Minns declares native logging ‘has a future’ after landmark court case dismissed

The Minns government will develop a new forestry road map which is likely to include plans for an expanded softwood industry, and the use of carbon capture, as it grapples with the future of native logging in the state.

Premier Chris Minns said on Wednesday the forestry industry, including native hardwood logging, “has a future” in NSW, but revealed his government would investigate the use of what he called “a new marketplace” in carbon offsets and the expansion of private softwood plantations.

Premier Chris Minns speaking in Sydney on Wednesday.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone

It comes as a coalition of NSW crossbench MPs called on Minns to “follow the lead” of states such as Victoria and Western Australia by developing “a transition plan for the forestry industry” by moving away from native forestry logging.

The focus on the native logging industry in NSW followed a landmark case thrown out by the Federal Court on Wednesday.

Federal Court Justice Melissa Perry dismissed a case brought by environment groups that argued years of native forest logging approvals between Sydney and the Queensland border had not been properly scrutinised under federal laws.

The case, brought by the North East Forest Alliance against both the federal and NSW governments, said a 2018 extension of Regional Forest Agreements was invalid because it failed to consider the impact of logging on threatened species and climate change.

Perry dismissed the case because the agreements provided “an alternative mechanism” to federal environment laws. How those agreements were structured was a “political” decision, she said.

“As such, the question of whether or not to enter into or vary an intergovernmental agreement of this nature is essentially a political one, most of which are matters for the government parties and not the courts to determine,” Perry said.

The ruling immediately prompted calls from environment groups for Minns to intervene. The native logging sector has been a loss-making activity in recent years; NSW Forestry Corporation’s annual report for 2022-23 states hardwood forestry lost $15 million in part due to wet weather.

Last year a report by conservative think-tank the Blueprint Institute estimated NSW would save $45 million by ending native forestry logging and instead utilising the land for carbon sequestration and tourism.

Minns conceded that the industry was a “contested marketplace” and said he was attracted to the use of forests as carbon offsets, calling it a “a new marketplace for the state that could be particularly important for regional economies”.

“It could create a new source of revenue to drive regional communities, job creation [and] growth in the future,” he said.

“If NSW is placed to do that then we should explore it, so I’m not closing the door on that either.”

But Minns insisted hardwood logging — which usually refers to native logging in NSW — did have a future in the state.

“It’s not as if local industries won’t be using hardwood and softwood if it was all of a sudden phased out overnight,” he said.

“It’s just that they’d more likely take it from virgin rainforest in Indonesia or Brazil rather than domestically.”

But senior Labor sources speaking on the condition of anonymity told The Sydney Morning Herald the government would put together a taskforce made up of logging forestry representatives and unions to develop a road map for the future of the industry. It is likely to consider expanded private softwood plantations, which are more profitable and less environmentally contentious.

Wednesday’s case prompted six key NSW crossbench MPs, including influential Sydney independent Alex Greenwich and Wakehurst MP Michael Regan, to release a joint statement saying the court case represented an “opportunity” for the government to phase out native logging.

“We cannot continue to destroy forests through a taxpayer-subsidised industry when threatened species need these forests as habitat to survive and climate change demands that we protect our carbon sinks,” they said.

In 2018, while in opposition, NSW Environment Minister Penny Sharpe said she would not have signed as “the science underpinning the RFAs is out of date and incomplete”.

Seizing on those comments, NSW Greens MP Sue Higginson said this was Sharpe’s “opportunity to conduct that review and place a moratorium on all native forest logging while the review is undertaken”.

She insisted the judgment was a “warning shot” to both the state and federal governments.

“The court confirmed that in no uncertain terms, this matter is wholly political,” she said.

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