Wednesday, 29 May 2024

Sustainable Forests (Timber) Repeal Bill 2024

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Steve Dimopoulos:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Emma KEALY (Lowan) (10:45): I rise today to speak on the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Repeal Bill 2024, and it is a very, very sad day for so many Victorian families and so many Victorian communities, businesses and people who enjoy the beauty of native hardwood timber. If you look around this chamber today, you can see part of the Parliament’s beauty is that it is filled with this beautiful timber which has been harvested from our old-growth forests across the state by our forefathers up to 150 years ago. In fact this is an industry that has sustained Victoria’s economy and has sustained our Victorian forests for 150 years. I would like to acknowledge all of those workers that have put so much into this important sector and important industry over that time. May I also offer an apology for how they have been treated by the Labor government over the past 10 years, because it has been nothing short of appalling.

We know that our forestry workers, particularly those in the native hardwood timber industry, offer so much more than what has been portrayed by the Labor government. We know that they care for the environment and they care for the forests that they work within. We also know that they have provided intergenerational care for our forests; it is something that is at the heart of so many families who have worked in forestry and have connections in forestry going back 150 years. We have utmost respect for those people – for the skills that they have and the equipment that they have – and respect for the people who are willing to step up in our times of trouble. We know that these are the people who keep our tracks – including our fire tracks – clear to ensure that we can have good entry into our forests. We know that they have got immense skills we call upon in times of bushfire. They are the ones who build our firebreaks. They are the ones who put their lives in danger during a fire. When there is smoke filling their cabin, when there are sparks flying and when they know that there are burning trees around them, they are the ones out there building the firebreaks. It is so often that they are the ones who are put in a position where they are putting their lives at risk to save the lives of others and the livelihoods of others. And yet here we are today with one of the final pieces of legislation that will shut down their jobs, their industry and their ability to access equipment and machinery to keep our community safe during bushfire, which will take away their opportunity to have a livelihood and take away so many businesses in rural communities that have been established simply because of the native timber industry. It will take away the opportunity for a generation of young people to learn a trade and to know that they will be following in the footsteps of their father and their grandfather and their great-grandfather. They will not be able to go ahead and do that.

This is something that is absolutely heartbreaking for the families that will lose their livelihoods through this legislation passing today, and it is something that strikes deep whenever you have a conversation with someone who is directly impacted. The number of people who I have spoken to who have had mental health issues that they have faced over the Labor government’s decision to unnecessarily shut down this industry is difficult. It is difficult to hear stories of people who think that the best option for them is to take their own life because they will no longer be able to provide for their children and their family. That is a situation that we are in in so many parts of regional Victoria simply because we have got an ill-thought-through political decision which is having catastrophic impacts on real people on the ground, on all of the workers who have worked within the Victorian timber industry ‍– 15,000 Victorians. Of course within this legislation it winds up VicForests, which directly employed 140 staff.

We cannot talk about forests without addressing some of the statements that have been made in the past and some of the shifting points that have been made to apparently support the shutdown of Victoria’s sustainable native timber industry. Firstly, for some reason we have to lock up trees; we can never harvest trees because that will damage the environment. Trees capture carbon. We look around this place and we can see timber – that is captured carbon. Trees capture the most carbon in the first 20 years of their life. When you harvest a tree, you actually are capturing carbon and storing it in a way that can also be quite beautiful and useful as a building product. Unfortunately, there has also been this absolutely ridiculous thought that once you cut down a tree another tree will not be regrown in its place. It is simply not true. When a tree is taken down in a forest, there is another tree that grows in its place. It captures more carbon. It is environmentally friendly.

Peter Walsh interjected.

Emma KEALY: Absolutely. As the member for Murray Plains has just said, every tree that is taken is replanted. This is a sustainable industry. If you go to a fabulous building down at the Docklands – the Nationals went down with Planet Ark to look at the Docklands library – it is predominantly built from native timber. And it was regrown I think in a phenomenal time. The timber that they used in that building was regrown in a matter of 6 minutes, I think it was, across the nation.

This is a wonderful industry. It is something that we have built Victoria on. We have grown our economy through this. We have created jobs. We have supported businesses. We have supported the environment. We have been able to produce our own building materials grown in our own state. We have been able to control the industry and the environment to ensure that we are putting best practice in place. And yet through Labor’s decision to shut this industry down we now cannot secure supply of native timber from Victoria. At the moment we are looking to Tasmania, but so often we are also looking at hardwood forests overseas, in countries where we do not know their environmental controls to ensure that endangered wildlife is looked after and that they are not taking out huge tranches of forest which will not be replanted and will ensure that we lose critical species across the globe. We have just shifted a thought bubble of what the impacts are in Victoria, which are not based on fact – there is no evidence behind it – and we have shifted that to something overseas. For people who might prosecute and say that this is a good decision for the environment, essentially what they have done is put the Victorian building industry on notice that we are no longer going to use hardwood timber in our buildings. We are going to mine steel – we are going to enhance mining. I just find that sometimes there is this hypocrisy that is never called out, and the government have pandered to this at every single step in the shutdown of the native timber industry. It is an absolute disgrace.

I think we should also touch on, while I am speaking about putting some facts on the table and what the sustainable native timber industry means for the environment, how the Leadbeater’s possum has been used as a reason to shut down the entire timber industry. There is no doubt that at one point in time in Victoria there was deep concern that there were very, very few Leadbeater’s possums and that these were predominantly in areas which were old-growth forest, which is where forestry was being undertaken. In the early days this was used as a justification for shutting down the sustainable native timber industry. However, there have been numerous studies undertaken since that point, and we now have so much evidence available to us that shows there are thousands of Leadbeater’s possums. They do not live just in old trees in certain forests which happen to be host to the native timber industry; these Leadbeater’s possums are in other timber areas as well. In fact they have been in regrowth forests of up to only 15 years of age.

