry care about the environment and comply with environmentally professional standards. This does not mean that some might break the law like every other industry sector and even individuals. However, the vast majority understand that preserving and nurturing the environment is their present and future. 

Another inconvenient truth the Greens and ENGOs carefully ignore.

The environment groups in Australia follow a mantra set in the 1970s and have not matured or moved on because it allows them to tug at heartstrings and elicit donations based on their science and manipulated pictures.  

They might like to look overseas to the European Greens that actively engage with forest policy in a highly productive manner with real commercial gain. 

But then, with this approach, there will likely be no donations and no signatures for petitions. After all, the environmental sector, including political parties, is as much an ‘industry’ as other sectors fighting to retain their position.

The Blueprint Institute is an Australian think tank that “curates real conversations about issues facing the next generation through evidence-based research consistent with market principles and informed by rigorous economic analysis.”

CEO David Cross said BluePrint was the only ‘think tank’ in Australia with a liberal philosophical stance. This stance remained undefined. However, it was defined by a University of Sydney Professor on the panel who had no sympathy with the Liberal Party philosophy. 

The report has two key points

• The first is the annual reports of Forestry Corporation of NSW reveal the hardwood division does not make a profit and, therefore, should be closed given the number of people engaged in the division. That closure is warranted as more money can be made from carbon sequestration. 
• The second point was that the ‘new’ and the way of the future carbon markets made it more profitable not to harvest hardwood.

The simplicity of this approach is astounding, especially from an institute that presents itself as a smart, intellectually-based powerful think tank of the millennium future.

The simplicity of the approach was compounded by the former NSW Minister for Planning and the Environment, also on the panel, stating early in the commentary that forestry was a very complex issue – which it is.

The word ‘deconstruct’ was used twice in the commentary about the report. It was stated that we all lived in a ‘deconstructing’ world. The comment was also made that forestry was one of the ‘masculine extractive industries’ that had to have its myths and legends altered to save the environment. 

This set the tenor for the discussion.

The report can be easily challenged once the implied clichés of ‘brave new world’ and ‘change for change’s sake is the way forward’ running though the commentary about the report are set aside.

The employment figures for the NSW native forest industry were set at just under 600. Yet, when privately asked if the 2023 Ernest and Young Report had been seen, the economist for the group replied they had seen it … “but the report was unbelievable’.

The engineers of the report are silent on any of this.

The BluePrint Institute CEO said that the working models were not in the report. So the question is – why wasn’t there an explanation of the modeling?

The report is silent on the economic and environmental impacts of product substitution. If Australia has no native hardwood industry, then hardwood products from overseas will be imported.

Domestically, with the closure of native forestry in Western Australia and Victoria, the Australian substitution product will likely come from NSW or Tasmania. 

BluePrint Institute CEO Cross says the next report on native forestry will focus on Tasmania. 

So where do we find an alternate supply for Australia’s hardwood timber? 

Currently, it is Southeast Asia.  What is the environmental and carbon cost of obtaining timber from unregulated countries with deforestation-engaging industries?

None of the environmental high priests will answer this. It is as if Australia is in its environmental silo called “Planet Australia.”

The Australian native forest industry has supplied railway sleepers and utility poles, apart from construction and high-quality products that the building industry needs.  

The railway sleepers and utility poles will need to be made from concrete or other manufactured components.  What is the carbon cost of such products? How does this carbon cost compare to replacement products that capture carbon? 

The report’s authors are silent. 

The only commentary made is of carbon in a financial context. Not an environmentally sustainable approach that compares natural carbon capture products with manufactured items.

The report shows no full comparative carbon cycle analysis was taken.

The institute lauds native forest plantations as the future. A great idea, originally promoted in the 1970s by the Australian Liberal Party. 

It did not fly then for the same reason it is not an option in 2023. 

The first question that needs to be answered is where is the land available that will suit the growing conditions for Australian native forests? The answer is that suitable land is already growing native forests or is in agricultural use. 

