Last week I used my Budget response in Parliament to highlight the disastrous impacts of the Andrews’ Labor Government’s decision to close our timber industry.

My speech is as follows:

Thank you Speaker and I want to get straight into the biggest issue of this Budget for my area - the closure of the timber industry by the end of this year and the devastating impact this will have on a large number of families in my electorate.

It is a decision this Government must reverse.

Having had a quick search of Hansard, over the past four years I have spoken around 20 times in support of the industry and lodged more than 60 questions on behalf of workers and the sector.

Many of these have been as a result of the lack of support for this industry.

The reality is this government has been making life as hard as possible for this sector and its worker families since it came to office, and now it is happy to completely destroy it.

Regional Victorians are being punished by this Government.

The worst part of this decision is we learned about it on Budget morning. It wasn’t an election promise, in fact the promise was to keep it going until 2030.

This was un-caring and heartless ambush of timber families and communities.
No forewarning, no discussion or detail – just whack!

With a distinct lack of detailed information, this has left workers and their families in disarray and extremely upset and angry.

And the thing is – is it all for no good reason.

Looking beyond the jobs and the families for just a moment – there is an issue here about responsibility.

Here is a reality that the Government – and the Greens - will not want to hear. It is two points.

The first is just on 95% of our current imported hardwood timber comes from countries with lesser oversights and safeguards, noting we harvest only 5% of our native forest, a figure that is reinforced by the Independent Auditor General.

The second point is consumer demand for hardwood as a building product is increasing because we have the International Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) and Planet Ark telling us to build with wood.

Consumers are choosing hardwood for their flooring, furniture, doors, stairs and other items because they are told to – they are told it is the right thing to do.

This is because the IPCC has recognised timber as the only carbon storing renewable building material.

And in relation to the IPCC, they recommend both plantation AND a sustainable yield of native forest. No ifs, no buts, that is what they say.

So, with the community demand for hardwood increasing because that is what we are told to build with - and 95% of imports currently coming from countries with less oversight – we should not be increasing imports from countries with less oversight and diminishing supplies - just to take the so called high moral ground at home for short political advantage.

Where is the environmental sense in this outcome? Where is the global benefit in this.
We will still be buying furniture and getting our flooring, stairs and doors in hardwood – but it will be sourced from countries with less oversight – explain to me how that is a good environmental outcome?

So, we are in fact going against the IPCC, which says this approach of using both plantation and native timber has the potential to be our greatest potential mitigation measure.

And you can bet the demand for hardwood timber products will continue to increase as consumers will continue to be told to use it.

So where will our hardwood come from? Malaysia? Papua New Guinea? – Is that a better outcome?

There are not the hardwood plantations in Victoria to replace our industry. We found that out last year after the Government said we would transition to plantation.

If we were to transition by 2030 as this Government promised, these hardwood plantations would have needed to be at least 20 years old.

But when asked for the locations last year, the Minister conceded they did not exist. It was all smoke and mirrors all along.

Even so, last week’s announcement with no warning was cruel and heartless - and how did the government try and sell it?

Well, we had Ms Shing, our local Upper House MP, coming out and saying we are doing this because we care about you and want to give you certainty.
Is she serious?

Firstly, the best thing Ms Shing could do for the mental health she talks about - is not spring this on unsuspecting families with no notice.

Don’t spring this on people and then say you care, it’s an oxymoron, a complete contradiction.

I mean if she is genuinely concerned, she should organise meetings in each of the timber towns and answer questions.

She won’t – she made this announcement from the shelter of a TAFE College.

She won’t front up to talk to the communities she represents in her own electorate. She will just issue a media statement saying she cares when she does not back it up.

Her actions from here on will determine how much she cares about these families – they see through her spin and claptrap.

The immediate future will tell how much she cares.

The government some time ago – two years ago I think – made funds available through the Forestry Transition Fund to employ project managers to plan for the end of the sector.

They were to look at regional opportunities, and as I understand it, industry growth and replacement jobs.

Well the time has come – show us the replacement industries and jobs in these towns. No more forums and talkfests, tell us how these thousands will be employed in our towns – real jobs.

If I was to take Orbost as an example of one impacted community, its chamber of commerce did some work a few years ago that determined upwards of 40% of the town’s employment was dependent on the timber industry.

That’s 40% of a town with a population of 4,000.

It is not too late to reverse this horrible decision and that is what this Government should do – at least give them until 2030 like you promised to do.

 Friday, 2 June 2023