For me, I do not find it surprising that any animal is going to be a little bit picky about what tree it lives in. It is like, ‘No, no, I’m not going to live in that tree; that’s not a hundred years old. I refuse to do that. I’m going to only live in this one over here.’ This is ridiculous. Possums will nest in an environment which is a tree that is a safe environment that will bear the weight of itself and its young ones. So of course in areas of new growth forest of up to 15 years we are actually seeing Leadbeater’s possums. It is no surprise; it is logical when you step back and take some of the political argument out of this whole discussion and debate. Yet rather than looking at the evidence we have seen a Labor government that supposedly stands up for workers, that supposedly is willing to put that front and centre as their whole reason for being: ‘If you don’t vote Labor, you’re not voting for workers. You must vote Labor.’ Well, if there is an exhibit A within this about how Labor are willing to turn their backs on their own people when it comes to the crunch, when they are looking at negotiating deals for their own votes, this would be it. This is exactly the evidence that we see of Labor being willing to transact and trade off a viable and sustainable industry which employed thousands of people all for the sake of preferences and votes. A transactional Labor government is not what Victorians want nor what they deserve.

This legislation is coming through today, and I understand that the government are trying to truncate debate on this. They want to make sure debate is cut off at lunchtime. So we will have just over two hours to debate the shutdown of an entire industry in Victoria because the Labor government are too ashamed of what they are doing. They are not willing to step up and say why they have done that, why they have appeased extreme environmentalists rather than looking at the evidence and standing up for the Victorian workers that they purport to represent – because they do not. They have let down thousands of Victorian workers in the timber industry, and it will not be forgotten. This is no surprise because over the past 10 years there have been so many lies perpetrated by the Labor government on the reasoning behind this change – and they had absolutely no reason to do so – whether it was around the history of the Leadbeater’s possum; whether it was about problems with VicForests, that they had done the wrong thing; or whether it was about the legal advice that we heard was the reason. They said they could not change the code of practice, that there was no legal way to protect the industry, because there was legal advice that they could not do so. Then we asked the Premier, ‘Could you provide it?’ – no, he could not.

I want to take the opportunity to actually put on the record what Labor have said in the past about the timber industry and how they would support the industry, how they would secure the future of the industry, how they would ensure that we have a viable native timber industry going into the future and how they would support timber workers during the transition out of this industry when in fact they have done anything but that. It was back in 2019 when then Premier Andrews put out a statement which was entitled ‘Securing the future for forestry industry workers’:

The Andrews Labor Government has today acted to ensure a long-term and sustainable future for Victoria’s forestry industry – and for the Victorian workers who rely on it.

What an absolute load of rubbish that was. In this document Labor also promised that this industry would not be shut down until 2030, which was bad enough, but it did not actually happen. Labor were breaking their necks to make sure they could shut this industry down sooner rather than later and let down exactly who they said they were standing up for in this same media release – the Victorian workers who rely on a sustainable native timber industry. We see in this release that it was about a transition plan which would:

… help fund community projects that support local businesses and help create local jobs.

And this of course included the:

… $110 million allocated in the Victorian Budget 2017/18 to help ensure ongoing access to affordable, locally-produced paper products.

We have seen none of that expended six years later; not one cent of that $110 million has been spent. We have got so many lies, and now we have got Victorian workers who are left with nothing, but more importantly we have got an industry which has not been able to transition to plantation timber. It was nothing more than a thought bubble to get away with a dirty deal with the Greens that Labor did in exchange for votes. That is exactly what it is. We actually know that the government’s promise of 16 ‍million trees that would have been planted as a result of that policy resulted in just 4000 trees planted in its first year – just 4000. They promised 16 million; we got 4000.

It is little wonder – I do not think anybody on this side of the chamber is entirely surprised – that Labor says one thing and then does another, because it is a consistent theme: ‘We’re supporting Victorian workers, but we’re not going to pay you a transition payment at the other end of it. We’re going to plant 16 million trees to guarantee your jobs and the transition to plantation timber, but we’ve only planted 4000.’ And let us not forget those 4000 trees that have been planted are not ready for harvest yet. It is hardwood timber; it takes some time. Having a little sapling that you are going to harvest is not going to be very sustainable for a long period of time in order to generate a lot of timber decking or other timber products that we use in our buildings. So I think that all of it was absolutely found out to be nothing more than hot air from the Labor government, and this is what we see over and over and over again.

If we go to 2020, there was a media release entitled ‘New nursery to grow more timber and Gippsland jobs’. This was at Nowa Nowa in East Gippsland. This is of course a $10 million fund: ‘We’ve got Nowa Nowa. We’re going to have a great nursery, and it is going to really save jobs through that area.’ Well, I spoke to the member for Gippsland East earlier today just to see what the update was, because that sounded great; it sounded like Labor were actually doing something. What a surprise – Labor said it would happen; they did not do it. In fact this never happened. This project never commenced despite Labor promising in October 2020 that the project would commence in the coming months. Still here we are four years later. It still has not started.

But it is a bit of a movable feast as well, because not only is the project not going ahead in Nowa Nowa, there was talk for a little while: ‘Well, maybe we’ll go to Bairnsdale, and now we’re just flirting with another idea because that did not happen.’ That did not eventuate either. And now we are flirting with another idea at the moment that it might go to the Latrobe Valley, some 200 kilometres away. I am not sure what ‘local’ means in the Labor vernacular, but I would not have thought that local jobs for Nowa Nowa would translate to jobs 200 kilometres away in a nursery that may or may not open sometime in the near future. The way that it is moving, member for Gippsland East, I am feeling a little bit fortunate, because I am on the opposite side of the state. It is gradually moving over to the west. You never know, we might see perhaps in a decade or so this project actually delivered in the electorate of Lowan. It is local jobs – not for your people, not for your community, not what was promised by Labor, but it might be something. I am not getting my hopes up, though, member for Gippsland East, I must say, because Labor never, ever deliver what they actually say they will do.

Going back into these media releases, going back to action plans and strategic plans, going back to anything that the government have produced over the early 10 years of their tenure in their time as government shows that they are absolutely full of hot air. They do not deliver anything, and you can never, ever trust what they say. Even more than that, when it comes to this, we know taxpayer money was allocated to this project. We know, though, that Labor cannot manage money and they cannot manage projects and it is Victorians that are paying the price, and in this instance it is the people of Nowa Nowa.

Then of course we have got the next stage of this whole journey with Labor of bolstering the Victorian Forestry Plan back in 2021. We have got a slight shift in what we are focusing on:

The plan ensures critical supply chains that rely on native timber will have enough time to adjust ahead of the phase out in 2030 …

So still we are here at 2030. Of course we had later on another change that would shut down the industry early. This is very, very interesting, because this was Labor’s very poor attempt at trying to shut off the series of vexatious litigations that VicForests was facing over the past 10 years.

