“It is perverse that federal Environment Minister Murray Watt hurried down to Tasmania today to meet with the logging industry, yet has ignored every forest-defending environmental group on the island. Instead of meeting his ministerial constituency, Watt has reassured loggers that native forest destruction will not end. He has become the federal minister for selling out the environment,” said Jenny Weber, Bob Brown Foundation’s Campaigns Director.

“Today, Murray Watt committed to developing national standards with the logging industry. That is farcical. National guidelines for protecting the environment should not be written by, and for, the destructive native forest logging industry. He is insulting the 80% of Labor voters who want forests, along with their rare and endangered wildlife, protected,” Jenny Weber said.