Senator MILNE (Tasmania—Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens) (15:27): I move: That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (Senator Conroy) and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Senator Ludwig) to questions without notice asked by the Leader of the Australian Greens (Senator Bob Brown) and Senator Milne today relating to Forestry Tasmania and to the surveillance of protestors by the Australian Federal Police. Firstly, in relation to questions to Minister Ludwig on behalf of the Attorney-General, I specifically asked the minister whether the Minister for Resources and Energy, Mr Martin Ferguson, had approached the Attorney-General about the use of the Australian Federal Police to assist the energy sector and jurisdictional police to manage the increasing risk of disruptions by environmental protesters. The minister quite deceptively said that Minister Ferguson had not written to the Federal Police. I did not ask whether he had written to the Federal Police. I asked him to confirm that Minister Ferguson had written to the Attorney-General. Documents released under FOI show that Minister Ferguson did in fact write to then Attorney-General Robert McClelland in September 2009 to raise concerns about issues-motivated activism and the possibility of disruptions to critical energy infrastructure sites. The documents say that Minister Ferguson sought advice on whether the resources of the Attorney-General's portfolio and, in particular, the intelligence-gathering services of the Federal Police could be further utilised in this regard. So it is very clear that Minister Ferguson was actually seeking to ask the Attorney-General to heighten the role of the Federal Police in dealing with protesters in state based activities, because these are state based operations. I also asked, in relation to coal seam gas, whether the minister had instigated any further activity of the Federal Police working with the Queensland Police Service or the New South Wales Police in surveillance of protesters, particularly farmers and families trying to look after their children's interests et cetera. I asked whether the government was seeking to have the Federal Police do surveillance on people working in the campaign against coal seam gas. The minister suggested that they seek FOI, and I am sure people will go out and do that. But what I would also like to know is whether the Federal Police and the minister have been involved in arguing for much stronger penalties to apply to protesters and whether the energy companies have been working with the Queensland police, in particular, to make sure that protesters are charged under legislation that incurs much higher penalties than the normal legislation that they would be charged under, which would be a simple trespass. What is going on here is that we have got a situation where a federal minister, the Federal Police and state agencies are working with energy companies against the interests of the community to try and bring stronger penalties and much greater surveillance into the public realm and onto the community. This is unacceptable, and I would urge people to start calling on the Premier of Queensland, Anna Bligh, to come out and say what engagement the Queensland police have had, and the same in New South Wales with the New South Wales Police, the Premier there to indicate what role the police have now been instructed to take to facilitate and work with energy companies against the interests of landholders who are simply protecting their ability to farm on their own land and their long-term commitment to the land that they currently farm. So this is a completely unacceptable scenario, and we need some answers from the Queensland Premier in particular. I move on to Senator Conroy's answer to Senator Brown where the federal government has told the World Heritage Committee at UNESCO that the areas along the eastern boundary of the World Heritage Area in Tasmania have been protected under the intergovernmental agreement in this interim phase, and it is not the case. Senator Conroy told the Senate these areas are not being logged. They are being logged as we speak, Mr Deputy President, and you just have to go down to Tasmania and see that that is the case. So Senator Conroy has effectively stood here and told the Senate that these areas are not being logged while the logging is going on as we speak in areas that the Prime Minister stood up in Tasmania and said would be protected whilst this verification process went on. That is completely unacceptable. Finally, we have a situation where Forestry Tasmania had better front up and answer the question whether they are currently in China trying to sell woodchips from Tasmania's forests at $US170 a tonne delivered, which is below the cost, therefore incurring massive loss, and are lining this up for the Tasmanian Minister for Primary Industry and Water, Bryan Green, when he gets over there on his trade mission to sign off on yet more debt strategies for Forestry Tasmania. It is a failed business model. Forestry Tasmania must not go and negotiate to sell woodchips at rock bottom prices because the China market is so price sensitive. Forestry Tasmania had better answer those questions. Question agreed to.