Surely promoters of the report don’t think that the solution is to clear-fell current native forests to establish hardwood plantations which will have a 40-60 growth cycle before harvest.  

No-one in support of native forests suggests this, but it seems the environmental warriors under 40 years of age, using their logic, do!

The private sector is not going to lock up agricultural land for 60 years with no return. The income tax system of Australia does not contemplate sixty-year cropping as it operates on an annual calendar. 

Without an annual income, a tree grower cannot gain annual deductions for expenses. You can in New Zealand. but not Australia. The report is silent on any of this. But to be fair, all other reports on closing native forestry have also ignored these issues.

The chairman of the BluePrint Institute is a former chair of Macquarie Bank. We wonder if a report with such omissions would have passed muster at the ‘millionaire’s factory’. 

At the risk of being labelled cynical, it was acknowledged at the launch that the CEO of the Blueprint Institute was the former chief of staff to the former Minister for the Environment who, as noted, was on the panel at the launch. 

Post the BluePrint Institute launch, comments were that reports such as this using the carbon economic future to recommend deconstruction of an industry for environmental benefit is the new way to pre-selection of a safe parliamentary seat. 

In the past, an aspiring Liberal MP would bang the drum of small business, but nowadays, it’s different.  This might explain why the report has such a narrow approach. 

Frankly, the report should have ‘draft’ stamped on it.

A revealing comment made from the former Minister for the Environment and Planning, when asked if he thought the environmental movement operated on ‘fads’, replied with an emphatic ‘yes’.  He said he saw that the environment not as a series of silos but one all-encompassing subject. 

This is where the BluePrint Institute’s report ‘Branching Out’ truly fails.  It fails to survey the full picture to reach its conclusions.  The impression left was that the report is merely a desk audit and not one of its authors, certainly not the CEO, had ever walked into a working native forest or a sawmill or a utility company. 

The NSW ALP promised to create this park over eight years ago, although the promise has been through several iterations. The most recent is that there will be further studies and no net loss of harvestable timbers. 

The policy objective is to link up native forests to ensure koalas have native forest corridors.

However, as Mark Twain put it, “never let the facts get in the way of a good story”.

The facts about native forests and koalas have been known for about 30 years or more.

The NSW Public Service has landform data that can be placed on maps with the possibility to superimpose other data on the same map with great accuracy. The benefit of living in a digital age.

When current national parks, reserves, Crown native forests and the proposed Great National Park area are all placed onto the one map (using NSW National Parks Association maps), the result is extraordinary in one way and in another not so surprising.

Within the areas that the NSW National Parks Association and other environmental groups claim is state forest available for harvest, are areas that are unavailable to provide timber supply.  It is ‘Protected State Forest’’ and comprises 76.5% of the area.

The mapping reveals that this ‘unavailable land’ provides corridors of native forest across state forests that connect to national parks – the stated aim of the current Minister for the Environment for the koala park.

The objective for the park already exists – and has for 30 years or more – but is not acknowledged by the supporters of the koala park the ALP or the Coalition.

It appears that the Department of Primary Industries has not seen it appropriate to brief the former NSW government or the current Labor government, on this issue or has been blocked from doing so.

The NSW National Parks Associations and the environmental NGOs have seemingly never sought to purchase this spatial mapping.  If they have, they are silent on what the mapping discloses.  

Of course, these organisations are still out seeking funds to save the koala and to create the Great Koala National Park.

Academics are still taking money for ‘research’ papers on biodiversity issues which include the koala and the need to establish the park and to ‘stop native forest deforestation’.

Of course, this form of land clearing in state native forests is prohibited by NSW government legislation, and Forestry Corporation of NSW has never been prosecuted for ‘land clearing’ of native forests.

This fact has not stopped the soliciting of donations to stop deforestation or land clearing of NSW native forests.  

