Prime Minister of Tasmania Tony Abbott will aim to set up a new advisory council to support the timber industry after last night declaring "too many" Australian forests were locked up from logging, ABC Online reports. According to the news service, the PM hosted foresters at a function in Canberra last night, saying they were the "ultimate conservationists" and declaring the Coalition government would not be locking them out of further forested areas.

"We don't support, as a government and as a Coalition, further lock-ups of our forests. We just don't support it," Mr Abbott said, according to the ABC. "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 also recommended repealing 70,000ha set aside for national parks as part of the recent 140,000ha forestry deal struck in Tasmania during the term of the last government, which marked the area as a wilderness a World Heritage Area.