Good morning. Experts say a plan to save the swift parrot will be “absolutely useless” and lead to the bird’s extinction, as draft versions reveal it was changed to focus on protecting the forestry industry. The Greens are pushing for a rent freeze ahead of next week’s jobs and skills summit. And unions are calling for a return of sector-wide bargaining to lift wages.
Tasmanian and federal bureaucrats pushed for a recovery plan for a critically endangered parrot species to be changed to remove and downplay scientific evidence that logging was the biggest threat to its survival. Scientists said the proposed changes to the recovery plan for the swift parrot – revealed in draft versions made available under freedom of information laws – were more focused on protecting the forestry industry than preventing the species going extinct. The swift parrot is a migratory species that spends winters in Victoria and New South Wales and summers nesting in forests scattered across Tasmania. Last year it was estimated the population had slumped to about 750, down from 2,000 a decade ago.