These paid donations are made on a misleading premise, but there are no laws against this in New South Wales.

As they say today: ‘go figure’.

By way of background, the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) under the Administrative Orders of the Executive Council, is responsible for forestry in the state. The Administrative Order is issued each time a new ministry is sworn in, allocating each item of legislation to an individual minister.

The Forestry Act and the Local Land Services Act, although allocated to the DPI, gives the Minister for the Environment and/or Planning some responsibilities. This means the department responsible to that minister also has some carriage for native forestry in NSW.  The Plantations Act also fits under DPI.

In the 2022 Agriculture Annual Report of the DPI issued in March 2023, the organisational chart reveals under the Director General Scott Hansen, a division titled ‘DPI Forestry and Land Reform’. It has within this division Forestry Policy, Research and Development under group director Nick Milham and Forestry Policy and Industry Development under director Brendan Stone.

Nick Milham has charge of the Forestry Act administration and Plantations Act administration and Brendan Stone the Local Land Services Act.

This is the only reference to forestry in the entire report. 

Yet, in the calendar 2022 year being reported on, forestry experienced the aftermaths of the 2019-2020 fires and 2021 and 2022 floods in the state, both north and south. 

There was a disruption to the supply of both hardwoods and softwoods. The Local Land Services Group had policy success in a new Private Native Forestry Code of Practice being issued. The softwood plantations that had been burnt in the south of the state required such major environmental work being undertaken … such that about 30% of land could not be replanted for future harvesting.

None of this was reported. Why?

In the second half of 2022, four Government Information Requests (GIPAs) were lodged with four NSW government departments.  In 2019, a Cabinet Cluster Committee met and Minister Kean, then Minister for the Department of the Environment, carried the day with a decision to refer a particular forestry matter to the Office of the Chief Scientist.  

The full details cannot be outlined as the matter is still ongoing. The GIPAs were lodged because no progress was made with a final decision despite continual requests from the Deputy Premier’s office as to why the delay.

The response to the GIPAs took double the time permitted under the relevant legislation. When all the departments had responded a very large spreadsheet was constructed. This work disclosed certain things.

Several very clear and indisputable facts were evident

• No single department or agency had a comprehensible GIPA process. This was clear as we could see copies of emails that were sent to one of the departments and it would be expected to see a copy of that email received in the recipient department (copy supplied).  This was not the case many times.
• It became evident that one person controlled the reference to the Chief Scientist. It is well known that this individual wished to close native forestry within NSW. This person took two years to ensure the Chief Scientist commenced the reference. The files and cross-correlation of the material created the impression that nothing would have occurred if the timber industry had not contacted the Deputy Premier’s office several times. 
• The matter remains unresolved despite a report from the Office of the Chief Scientist. It is now approaching four years since the Cabinet Committee made its decision and it is more than four years from when the need for a decision was recognised by sections of the NSW Public Service because of a lapsing arrangement requiring administrative renewal.
• It was clear from communications between the DPI, the Office of the Chief Scientist, the Department of the Environment, and the Forestry Corporation of NSW, the Officer from the Department of Environment held the whip hand. The other departments were either subjugated or part of the process. No one wanted to ‘rock the boat’ to achieve effective administration. It became apparent that prior working relationships mattered, not fearless advice.

What this suggests is that the DPI will not fearlessly carry out its responsibilities set out in the NSW parliament’s legislation as no politician holds them to account and that the Officer in the Department of the Environment is exceeding the authority vested in the Department by the NSW Parliament by running a private agenda.

The DPI forestry policy division is the entry point for the Forestry Corporation of NSW, a legislated state-owned corporation, into the NSW state bureaucracy for policy issues. 

An ineffective or hampered advocate for forestry policy means the state’s working forests are unprotected against officers in the Department of the Environment who are ideologues and exceeding their statutory function. The result is environmental benefits and the public production of a rotational sovereign timber supply from 2% of the state-controlled land suffers.

