Cassy O’Connor MP | Greens’ Leader
The breathtaking hypocrisy of the Liberals talking up Tasmania's lower emissions profile cannot go unanswered.
If Minister Archer was being honest about the improved climate outcome, she would admit the critical role the Tasmanian Forest Agreement has played in cutting the State's greenhouse emissions.
The TFA got the loggers out of more than half a million hectares of carbon rich forest.
That is why the climate ledger looks better for Tasmania today.
Yet the Liberals and Minister Archer support logging in rainforest reserves and the 356 000 hectares of high conservation value forests set aside as the second tranche of reserves under the TFA.
The Liberals plan to open these forests up to logging on 1 July 2020.
Their policies are set to drive up Tasmania's greenhouse emissions from forestry and land clearing.
Minister Archer should hang her head in shame on behalf of all her colleagues.
To ensure Tasmania's forests continue to make a positive global climate contribution, the Minister should be arguing at the Cabinet table for a reversal of the Liberals' destructive logging policies.