We know that there was always an opportunity to do this right, and can I acknowledge the former member for Narracan, Gary Blackwood, who tried on numerous occasions to shut down this legal loophole which existed in Victorian legislation which allowed third-party litigants to take to task VicForests for failing to uphold the Code of Practice for Timber Production. There is a clause in the New South Wales timber legislation which closes out this opportunity for third-party litigants. It can be done; it has been done, and it has protected the native timber industry in New South Wales. I recall ‍– and I will refer now to the member for Gippsland South, who does a fabulous job in the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC) giving the ministers and the Premier a hard time – I think it was two years ago –

Danny O’Brien interjected.

Emma KEALY: Last year it was. Just last year there was questioning of the then Premier Daniel Andrews around why the Victorian government did not implement similar protections against third-party litigants so VicForests could just get on with doing what they do well and not be put down the financial black hole of continuous legal action by environmental activists who were using the court system to send them broke and shut them down. The response from Premier Andrews was that they had legal advice that that was not possible. There were a few eyebrows raised at that point in time, because of course, as I have just gone over, New South Wales has exactly this same clause within their own legislation. Dutifully the member Gippsland South said, ‘Well, if you’ve got the legal advice, can you please provide it?’ Of course it could not be provided. Just trust Daniel Andrews or anyone in the Labor government after we have got – and this is just a small tranche of the media releases – what has been said on the record by Labor about how they support the industry and how they support workers.

Labor cannot be trusted, and Daniel Andrews could not be trusted that legal advice was actually sought or that it actually represented what the former Premier said to PAEC, because we know that New South Wales put those legislative protections in place and they now still have a sustainable native timber industry. It is Labor that refused to go down that pathway. They refused to protect the workers. They refused to protect the native timber industry in Victoria. They refused to protect our communities that rely on the cash flow from these native timber businesses – harvest and haulage businesses. It is Labor’s fault that Victorians are being punished at this point in time, and they have never, ever been up-front about what they were doing and what their plans were and what their secret, dirty little deals were with the Greens in the lead-up to the 2018 election and the 2022 election. It is a disgrace. It should be called out, and I am glad that I am able to do so today.

Of course then we have got in 2023 ‘Delivering certainty for timber workers’, a very familiar headline to what we heard back in 2019 when Labor pulled forward the transition away from native timber logging earlier than planned to 1 January 2024. This has seen of course a shift in why we are going to shut down the native timber industry – it is now not about the Leadbeater’s possum, it is now about the bushfires. The bushfires are now their fault; that is why we are shutting down the industry. It has got nothing to do with Labor doing sneaky little deals behind the scenes for votes, willing to transact our jobs and our industry for votes. ‘Of course that’s got nothing to do with it’; I do not believe that for a second. We see at the bottom of this release – I will not read through all of it – that it summarises, and this is what Labor says, ‘It simply cannot continue.’ Well, the truth is, as I have gone through today, it never had to end.

I would like to move now to talk about some of the timber industry workers and the operators who have not had their transition payments dealt with in an appropriate timeframe. But before I go through the horrible stories of people who have been faced with the shutdown of their industry and who have also been faced with no way of getting out of their industry, I would like to put forward a reasoned amendment. I move:

That all the words after ‘That’ be omitted and replaced with the words ‘this house refuses to read this bill a second time until fair compensation for loss of income is received by all those impacted by the Labor government’s early closure of the sustainable native timber industry.’

This is so important because it is the bit that is hitting hard for families, particularly across Gippsland, and I hope that Labor will give every member of this place who has workers impacted by this shutdown a chance to put on record the stories of people in their electorate, because they deserve to have their stories heard in this place. It is very important. I implore the government to allow this debate to continue at least until the end of today. The stories that I have heard are just devastating. They tell the story of seed collectors who have missed out on funding through the transition payments. We also hear stories about harvest and haulage operators who simply have not got a fair deal when it comes to what they are being offered versus what the value is of their business, what the value is of their assets and what the impact is on the future of their jobs, because there is no security for jobs in the local area going forward.

I have a number of examples. I will not go into the details of all of these, but it paints a picture of how badly the transition payment scheme has been rolled out. Let us not forget that Labor again promised that this would be finalised by the end of last year. There was supposed to be certainty for anybody who lost their job, who lost their business. That has not occurred. It is an absolute disgrace that Labor are still pushing on and closing down VicForests through this legislation without addressing the failure of the government to provide a fair deal for all people who are impacted by the shutdown of this sustainable industry but also to make sure that nobody misses out. We do not have any certainty for all workers that they will be able to receive a transition payment, but further there is no security at the moment for people who need to access small volumes of timber out of those native timber areas for sale. So we need to ensure there are also protections in there for salvage and sale of timber retrieved out of those forests. It is devastating to read these stories:

My business has been totally destroyed, and all employees have had to be made redundant. The current employees’ lives have been turned upside down with most of them left with little prospect of work in the town.

I was recently talking with a courier business owner who told me he was closing his business down, which had been in operation for about 25 years, and moving interstate, as the industry shutdown had cost him 50 per cent of his work and it was no longer viable. This is just one example of the flow-on effects of closing the industry down. When there was a quantification within this business around the assets that would receive payment as part of the transition payments, they said:

The assets were my successful business that I had spent 30 years building up and my highly skilled and loyal staff which have all been lost so I’m not sure how I had put a figure on that.

How do you put a figure on the skills and the livelihoods of people who have been built up within a business over a 30-year period only to be told by the government of the day, ‘Your business is no longer important to us; we’ve sold it out,’ and you now have nothing?

I do not blame Labor for wanting to wrap up debate on this, because there is no element, when we talk about this shutdown of sustainable industry, that Labor can be proud of. I think it is an absolutely shameful situation where we are shutting down any industry in Victoria for no reason whatsoever. As I have stated in my contribution, native timber industry is sustainable. Trees regrow, and when they do regrow they capture more carbon. We can manage our forests so that it is sustainable in terms of supporting the wildlife that lives within these forests. We have research that backs up that the Leadbeater’s possum is no longer dwindling in very small numbers. It is actually flourishing in large numbers. It is nesting in areas of new growth forest. We know that we have got lots of businesses, individuals and families who have missed out on transition payments, but more importantly, they are facing a prospect of not being able to support their communities at times of bushfire. We have got a future where we do not know where our next generation of kids are going to go to school, because we do not have the jobs to support them. It is a devastating situation that Labor has impacted so many small regional communities that rely on a flourishing and thriving timber industry in Victoria. This never had to happen. I absolutely grieve for the sustainable native timber industry in Victoria, and I do call on the government to support our reasoned amendment and to ensure that transition payments are all fair, finalised and paid before this legislation passes.

Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (11:15): I am very pleased to rise and speak on the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Repeal Bill 2024. I will remind the chamber that in 2019–20 Victorian bushfires caused more than 1.5 million hectares of public and private land to be burnt, including 1.39 million hectares of forests and parks, plantations and native timber assets, critical animal habitats and water catchments. Were we to just stomp on blindly, pretend nothing happened and hope the trees and forests would magically regenerate – we cannot do that. Climate change is here, it is real, and I cannot believe what I am hearing from the opposition. The longer you delay this transition, the harder it is for those workers. If they genuinely cared for those workers, they would be backing in this transition. It is the right thing to do for those workers, for the future of our forests and for a sustainable industry into the future. When you are talking about certainty, just hoping that these forests will magically regenerate is not going to solve the problem.

Emma Kealy: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member for Albert Park is misleading the house. The announcement by the government to shut down the industry occurred before the bushfires she is referring to.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Alison Marchant): Member for Albert Park, I ask you to come back to the bill, please.

Nina TAYLOR: We know that a sustainable timber industry into the future is actually reliant upon our government making these critical changes, because we actually care about our Victorian forests for the future for all Victorians to enjoy. We know that traditional owners have a deep and profound connection to the land that has been going on for more than 65,000 years. Biodiversity – when we are talking about biodiversity it is not just a matter of simply replanting a tree and hoping that that critical interdependence of all the species, whether they be native flora or fauna, will just magically recur. It is incumbent upon us as a government to do the right thing.

As part of that, talking about the transition – I am very happy to speak to that – we decided to make the decision to end native timber harvesting in state forests in 2024, with existing supports brought forward and scaled up, meaning every single timber worker will be directly supported to find a new job. Let us look at that issue. Forest contractor workers have been secured with contracts for forest management works, enabling them to continue to work in the forests they know so well and to contribute to bushfire risk reduction. The Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action has created approximately 80 new roles to integrate these activities into its broader forest and bushfire risk management operations. The government’s free TAFE program has been able to retrain workers, helping them to get jobs in growing regional industries like construction, agriculture, transport and manufacturing through TAFE Gippsland and other key TAFE campuses in timber communities. This initiative was supported by up to $8000 in retraining vouchers for courses inside and outside the TAFE network. Timber communities worked with us to identify the jobs and growth sectors that will drive a sustainable future for local communities. We will continue to invest in these opportunities to support and create jobs through the Community Development Fund.

The government also provided support to local businesses relying on Victorian hardwood supply to manage the transition process. The supply chain resilience package supports business continuity and provides assistance to help manufacturing and other businesses to make the transition to future opportunities.

Tim Bull: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member for Albert Park has got her eyes firmly fixed and appears to be reading. It would appear it is word for word. At least get some eye contact with the chamber.

Nina TAYLOR: On the point of order, Acting Speaker, I like to refer to facts, unlike those of the opposition, who are intent just to speak from the air and say, ‘We hope trees will regrow themselves.’

The ACTING SPEAKER (Alison Marchant): Member for Albert Park, on the point of order, were you reading your notes?

Nina TAYLOR: I was just referring to facts.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Alison Marchant): I bring the member back to the bill, please.

Nina TAYLOR: It is a cheap shot from the opposition. It is because there are some inconvenient truths being brought to the attention of the chamber. That is all that is about. That is the best they have got to rebut these arguments, and really it is a cheap shot altogether. I should say –

Wayne Farnham: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member is defying your ruling.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Alison Marchant): Member for Albert Park, I guide you to please come back to the bill.

Nina TAYLOR: Okay. We have really touched a sensitive point, I can see, with the opposition. They really do not understand what sustainability actually is. On the one hand we have to transition those workers. It is the right thing to do. On this side of the chamber we did have 1.5 million hectares of forest that was burnt in the bushfires. Were we meant to just say, ‘Oh, never mind, we’ll just carry on and hope this industry continues.’ No, on the contrary, we deeply care about those workers and the future of the economy of those local communities. This is why this transition is absolutely paramount ‍– so that all Victorians have forests and we have a balance for the timber industry when we are looking at plantation timber into the future. Hopefully those opposite will one day read a book on biodiversity and understand the delicate interconnection of species and also the depth of our forests and that cultural heritage and what it means for our traditional owners.

Peter WALSH (Murray Plains) (11:21): Vale, native timber industry here in Victoria. We are standing here today because of the treachery – I repeat, treachery – of the Labor government. They have actually sold out the workers of Victoria. They have caved in to illegal protesters to close down an industry. In no other industry in Victoria would a Labor government allow lives of workers to be put at risk by illegal protesters, but that is what they have done in this case. You have had spikes driven into trees, you have had people with their chainsaws and the risk of them bouncing back and killing them and you have had heavy machinery damaged, hoses cut, which all puts lives at risk. But no, Labor has turned a blind eye to that, because they support illegal protesters in the timber industry. It suits them politically, but it does not suit the workers that work there. The Labor Party should have stood up for their workers rather than selling them out to illegal protesters and Greens preferences in the city here, because that is what this is all about. The Labor Party has sold out regional Victorian workers for Greens preferences in inner-city seats. That is all this is about.

Can I place on record on behalf of the Liberal and National parties our support and appreciation for the generations of people who have worked in the native timber industry here in Victoria, what they have contributed to actually build the great state we have and the timber they have supplied. Look around this chamber. Where would we be without timber? Look around the houses we live in. Where would we be without native timber for the doorframes, for the doors, for the flooring? Chipboard is fine, but native timber actually builds a really attractive appearance for your particular house.

