From the Desk of the Executive Director

Last year, I had a real go at the Federal Government over the impending red tape nightmare that was about to unfold with the new illegal logging laws.

In an environment where the government was, and is, doing a lot to seriously reduce red tape for both large and small businesses, the illegal logging laws were a stand-out, and quite threatening, backward step. More...

There’s an impending ‘disaster’ for around 15,000 small businesses in Australia as a result of the Abbott government's persisting with a Labor/Green ‘environmental’ agenda.

It’s to do with new ‘illegal’ logging laws that come into effect in November this year.

In an effort to save the world’s forests, the Labor/Green alliance, under the Gillard/Rudd governments, passed the Illegal Logging Prohibition Act 2012. It’s one of those regulatory approaches that we saw consistently under Labor and reflects an oppressive, ponderous and impossible-to-comply-with bureaucratic approach to social, environmental or other agendas. It’s a law that lacks the capacity to work in practice. More...

Environmental lobbyists are in panic because there’s the potential in NSW for land-clearing laws to be freed up. They say “extremists” want to give farmers greater rights to clear their farmland for farming.

But look at the “extremism” under federal laws, starting in November, to stop the import of illegally logged timber. The laws are green tape on steroids that put at risk 15,000 small-business people involved in timber product imports. Compliance is impossible, yet people face jail if they don’t comply. More...