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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-03-06 Daily Xml
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Wood Fibre and Timber Industry Master Plan

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (14:35): My question is to the Minister for Forest Industries. Will the minister update the council about the recent release of the South Australian Wood Fibre and Timber Industry Master Plan?

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (14:36): I thank the honourable member for his question. As members on this side at least would be aware, the Malinauskas Labor government took to the election a suite of forestry election commitments for the Limestone Coast, which is in stark contrast to members opposite, who failed to take pretty much any election commitments relating to forestry to the last election.

I was pleased to join both the Premier and the hardworking local MP, the member for Mount Gambier, last week in announcing the release of the South Australian Wood Fibre and Timber Industry Master Plan. While those opposite get involved in having little giggles at the expense of the forestry industry, our government is actually keen to progress initiatives. The master plan provides a vision to grow further and develop South Australia's $1.4 billion forest and timber industry, and has been developed by the Forest Industries Advisory Council of South Australia (FIACSA)—which has a broad membership from different sectors within the forest industry—in consultation with myself as the Minister for Forest Industries.

It was critical that this master plan had significant input from the forest industry and I am delighted at the significant work put into this document by the industry in the South-East. I would like to thank all members of FIACSA for their ongoing hard work and commitment to the development of this important plan. Three goals have been identified through the master plan to strengthen the state's forest and timber industry: the right resource and capability, a future-focused workforce, and a clean and green circular economy.

The master plan will be reviewed annually to keep pace with socio-economic and environmental changes influencing the industry, particularly in such areas as international trade, climate change and technological developments. Again, I think it is important to emphasise that the forest industry will have a key seat at the table and will be directly involved in shaping any changes required for the master plan into the future.

The impact and benefit of the master plan will be immediate. While releasing the document last week, I was joined by Wendy Fennell from Fennell Forestry, and Tammy Auld from the South Australian Forest Products Association, to announce several projects to be funded through the master plan. We announced a $200,000 investment for Fennell Forestry to commence stage 2 of an electric log truck trial. Fennell Forestry has shown a commitment to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 by decarbonising their fleet.

Back in February 2023, Fennell Forestry announced stage 1 of their trial, while stage 2 will see further collaboration between industry and government using evidence-based data to further understand the costs, benefits and barriers of electric log truck adoption. In addition to the electric log truck trial, I was also pleased to announce $70,000 in funding for the South Australian Forest Products Association to develop a state of the industry report for the forest sector.

Other projects identified as priorities through the master plan will be developed and implemented over the next two years as part of the state government's $2 million commitment. Our forest industry in South Australia is a significant contributor to our state's economy and I am confident that we will continue to see a future-focused circular economy sustainably driving the state's economic prosperity with globally recognised skills and innovation.

Of course, this is not the only election commitment we are rolling out in the forest industry: there is a total of close to $20 million of investment in this industry. I look forward to being able to update this place once again soon on the ongoing work being undertaken by the state government to support our forest industry.

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