Can I also put on record our appreciation for Rob Green and Monique Dawson, who are the two most recent CEOs of VicForests, and all the staff of VicForests. They have carried out their work to create wealth for Victoria, to generate timber for Victoria, under extreme duress and with no support from a Labor government. They have been sold out by a Labor government, and those workers deserve more. We on this side of the house appreciate what they have done for Victoria. We say thank you very much, and we hope that they actually get the support out of the government they deserve. Because at the moment – and the reasoned amendment from the member for Lowan sets this out – they are not getting the support they deserve. The government made grand promises, but they are slowly crab walking away from them, putting more rules in place so they do not get the support they need: ‘If you’ve done this, you can’t have any money. If you’ve done that, you can’t have any money.’ There are grand announcements typical of Labor, ‘We’ll look after you,’ but then they let the bureaucrats put in place all the rules so you actually cannot get any money or cannot get the money you deserve. It is an absolute disgrace that a Labor government is selling out the workers and the business owners in the industry by denying them the support that was particularly promised.

Can I also acknowledge the Creswick campus of Melbourne University and all the foresters that have been trained there since 1910 – the great researchers, the scientists. There were scientists that actually understood forestry, actually helped forestry, rather than the purported scientists like David Lindenmayer who have done nothing but trash the industry and put misinformation out there to undermine the credibility of those who actually put real science out there about the timber industry.

I would like to finish off on a key point: a sustainable native timber industry is a carbon sink for the future, and that is what those on the other side of the house actually do not appreciate. We have now got European companies coming to Victoria buying farming land to plant trees to get carbon offset credits back in Europe. Under those rules after 15 years that timber can be harvested and put into a carbon store in the product that is produced and you can grow another crop and you can get another set of carbon credits. If you think about the native timber industry, not only can it provide great timber for all the things that we want, but it can actually be a carbon sink, and that is now gone. To have a carbon sink the trees need to be harvested so the carbon is stored, because a tree after about 35 years does not store as much carbon as it does in those first 35 years of its life, and you have a carbon store for the future. The native timber industry could have been a key part of climate mitigation with carbon storage. That has gone because of the treachery of this particular government.

If you think about the timber products that we will be importing from overseas, we are not going to stop using timber, but we are going to take it from overseas from countries that do not have the standards that we have here in Australia. If you think about paper product – and I do not know about you, Acting Speaker, but I know in my office, now that we cannot get Reflex paper anymore, we are having trouble with our printers – they are having to actually change the printers to handle the lousy quality paper we are importing from overseas, because we no longer have got the good-quality Reflex paper that was done by the proud business in Morwell that actually looked after us all there.

Just to finish off on the misnomers that have been talked about, the member for Lowan, the Shadow Minister for Agriculture, touched on the issue of the Leadbeater’s possum. There was a time when people said there were only 200 Leadbeater’s possums left in Victoria. There are thousands of Leadbeater’s possums in Victoria. There was a myth that they only lived in old-growth forest. They actually live in regrowth. Out of the bushfires we have seen regrowth from the early 2000s, and Leadbeater’s possums are found in that regrowth. The misinformation that has been put out about this is absolutely criminal. The long-footed potoroo has been used and the powerful owl – you name it, there has been a native species that has been used to close down timber coupes, particularly in East Gippsland, and it is just not true. They are there. No-one surveys the public estate. Only 6 per cent of our public estate is used for the native timber industry in Victoria. No-one goes out and looks in the other 94 per cent to see what animals are out there and what creatures are out there. They are everywhere in the rest of the public estate.

As I started: vale, the Victorian native timber industry. Those on the other side of the house should hang their heads in shame. No wonder they are happy to truncate this debate. Finding people to stand up over there and justify what they have done in selling out the communities and the workers of this industry is an absolute disgrace.

Josh BULL (Sunbury) (11:28): I rise to make a short contribution on the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Repeal Bill 2024. Being in government requires making hard decisions – decisions that have an impact and a consequence and indeed change real-life circumstances. What we know and understand on this side of the house is that these decisions need to be based on facts and based in science. The situation that we find ourselves in when it comes to this piece of legislation and the decision contained within it, a decision that has been foreshadowed now for some period of time, is indeed that we know that commercial native timber harvesting is not a sustainable practice, importantly, both for the environment and of course for the workers within the industry.

What we know is that the bill will deliver legislative reforms that support the closure of VicForests and the end of native timber harvesting in state forests – and the intended commencement is from 1 ‍July 2024 to align with the closure on 30 June – specifically, the abolishment of VicForests, the repealing of the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act 2004, the removal of the framework established by that act for authorising and regulating commercial timber harvesting in Victoria’s state forests and the incorporation of those provisions that continue to be relevant for regulating and managing activities within state forests into the Forests Act 1958 and the Conservation, Forests and Lands Act 1987.

What we know is that consistent with what has been foreshadowed previously we have seen a significant increase in those bushfires, which was mentioned earlier by the member for Albert Park, and that prolonged legal action. Critically, a lack of alternative supply has indeed made the VictorianForestry Plan timeline and the transition that was foreshadowed for 2030 unfeasible. We of course know and understand that this decision has significant, real-world, tangible impacts, and that is why, importantly, more than $200 million in support for workers and their families to transition away from native timber logging was made and on 23 August 2023 the Victorian forestry worker support payment was expanded to increase worker top-up payments from $120,000 to $150,000 and to $200,000 for those workers that are over 45 years old.

There is no doubt that decisions of this magnitude are indeed, and must be, carefully considered. We on this side of the house are not a team to bury our heads in the sand when it comes to making the tough calls and the important decisions that need to be made, and no-one is saying that these are easy matters. But the reality is that industry and the workers in it will not survive, and this situation needed to be addressed before it addressed itself. I commend the bill to the house.

Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (11:32): It is with an exceptionally heavy heart that I rise to speak on this bill before us, which is going to see the demise of the sustainable timber industry in Victoria as we have known it after a very long period of time. I want to thank very much those from VicForests that have done the very hard yards, plus all of those in downstream operations. In my electorate there are so many who were involved in harvest and haulage, in sawmilling, and the businesses that go alongside those that support them, whether that be machinery operators and repairers or fuel providers. It is with a very heavy heart that we are here today.

We know that in Victoria timber harvesting was sustainable. Three trees in every 10,000 were harvested. If people want to think about how quickly forests regrow, they only need to come out to my electorate. In 2009 the Black Saturday fires absolutely decimated the areas around Kinglake, Marysville and Buxton. You go there now and you look at those forests, and you would not know, the bush is so dense – so quickly have they regrown. VicForests have had a very dedicated program to replant and reforest every coupe that they have done, and many of those have been exceptionally successful. Have a look at coupes that were harvested 20 or 30 years ago and you will see how large those trees have grown in that time, because you can reforest. Deforestation is not reforestation, and we certainly have reforestation here.

