PM Tony Abbott hopes for 'renaissance of forestry' following Liberal election victory in Tasmania

Updated

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has reaffirmed his commitment to seek to remove 74,000 hectares of Tasmanian forest from the World Heritage List as part of a "renaissance of forestry" in the state.

The newly elected Liberal Government in Tasmania, led by Premier-elect Will Hodgman, has promised to rip up the state's forestry agreement as well as reopen listed forests to logging.

Under the Tasmanian peace deal, 170,000 hectares of forest were added to the World Heritage area.

Mr Abbott says the Federal Government is committed to growing the forestry industry in the state.

"We want to see a renaissance of forestry in Tasmania," he said.

"Will Hodgman wants to see a renaissance of forestry in Tasmania, and we'll work very constructively with the new state government to try to make that happen."

The Prime Minister declared earlier this month that too many of Australia's forests were "locked up".

He vowed to set up a new advisory council to support the timber industry.

"We have quite enough national parks. We have quite enough locked-up forests already. In fact, in an important respect, we have too much locked-up forest," Mr Abbott told a timber industry dinner in Canberra earlier this month.

The Federal Government argues part of the land locked up in Tasmania's World Heritage area has already been partially logged or degraded and it should be opened up to the forestry industry.

The signatories to Tasmania's forest peace deal are discussing the new leader's pledge to rip up the deal at a meeting in Hobart.

Liberals post best Tas results

Tasmania's Liberals posted their best election result on Saturday night, claiming at least 14 of the 25 seats on offer on the back of a 12 per cent swing.

The win ended Mr Hodgman's reign as the country's longest-serving opposition leader.

After 16 years in power, Labor suffered its worst result in six decades, winning 27 per cent of the vote and just six seats.

It is a result that one Labor backbencher is describing as the decimation of the party.

Ousted premier Lara Giddings said she wanted to stay on as Labor leader but that was up to her colleagues.

Labor MP Brenton Best, who is in danger of losing his seat, says someone else should have a shot at the leadership.

"We do need a wholesale change. I think there needs to be a total spill of the leader and deputy leader of the party," he said.

But the state president of the Labor Party has suggested Ms Giddings will be kept on as leader.

"Lara got a very strong personal vote in Franklin," Rebecca White said.

"She has been re-elected in that seat. She has shown herself to be a really strong leader for the party, so at this stage I can't see any reason why we would move away from her staying in that role."

Senior Labor ministers have lost their seats, including aspiring leader David O'Byrne.

"This is a devastating result. It's our lowest vote in the history of [the] Hare-Clark [voting system]," Mr O'Byrne said.

"So that's clearly not a great result for the Labor Party."

Greens deal cost Labor: Shorten

Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said state Labor's power-sharing deal with the Greens cost the party at the ballot box.

Ms Giddings dumped the Greens from Cabinet shortly before announcing the election date.

Mr Shorten said the years in partnership were not good for the Labor brand.

"In Tasmania the Labor government had been in for 16 years," he said.

"That's a very long time, and there's no doubt that Labor having an agreement [with the Greens] was marked down by Tasmanian voters."

Greens leader Nick McKim also says his party has been damaged by associating with Labor.

"The arrangement to take ministries may well have made a difference at the margins," he said.

"But history shows, and particularly the federal election last year showed, that no matter how you associate, if the government is unpopular then the Greens will take a reversal in our electoral outcomes as a result of a perceived association, no matter what the [voting] model."

The Greens face the threat of losing their party status if the number of their members in Parliament drops below four.

If that happens, the Greens will lose certain parliamentary rights as well as financial benefits.

Meanwhile, the state's electoral commission has revealed 163 postal votes were destroyed after they were irreparably damaged by a letter-opening machine.

More than 2,300 ballot papers for the Hobart-based seat of Denison were damaged during preparation for the count on Saturday evening.

The Tasmanian Electoral Commission (TEC) said 2,175 ballot papers were repaired but 163 were damaged so badly they had to be counted as informal.

The incident has been blamed on the machine not being used properly and poor quality control.

State Electoral Commissioner Julian Type said the incident was not likely to impact the result in Denison.

Topics: forestry, rural, forests, environment, government-and-politics, federal-government, federal---state-issues, states-and-territories, tas, australia

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