Forestry Forum

Mr GEE (Napier) (15:02): My question is to the Minister for Forests. Can the minister inform the house about the recent public forestry forum in the Mid North?

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson—Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Recreation and Sport, Minister for Racing) (15:02): I thank the member for Napier for the question. I also thank the member for Stuart and the Minister for Regional Development, member for Frome, for attending in Jamestown last Wednesday, along with about 200 locals—

Mr van Holst Pellekaan: And the Hon. Kyam Maher.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: Yes, and the Hon. Kyam Maher, Parliamentary Secretary for Forests—who were concerned about the future of the area. It was a forum that we called to listen to community feedback after the terrible fires that swept through the area in the past couple of years. It was the Bundaleer forest last year that was hit and the Wirrabara forests that were hit this January and February, wiping out about 80 per cent of ForestrySA's forests.

There was a report done, commissioned by ForestrySA, which I received in July or August. It was pretty pessimistic, saying that it was going to take until 2044 for the forests to return a dividend to the taxpayers. The report was suggesting that we should not replant the forests, and I thought we actually need to go out and listen to what the locals have to say, because I had spoken to Ed Morgan who runs Morgan Sawmill up there, a third generation sawmill. Ed and his son Luke and daughter Candice have some very good ideas of how the forest could be sustainable into the future, but I think everyone agrees, and it was great to hear so many different points of view last week at the meeting, that whatever we had before is not going to be what it is in the future.

The area, if it is to be replanted, will not be 100 per cent replanted, because it has been identified that a lot of that land and the forests there go back to 1876. They were the first commercial forests planted anywhere in Australia and there were some there that were planted on land that is certainly not suitable for forests. But we might end up with 40 per cent, we might end up with 50 per cent, and we might actually end up with some different ownership arrangements of those forests. These are all discussions that we need to have, and it is part of getting involved with the community and speaking with the community about what the future would look like.

As well as having ForestrySA people, we also had Tourism people there, we had the head of the Office for Recreation and Sport and we had Primary Industries people there to talk about economic businesses that could be run in the area, whether that is other agricultural pursuits as well, because we need to have a diversified economy in the Jamestown area. The Morgan Sawmill either directly or indirectly employs about 106 people; that is one in 10 working people in Jamestown, so it would be a massive hit on that town and that region if we did not have that level of jobs there.

What we need to do is take a wider look at forestry plus. We could replant 100 per cent of those trees tomorrow, and if we had a fire in five years' time—I note that there is a fire around the Wilmington area, which is the hometown of the member for Stuart, and I hope and pray that everyone up there, including your colleagues in the CFS, are all safe and can bring that fire under control— before we had a chance to take out any new plantings, then we would be back to square one.

We actually need to have an answer that involves all of the community—it needs to have as much feed-in as it can—and we need to be open to all sorts of ideas, not just around forestry, but around everything else that can be done in that tremendous part of the world. Again, to the community of Jamestown, thanks for turning out in such big numbers. We hope we can find a solution so that little Marcus Morgan, who is only six months old, can be the fourth generation involved in the Morgan Sawmill. We will be working with the Morgans, the member for Stuart and the member for Frome to come up with the best possible solution we can as a government.