I want to mention the IPCC’s position on forestry – that is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN body. Their Special Report on Climate Change and Land, chapter 6, outlines very clearly that sustainable forestry has benefits for the environment in terms of carbon capture as young trees absorb more carbon than older trees. As I have said, reforestation is not deforestation, which sees forests chopped down and cleared for good. That is not happening; that did not happen. Carbon lives in our products. Wood construction can store carbon for up to a century.

I want to mention the workers from the industry and what is lost – the expertise and the specialist positions that are lost. There are a range of fields: environmental and forest scientists, ecologists, policy compliance officers, researchers, modellers and analysts. Downstream there are seed collectors; harvest and haulage heavy machinery operators; sawmillers and sharpeners. So many industries, so much expertise, is lost. And for government members to say they will all be there to support bushfire activity in the future – well, if they have sold off their gear, they are not there to do that sort of work. They have been on the ground. As soon as there are fires, they swing into action because they want to protect their local communities. They have been subject – the workers, whether they are at VicForests or other workers – to some vile actions. They have had on-the-ground activism where people have chained themselves to their gear. The risks to harvesters and haulage are just extraordinary. We had 75 per cent of the coupes on the timber release plan being subject to court action. This was about slowing the industry down, bringing the industry to its knees and putting the pressure on the government for the Greens votes. It was extraordinary to watch this and then to see how the VicForests workers were treated not just by the government but by activists and some departments and organisations, including mainstream media.

They suffered work-related violence – they were abused and threatened, they were vilified and they were battered and bruised – and it has taken its toll. Social media is one of the worst – the dreadful, dreadful slurs and the threats – but they were not allowed to speak out and say ‘This is what the story is.’ They are public servants, and they had to put up with this. They had a directive not to respond. How absolutely heartbreaking and traumatic for these people. I have spoken to very many of them, and they felt very much hamstrung. They have borne the brunt of unfair activity, and to those people I say I am very, very sorry, on behalf of the coalition here, that they had to experience that. That was not fair. And for the Labor government to let it happen and be silent on it I think was extraordinary. They would not do that in any other circumstance. If they had public servants subject to what they were subjected to, the government would have called it out. Well, they did not call it out, and that is just an absolute failure with the heartlessness of this government.

Timber forestry can be done very sustainably, and that was being done. The constant court actions have undermined confidence, and really the work of the environmentalists has not been for good by any means. We see now that they want to extend and close those forests and turn them into national parks, which will have devastating consequences for regional Victoria. This is a very sad day for Victoria.

Paul EDBROOKE (Frankston) (11:37): I rise to speak on the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Repeal Bill 2024. From the outset I would like to straightaway put down that I recognise the impact to communities and families. I do come from a logging family – a coupe in Noojee. They had their own mill for quite some time. During forest fires I have had quite a bit to do with the owners of the machinery, who came out in very, very dangerous circumstances. Basically, they are the ones that control a fire. It is not water; it is aircraft and machinery.

I think it is really important to recognise the impact that the decision to end commercial native timber harvesting has had on VicForests employees and regional communities as well, where timber harvesting has been prominent, and I thank everyone for their respectful contributions today. I do note the member for Eildon spoke about the way in which people have been treated, and in a lot of ways I totally agree. I come from an area where there were a lot of activists who at one stage, funnily enough, chained themselves to pine trees in the Australian Paper mill harvesting area in Morwell. There was a gentleman, when my parents worked at the AP mill, who was cutting down a tree where an activist had actually put a metal spike in. That disrupted the chain, moving at God knows how many revolutions per minute. The chain came loose and cut this poor bugger’s leg off. So there is a way to do things, and that certainly is not the way.

I must admit, seeing the way some people respond to their advocacy, even in this place, that it is dangerous, it is not respectful and I do not think it makes lasting change. With that, I am going to keep my contribution very short. As I said, I have got a family connection to state forests and harvesting out at Noojee. I have worked alongside forestry contractors and very much enjoyed knowing that they were beside us with their machinery and keeping us safe. With that, I will leave my comments; I know there are other people who would like to speak on this bill. I just wanted to say that I respect that everyone in the house has their opinion on this, but the debate, unlike some of the activities of the activists, has been very respectful.

Wayne FARNHAM (Narracan) (11:40): It gives me no pleasure to rise on a bill that essentially kills an industry, and that is what is happening here today. We are killing an industry that has been in this state for well over 100 years. My predecessor fought for this industry tooth and nail while he was in here – Gary Blackwood – and he fought everyone. He literally fought everyone. He fought weird professors like David Lindenmayer that put out false reports. He fought with Sarah Rees, who did not pay her legal bill and still has not paid her legal bill, and that is part of the problem. This government had an opportunity to fix that, as they did in New South Wales. They had an opportunity to fix the loophole to stop third-party litigation, but they did not do it. You had the likes of Sarah Rees, who was a nuisance the whole way through. She lost the court case, and then the government said, ‘No, no, don’t chase the legal bill.’ What do you think that did? It opened the floodgates to litigation. And that is why it is dead today – because this government did not have the guts to say to VicForests, ‘Chase after that legal bill and make them pay when they’re making false claims against you.’ That is what this government did, and that was the start of the end of this industry. The absolute death of this industry was when they let Sarah Rees get away with her legal bill.

On the wider impact of this – this was a billion-dollar industry to our state, to our economy – think of the jobs that have been lost. Think of your own house. If you have got a set of stairs in your home, it is made out of hardwood – your windows, everything, decking, the whole lot. The government last year said, ‘We govern for all Victorians, except if you’re in the timber industry. We’re not going to govern for that.’

I will just reference the member for Albert Park. Please, do not make the speech that you made in my electorate. It will not go down well. You showed absolutely no respect for the workers in that industry, none at all.

Members interjecting.

Wayne FARNHAM: You are not the one that answers the phone to the people who are struggling now to pay their machines off. They have not been paid, and you have no respect for that industry. It was disgraceful. Right at the moment we have hardworking men and women still waiting to get their payments. The transition payments have not come through. They are paying off machinery. They are still paying bills. They do not have work, and today we kill this industry. It is absolutely disgraceful what this government has done to the timber workers in this state. It is absolutely criminal how they have been treated, and as previous speakers have said before me, the vandalism, the risk they were put at was disgraceful, with no support from government.

