The Prime Minister is aping Forestry Tasmania's lines on the breach of her August commitment to immediately protect Tasmania's high conservation value forests, Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.
"On Friday, Forestry Tasmania, the extremist loggers' outfit which has trashed the Gillard commitment, stated that ‘these coupes represent less than half of one percent of the total area identified for interim protection'. Today, the Prime Minister is using the same statistic to justify her own renege on the promise," Senator Brown said in Hobart.
"In six months time, this agreement expires and then even more destruction inside these so-called protected areas will occur."The Intergovernmental Agreement promised to protect the 430,000 hectares ‘immediately', leaving over 900,000 for future logging," Senator Brown said.