This explains the lack of information on forestry activities in the DPI 2022 annual report.

The new ALP NSW government has made personnel changes in some departments at the top. However, the malaise is further down in most middle to upper management departments.

The media bleat is about political interference in the public service but no one wants to deal with the intense ideological politics within the public service.

Churchill prophetically said a long time ago: ‘Civil servants – no longer servants, no longer civil’.  

Public servants in the UK are known as civil servants. Politicians making promises no longer carry any importance. It’s who’s in the hen house that matters.  

The voters have no say in this.

The overall swing to the ALP is currently 6.4%.

Historical Context: ALP’s Past Gains and Coalition’s Declining Votes

The ALP previously under premiers Neville Wran and Bob Carr gained politically from the Liberal Party losing to independent seats held by them with South Coast, Manly Wakehurst and National Party seats going to the ALP or independents. 

History has repeated itself for the third time! 

If history is going to continue, the Coalition will be out of office for potentially four terms. This is not unlikely given the loss of parliamentary experience and the dearth of young people in the party ranks with community and political experience. 

The Coalition is on a primary vote around 34.8%.

• Down from 41.6% in 2019.

• Down from 45.6% in 2015

• Down from 51.5% in 2011 when they won from the ALP.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. What it does do is reveal formerly invisible tell-tale signs

Key Election Issue: Cost-of-Living Pressures

Before pointing out the obvious in respect to native forest harvesting in NSW, one observation on the election result is necessary. Insider polling has shown for weeks that the major issue in the NSW campaign was cost-of-living pressures. There was nothing else in the focus groups.

Keep this at the back of your mind…

NSW Labor’s Forestry Policy: Commitment to Timber Plantations

The NSW ALP in the last week of the campaign advised that: “NSW Labor is committed to the New South Wales forestry industry and the important jobs it supports in communities right across NSW”.

Points to consider:

• NSW Labor remains committed to the expansion of timber plantations and if elected will ‘immediately’ begin work on how to expand existing plantation estates across New South Wales.
• It is not NSW Labor’s policy to see loss of jobs and the closure of mills as has been seen in Western Australia and Victoria.
• NSW Labor has announced it will create a Great National Koala Park on the mid north coast. It has committed to no net jobs loses as part of the creation of this park. 

Now these policies conflict; they illustrate just how little policy work has been done by NSW Labor or what the Left-wing members who have been long advocating the closure of native forest harvesting really do understand.

Conflicting Policies: Biodiversity, Job Security, and Forest Expansion

Penny Sharpe MLC today emphasised that her focus is on biodiversity, reduction in land clearing, saving koalas by creating a new national park on the mid North Coast and strengthening the laws that were made in 2016 favouring landholders.

To expand native forest plantations means finding the equivalent acreage or close to it, such as the existing public working native forest estate. This means that due to soil and climatic issues this is roughly the same geographical location as the existing state working forests. 

The issues are soil type and climatic issues to grow native hardwoods.   Is state Labor going to clear state native forests to replant native hardwood plantations? I doubt it.

Challenges: Time and Resources for Harvesting Native Hardwood Plantations

To grow the native forest hardwood would take 40 years.  There is no magical solution here like a Harry Potter tale. There is, in reality, 40-45 years of costs before the plantations can be harvested. Is the ALP going to commit that resource?

There have been no new softwood plantations as opposed to replanted plantations for some considerable time.

The Great Koala National Park: Supply and Conservation Concerns

The Great Koala National Park Stage One when created will take out a major area of supply that cannot be replaced unless native forests currently locked up are released. That is not going to happen. There are areas classified as old growth forests that are in fact regrowth forests. Premier Berejiklian allocated resources to assess the status of these areas, but a combination of Greens/ALP pressure stopped the project.  The ALP will not revisit this assessment.

North Coast: The Heart of the Native Forest Industry

The North coast is the engine room for the native forest industry and the environmental NGOs, and the Left wing of the NSW Labor led by Hon Penny Sharpe knows this.