This industry has fought tooth and nail. The people in VicForests are good people. They were good people fighting for jobs, fighting for regional communities to have an economy, and those economies are now dying. I am seeing it in my electorate, with less numbers in a kindergarten which is now under threat of closing. That is the wider impact of this decision. This was not governing for all Victorians. This was appeasing the Greens in this term of Parliament so we could get legislation through the upper house. That is what it was. It has been political all along. There has been no support for these workers. Every day I get a phone call from another worker that still has not got their payments, and they are really struggling. As far as I can say – and I am going to end this here – you shafted an industry, and now you have killed it.

Daniela DE MARTINO (Monbulk) (11:44): I rise to contribute on the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Repeal Bill 2024. I understand that this is a bill which has sparked a lot of emotion for people in the chamber and acknowledge that there are obviously people out there in this industry who have made a significant contribution and have been dedicated, through VicForests as employees, to the management of our native forests over the past 20 years. So I would like to start by acknowledging all the workers.

I will keep my contribution relatively brief today, so far as to say that I do take comfort that the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action has created approximately 80 new roles to integrate these activities into its broader forest and bushfire risk management operations. As the member for Monbulk, bushfire risk mitigation is incredibly important, because it is one of the most bushfire-prone places in the world. So knowing that DEECA has taken on 80 new roles gives me some comfort there, and I hope that that assists as well for those who are transitioning out, because transitioning from industries that have got to evolve over time is difficult for people involved, and we acknowledge that. It is not easy. The world is changing. Technology changes. Industries evolve; they do move and they change over time. The free TAFE that we offer as well to allow people to cross-skill, to cross-train, to upskill, is also vitally important. I know that that has been assisting people to get jobs in growing regional industries as well, like construction, agriculture, transport and manufacturing. It is important that we continue that support, which is why we believe in investing in the TAFE system to enable people to find new pathways, because this is difficult for people.

As I said, I will keep my contribution very short to allow others an opportunity to speak. I commend the bill to the house.

Tim BULL (Gippsland East) (11:47): I stand to make some comments on the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Repeal Bill 2024. I am ashamed and embarrassed to have been in the Parliament and to be a member of this Parliament that has shut down our native timber industry in Victoria. I know that there are other members on this side that feel the same way. I actually know there are a few members on that side that feel the same way as well, and the former member for Narracan also is very, very passionate about it.

The reason this should not be going ahead and the reason that I support the member for Lowan’s reasoned amendment is that this has been a thought bubble process that has been behind the eight ball the whole time. We have got people who are working in the industry who do not have their packages finalised now, as we stand here and end this timber industry. It is an absolute disgrace. They are direct employers, harvest and haulage contractors. We also have down-the-line businesses – the seed collectors, the electricians who service the mills. The down-the-line businesses that government referred to in media releases, saying they would help, have not been spoken to and not been helped.

To show what a thought bubble idea this was, just one of the many examples I could give – I will keep my comments short, because debate is being stifled – is that there was no clear plan on firewood. When I asked the minister about this, the minister said, ‘But the public firewood collection season is still open.’ There was no understanding at all that our frail, our elderly, our pensioners rely on the native timber industry to get them their firewood – you know, thought bubble processes not thought through in any way, shape or form. To this day not even the basic questions have been answered by ministers, and we have had four of them. It is a revolving door, and none of them have got it over the last four years.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tells us – read the report; I got that bored at Christmas I read the report – to use hardwood. It is the best carbon-storing building product we can use. Planet Ark’s slogan at the moment is ‘Do the world some good, build it with wood’. When we have those sorts of agencies telling us to use hardwood as a building product, consumers who want to do the right thing listen. They listen and they say, ‘We will build it with wood, because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has told us to and Planet Ark has told us to.’

We shut down our industry here. The question I want answered is, if someone on that side can stand up, or when these fools come in later and they want to have a talk on this – just one question: where is our hardwood coming from? Consumer demand is going up. I want to know where it is coming from, because we do not have the plantations here. The minister has admitted in this chamber the plantations to transition to hardwood are not there. So is it coming from Borneo, from Indonesia? Is it coming from PNG? Is it going to come from the Amazon? No-one can tell us where it is going to come from. I can almost certainly guarantee that, because we have an industry with some of the strongest oversights in the world, it will be a worse environmental outcome. It will be coming from a jurisdiction or a country that does not have the oversights that we had here in Victoria. So the fantasy that some suggest that this is a good environmental outcome is so, so wrong. It is just feel-good crap. It is a bad environmental outcome to close down our native timber industry here in Victoria.

As I said earlier, I actually think that if we did not have parties and we were not divided in the chamber, there would probably be more MPs in this place who would support the continuation of the hardwood timber industry, because I have had a lot from that side come to tell me that they do not support it. But because we are bound by party politics, we now have this situation where I think we have got a majority that support it and we have been flipped over to get rid of this industry in Victoria, which is just an appalling decision. I note the members for Monbulk and Frankston were very, very tentative in their commentary, and I note that some others simply do not know what they are talking about. I will always respect personal conversations, but it would be a breath of fresh air if someone stood up over there and actually supported this. I know it will not happen, but I know that there are some that are avoiding talking on this; I know that for a fact. It is a bad decision – it is more than a bad decision, it is an appalling decision – and that is why I support the member for Lowan’s reasoned amendment. We should not be passing this bill.

Lauren KATHAGE (Yan Yean) (11:52): Thank you to all the speakers that have been on their feet today. I thank the member for Gippsland East. I think what he is hearing in the voices of this side of the house is respect for the industry and the workers. This is not something that is being gloated over or anything like that. We recognise that this is a serious issue, and so we wish to pay respect to them by speaking seriously on the matter and not having an excess of poetic licence.

I believe that the basics of the bill have been well prosecuted already by those that have gone before, and I acknowledge and agree with what speakers have said regarding the impact on industry and workers. The government has made commitments around support, and so my message would be that if members feel that people in their area are not receiving or have not yet received the support that has been committed, they should absolutely take that up, because the government will fulfil all of its commitments in relation to the transition package. And we would like, I am sure, to work closely with anyone who needs additional support.

