HUON MLC Paul Harriss denies the Legislative Council's inquiry into the Tasmanian forests agreement will delay a World Heritage nomination critical to the peace deal.
On Thursday federal Environment Minister Tony Burke said the Legislative Council inquiry had caused a delay and was complicating the matter.
A Legislative Council select committee was established last month after most MLCs decided they lacked the information to pass legislation designed to enact the peace deal.
Submissions to the committee's inquiry closed yesterday.
The World Heritage nomination is for 130,000 hectares and is a key conservation outcome of the state's forestry peace deal - without it, green groups are likely to withdraw support.
As the select committee chairman, Mr Harriss described Mr Burke's comments as "misleading and dishonest".
"Tony Burke's comments that the end of January is the deadline to get everyone's head around and on board with the World Heritage nomination is not correct," Mr Harriss said.
"That's got nothing to do with this committee agreement."
Mr Harriss said the nomination was a decision for the state and federal governments.
By yesterday afternoon the select committee had received 80 written submissions, with more expected early next week.
The committee hearings began on Tuesday and Mr Harriss said MLCs quickly realised the one hour allocated to each group would not be enough.
He said many of those who spoke to the committee in the past week would be reappearing and some were allocated up to four hours.
The committee would have a break the following week before resuming for another two weeks from early February and travelling North to hear submissions.
Mr Harriss said the committee had not yet decided if it would travel to the North- West for hearings.
The closure of submissions came as Western Tiers MLC Greg Hall called on the government to get out in the community and show Tasmanians exactly what additional land was earmarked for the forest reserves.
Mr Hall said it should not be up to MLCs to explain what the government was proposing.
"If the government wants this bill to pass the Legislative Council, they have to do the education and consultation," Mr Hall said.
