Two Tasmanian Greens senators have crossed the floor of the Senate to vote against their own party on a federal forest carbon scheme, warning it could end up bankrolling logging in their home state.
Nick McKim and Vanessa Bleyer joined West Australian senator Jordon Steele-John in backing a Nationals motion on Thursday to scrap the Improved Native Forest Management (INFM) method.
The motion was defeated 34 votes to 27.
The method allows state governments to earn carbon credits by stopping or slowing native forest logging, then sell those credits to companies seeking to offset their own emissions.
In a joint statement, Senator McKim and Senator Bleyer said they held “deep concerns that this methodology could provide a financial lifeline for the ongoing destruction of Tasmania’s native forests”.
They also accused federal Labor of using the scheme as leverage over the Great Koala National Park in New South Wales, which the Minns government has said it will only create if it can access the credits.
“This is a Labor shakedown,” they said. “Labor is now holding koalas hostage and threatening to drive them towards extinction unless they can profit from their habitat.”
The Australian Greens struck a deal with Labor on the morning of the vote, securing restrictions to stop coal and gas projects from using the offsets.
The party room then resolved to support the method. Crossing the floor is permitted under Greens rules and the three senators will face no penalty.
The split spilled into Tasmania’s parliament that night, where Franklin Labor MP Dean Winter accused the state party of engineering the revolt.
He called the vote “a political tragedy performed by the Australian Greens and directed right here in Hobart by the leader of the Greens Dr Rosalie Woodruff and her political puppeteer Dr Bob Brown”.
“Think about the sheer, unadulterated absurdity of this posture,” he said.
“You spend 40 years protesting to stop native forest logging and a policy arrives that contributes to protecting native forests and their response was to try and stop it, to try and intervene on their federal colleagues to stop the scheme from going ahead.”
Winter claimed McKim had been sent to “split the Greens in half” and argued the scheme was essential.
“It exposes the fundamental truth about the Greens,” he said.
“They don’t actually want peace in the forests. Peace is terrible for
business. Peace means no press releases, no outrage and no fundraising emails.”
Woodruff, who shares the seat of Franklin with Winter, said she was “delighted” he “credits the Tasmanian Greens with such power”.
“We certainly stand for people who want to protect nature and it’s a very proud day to be the leader of a party of over 40 years which started protecting nature, fighting to protect nature and we will always put that first,” she said.
Woodruff said the INFM scheme was “a sop to fossil fuel companies” and would “do absolutely nothing to bring down emissions in Australia”.
“It is utterly shameful and it is deeply sad to be in the chamber with someone like the honourable Mr Winter, who sits in a party who stand for fossil fuel corporations over Australians in future generations, over all the creatures that are dying,” she said.
