Labor’s latest announcement to appear as though it is supporting timber industry communities will be seen as a waste of money that will amount to little, according to Gippsland East Nationals MP, Tim Bull.

“The government media release says it ‘will boost the local economy of forestry towns’, but when you read on, it is to ‘upskill community members to help identify future economic opportunities’ and to ‘identify initiatives by local Innovation Working Groups through the Local Development Strategies’.

Mr Bull said he had never heard so much ‘mumbo jumbo’ in all his life and given this was round two of funding, challenged the government to show how many replacement timber industry jobs round one had produced.

“Instead of facilitating replacement industries itself, the government throws money at these airy-fairy programs, so it can say it is supporting these communities.

“Fancy saying they are going to ‘upskill community members to identify future economic opportunities’. This is something the government should have done itself before it closed down the native timber industry.

“In relation to ‘identifying initiatives by local Innovation Working Groups through the Local Development Strategies’ – I hope the Minister comes back in 12 months’ time to tell us how many firm ongoing jobs this fund created to replace the hundreds they took away.

“And while this is going on, we still have timber industry businesses not receiving the support they were promised.

“This includes firewood contractors who received their supply from VicForests and have now had to shut down their business, without compensation. Another wants to retain staff to transition into a new area of their business but has been told they can’t access the funds to retrain employees, unless they first make them redundant.

“Fixing these issues would be real support for the timber industry community,” he said.

Friday, 20 December 2024