If Forestry Corporation NSW continues its usual commercial practice of supply, such a reduction will possibly see a closure of mills leaving one and at the most two mills in operation. This means loss of jobs in local communities and impacts on local businesses. Already NSW Labor has a conflict within its stated policies.

The Coalition’s Lack of Response and the Future of the Industry

The Coalition before the election had no specific native forest policies.  It acknowledged the ‘critical role’ native forests played in the NSW economy. They expressed a commitment to the industry like the ALP.  Then noted if the ALP needed Greens support to form government the industry would be in trouble. Such a generic response indicated they knew they were in trouble. 

With respect to interest rates and living costs, the NSW ALP will have to sort out their policies because every aspect of what they currently propose does not address a continuing successful native forest industry with jobs.

Ernst & Young in a recent report found that the NSW north coast forest and timber industries supported 5700 jobs.

As a rule of thumb, one job in the bush means 100 jobs in the city.

That’s 5700 jobs!

With pre-poll opening last Saturday, news commentators and their mastheads have been fairly consistent in predicting a NSW ALP minority government.

Regardless, if the ALP wins or the Liberal National Party Coalition stays in office, native forest harvesting will be in for a tough time seeking legitimacy and the so called ‘social licence’.

It is unlikely that there will be an even swing of 6.5 % to the ALP to give them majority government. This election will be on local electorate issues, cost-of-living living pressures, affordable housing and what is the best for each individual voter. Currently there are about 16% of voters who still have not made up their mind. There is no ground swell of resentment or one big issue, except the Liberal and National Party Coalition has been in government for 12 years and appears tired. 

Another factor is the change in demographics. Gen Z (aged 10 to 24) and Millennials (aged 25 to 39) now outnumber the post-war baby boomers. Under-40s are now in the majority, making up 51% of the state’s population – and that translates into more power at the ballot box.

Sydney metropolitan seats, all held by the NSW government, that appear to be in the change mix are Oatley, Riverstone, East Hills and Parramatta.

Country Liberal seats that are in play are Goulburn, Tweed and Port Macquarie.  

National Party seats in the contest are Monaro, Upper Hunter, Myall Lakes and Dubbo.

Independent seats are Kiama (government supporter), Barwon and Murray.

Independents taking on sitting Liberals in their heartland are running in Lane Cove, (in trouble) Willoughby, North Shore, (both on low margins with well-resourced Teal workers) Manly and Wakehurst which has a very strong local mayor taking on an unknown Liberal candidate. 

All these seats are vulnerable.

Sky News ran a story on March 21 that the seat of Hornsby has a 16% swing against the government.

Sitting member is Matt Kean, the NSW State Treasurer, who holds the seat on a 16.9% margin. The polling shows voters are moving to One Nation and the Liberal Democrats. But the Green vote has halved. The Green vote has been consistent in recent elections and polling sitting around 11%.

This Sky News polling does suggest a ‘MinnsSlide’ but one seat and one poll is not a victory. This appears like a local issue is involved and it might be the locals making judgement on the member himself.

The ALP ‘WranSlide’ of 1981 saw Premier Neville Wran pick up a six-seat swing winning 69.7% of the chamber – 69 out of 99 seats. 

On Monday, The Sydney Morning Herald reported a Labor return to power. But polling has been consistent with Premier Dominic Perrottet as the preferred Premier over Chris Minns.

Most commentators have predicted an ALP minority government. One of the national mastheads on March 21 ran a story playing down the ALP win because of a poorly-run campaign. This clearly was an inside sourced story and the motivation could be either dampening confidence to ensure a win or ALP insiders getting ready for the internal killing field if there is a defeat. 

The games of politics.

Commentators are saying the ALP has not really spelt out the details of its policies.  The small-target syndrome is in play. Lots of glitzy announcements and press coverage but not much else.

