Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt intends to gazette a bilateral agreement on 9 June that would hand Tasmania responsibility for assessing native forest logging on the Commonwealth’s behalf, ahead of the national environmental standards meant to govern those assessments being finalised. That is according to the Bob Brown Foundation, which campaigns against native forest logging and says Watt gave the date in evidence to Tasmania’s Budget Estimates.
The agreement would allow the Tasmanian Forest Practices Authority to conduct federal assessments under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, the same framework under which forestry has operated through its Regional Forest Agreement. Two of the new national environmental standards have been drafted and put out for consultation, which closed on 30 January; the remainder is still to be developed.
The federal government has described the broader overhaul as a move towards national consistency, stronger sustainability benchmarks and greater transparency in environmental decisions. Forestry’s long-standing exemption from the Act is due to end in July 2027, after an 18-month transition the government says is designed to give industry time to adjust.
Tasmania’s resources minister Felix Ellis has backed the reforms, reaffirming that the state has no intention of closing its native forest sector as the changes approach. The reforms, Ellis said, “will not end the industry.”
The Greens have objected to the timing, arguing the arrangement commits to logging assessments before the public has seen the standards that are supposed to constrain them. Australian Greens forests spokesperson and Tasmanian senator Nick McKim said native forest logging “should end, and it should end now.”
The planned gazettal comes as Tasmania presses Canberra to cover compensation where the 2027 reforms cut across native forest logging, a cost question that could also draw in NSW, the only other state where the practice continues under a Regional Forest Agreement. Ellis has separately rejected calls to pause new long-term wood supply contracts before the reforms take effect, arguing the state must give processors the certainty to invest ahead of the exemption’s end in July 2027.
