Queensland residents draws to the attention of the house the recent announcement by Honourable Tony Perrett MP that no native forest timber licences will be allocated in publicly owned state forest in the South East Queensland Regional Plan area. However, until the State forest land classification under the Forestry Act 1959 is revoked by the Queensland Cabinet, and these high conservation value native forests are rededicated as National Park and/or Conservation Park, they will not be afforded all the protections available under the Nature Conservation Act 1992. As such, until they are formally gazetted as part of Queensland’s Protected Area Estate they remain exposed to future State Government policy changes and ministerial decisions that could allow further environmental exploitation and ecological harm by commercial logging operations, energy and water infrastructure, mineral and geothermal exploration, quarrying and mining, privatised tourism infrastructure and inappropriate tourism and recreational activities.

Your petitioners, therefore, request the House to call on the Minister for the Environment and Tourism to draft the necessary documents to revoke the existing state forest land classification and table them to the Queensland Cabinet at the earliest opportunity so these areas of native forest may be formally gazetted and permanently protected in perpetuity.