On March 20, the Parliamentary Budget Office released the budget impact statements, which costed each of the major parties’ key election commitments. The PBO found ALP policies would improve the net operating budget for the next four years by $1.4 billion, compared to a $97.2 million improvement under the Coalition. A difference. But the statement also said ALP policies would increase, rather than decrease, net borrowings. 

With native forest harvesting either ceased or to be ceased in Western Australia and Victoria by ALP state governments, the position in NSW warrants consideration.

The NSW state election is to be held on March 25.

On March 3, Roy Morgan announced polling of the NSW voting intention taken in late February. ALP had a 5% lead over the Coalition, 52.5% to 47.5%. This result put the ALP up 0.5% and the Coalition down by 0.5% on the previous month’s polling results.  This Roy Morgan SMS poll on state voting intention was conducted via SMS with 981 NSW electors aged 18+ from February 24-28.

Importantly, primary voting intention shows the ALP on 33.5% just ahead of the Coalition on 32.5%. While the NSW voting system is an optional preference system, meaning first past the post, preferences matter on such low major party polling and will make a difference.

Recent results in the federal election suggest the ALP will be favoured overall by preference flows. The Greens are running more candidates than more conservative parties. The Liberals will need preference flows.

The ALP Opposition has promised a Great Koala National Park on the North Coast of NSW near Coffs Harbour. At least 140,000 ha of state working forests will be placed into this park. This is not withstanding that scientific mapping evidence shows that 90% of public forests in Northeast NSW are already national parks or conservation reserves. The spatial mapping work was undertaken by NSW DPI who used 2018 data and found that 88% of native forests in the region are reserved from timber harvesting on public land.

Since then, there has been additional transfers of public forest into reserves in the region that supports the 90% figure. (A further paper, Slade & Law 2016 also supports this figure when updated.)

The ALP has committed a sum of $80 million to conduct further reviews and assessments on establishing the koala park.

It may decide to make it even larger.  The CFMEU in a Facebook press release dated 20 Jan 2023 said they viewed this money as worker transition costs.

At the Nature Conservation Council event on March 1 at the Sydney Town Hall, the ALP Shadow Environment Minister Penny Sharpe confirmed all of this and more.  She added that with koalas being extinct soon she would do all she could to see koalas in the wild. She spoke of ‘cross tenure’ measures which included establishing wildlife corridors to counter all the land clearing. She did not use the word ‘deforestation’ but did repeatedly refer to land clearing. 

The Greens spokesperson Sue Higginson made it very clear … ‘no logging’.

The Minister for the Environment, James Griffin (Liberal) addressed the NCC meeting. There was no strong statement of the EPA environmental based regulatory regime that existed in NSW for state forestry and private native forestry. Indeed, the most the minister could say was that the state government had a strong record of placing purchased land into the national park estate. 

Mr Griffin confirmed the NSW government policy of 30% of land to be locked up by 2030 – eight years away. This is when less than 11% of NSW overall is a reserve, national park etc where land use is effectively prohibited.

Interestingly, the minister said he was in favour of transition of timber industry workers and referred to a conversation he had with the CFMEU representative on the South Coast in recent times. 

Mr Griffin has been Environment Minister for 15 months. 

The Office of the Minister for Agriculture and Forestry on March 2 sought to give timber mills, workers and the industry the utmost confidence that under an NSW Coalition government there will be a continuation of a sustainable timber harvesting industry in NSW. 

This strong statement sits in contrast to the words of the NSW Minister for the Environment made the day before.

The Roy Morgan polling together with the policy statement of the NSW ALP makes it look as if a $1.8 billion industry just on the North Coast of NSW will be lost to the NSW and the national economy. This means a loss of $700 million to the NSW GDP and employment of 5700 people in the state’s northern region. 

Sue Higginson of the Greens on March 1 very loudly proclaimed: “There are only a 1000 people employed (in NSW). Just pay them out, it is not that hard!”.