Sometimes it can be hard to see, but in the end there will be some benefits from this. I think, for example, of places like Toolangi, which is where my family goes on hot days. It is a beautiful part of the world. We usually go there after lunch in Kinglake. There are towering tree ferns and beautiful shaded virgin forest with a lovely babbling creek. The biodiversity and conservation values that will be protected through this change are something that will benefit local families and local communities in terms of their access to outdoor recreation and local tourist operations as well. We do not yet know how things will happen. For example, in the Buckland Valley, where my family goes camping a lot, some of the campsites are named after the former Chinese goldminers that were there, because previously that was a goldmining area – that was the industry. Now that is history, so we see that the transition of industry happens over time.

The changes that we see certainly will not be purely positive for everybody, but there will be certainly some positives gained from this in terms of biodiversity and conservation as well as our ability to enjoy the great outdoors. The sourcing of hardwoods through commercial plantations will continue and will expand, so the hardwood will be available for people and for companies to use in the way that it has been previously. Again, I thank the workers for their dedication and their championing of their industry, and I commend the bill to the house.

Bridget VALLENCE (Evelyn) (11:56): What a dark day. Today is an absolutely dark day with this Allan Labor government killing off the timber industry. It is absolutely hypocrisy of the highest order to hear the Labor government members talk about the workers and seek to pay tribute to the workers. They are doing anything but. They are absolutely cutting down timber workers. These are public sector employees in many cases, government employees, and this government has done everything to cut down timber workers. They should be absolutely ashamed. The workers at VicForests actually really care about the environment and have demonstrated that through their work, and you only have to read their annual reports to see how sustainable this industry is. This is a sustainable timber industry. It is the most sustainable industry. It actually helps to reduce emissions. It contributes positively to the effects of climate change. These are the workers who, when we have times of emergency and bushfire, are the first to put the community before themselves, to go out and support our communities, utilise the machinery that they are so expert at using to help keep communities safe and help make firebreaks and protect property and lives and livelihoods. Yet this Labor government has systematically, drastically and shamefully killed off this industry and is cutting down these timber workers. We should be doing everything possible to support this vital industry – such a sustainable, critical industry and something Victoria has been proud of for well over a hundred years. We should not be introducing laws to kill it off, but that is precisely what this Labor government is doing. It is absolutely disgusting.

So many people in my community work in this industry. They will be losing their jobs and livelihoods. They have got to now make changes purely because of the disgraceful policy of the Labor Party. And it is not just those who are timber workers; there is a massive ripple effect for all of the communities who are going to be directly impacted. Think about the local shops, the local cafes, the schools and the kinders; all of these will be completely devastated and impacted. You will see people leaving these townships. These beautiful townships in Victoria will probably become desolate, because people will have to leave to find work elsewhere, and it is all at the hands of this Labor government.

I will hazard a guess, but I might be the only member of this Parliament who actually has family with a native timber farm. My family actually has a native timber plantation, and we do that because we have regenerated sheep farming land and actually put a native plantation in. We know how important the carbon sequestration is. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been talked about already today, and it actually advocates for a sustainable native timber industry. So it just absolutely beggars belief – it is just mind-boggling – that this Labor government which bangs on about climate change is doing the very thing that is killing off an industry that actually contributes positively to our climate.

Where is this timber going to come from? Indonesia? Borneo? It is not sustainable there. That is impacting wildlife over in those countries. It is completely unsustainable, and it is absolutely disgraceful that that is where we have come to under this government. Manufacturing is going to be impacted. Native forest products in homes, in construction and in art are not going to be able to be used because this Labor government has killed off this industry. Labor promised to secure the future of these timber workers. It is astonishing that Labor come out and try to have a headline and paint it as a positive that they are trying to secure the future – they are killing off the future for these timber workers. They have failed to secure proper compensation for these workers, which is why I support the reasoned amendment by the member for Lowan in terms of making sure that we can secure the compensation. But we should not have ever got to this point because we should have done everything to support this industry and keep it alive, to support these workers and to support the great economic contribution that this industry provides to the state of Victoria. All Labor has done is kill it off, and it is a disgrace.

Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (12:01): It is with great sadness that I rise to speak on this legislation today. The day the government decided to shut down Victoria’s native timber industry was a very sad day for the people of Victoria and indeed probably the start of the end of the once great blue-collar worker Labor Party. It is a symbol that the government has given up on the blue-collar worker and on the people that get out and harvest timber, drive the trucks, take it to the mills and process the timber and on many others in downstream industries as well that were once the heart and soul of the Labor Party in many respects – the F in the CFMEU. Yet this government turned its back on them in 2019 and has absolutely destroyed the industry ever since. Previous speakers have made it clear that the native timber industry in Victoria is a sustainable, renewable resource and one that provides jobs in our regions, industries in our towns and timber for our building sector. In a time of a housing availability and affordability crisis, to be shutting down one of the sources of the materials for that sector is just bizarre.

We have heard from previous speakers about the issues of sustainability. I would like to go to that, particularly in relation to climate change. Some members of the government, and absolutely those people up the back who call themselves Greens, will tell you that this industry is bad and contributes to climate change. Well, do not take it from me – take it from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Chapter 9 of its 2019 report stated:

… a sustainable forest management strategy aimed at maintaining or increasing forest carbon stocks while producing an annual sustained yield of timber, fibre or energy from the forest, will generate the largest sustained mitigation benefit …

That is what the IPCC said about a sustainable timber industry, which we had in Victoria. The simple fact is that trees grow back. You cut them down and the carbon does not disappear into the ether. It is here. It is here in this timber, here in this chamber. The carbon stays locked up. And what happens? You grow a new tree. And what do those new trees do? They capture carbon. For the Greens and some of the members of the government – I am only saying some of them because we know there are plenty over there that actually support this industry – to say that this is a bad industry for climate change is just the opposite of understanding the science. It is the opposite of good management of our environment, and it is the opposite of good deals for our economy.

I would like to thank and acknowledge all those people who worked at VicForests, the organisation that is being shut down by this legislation. I want to thank the VicForests employees – actual government employees – and their contractors, particularly the harvest and haul contractors, who have mostly been put out of work, or the work that they have usually done in this, and indeed all the workers in the timber industry, whether downstream in the haulage sector, in the mills or in the downstream industries utilising that timber, for their work over the years. I want to thank them for being stewards of our environment – notwithstanding all the stories that we have heard from particularly the left-wing media, saying repeatedly and often erroneously that they have been damaging the environment when they have not.

I am not saying they have got it perfect every time. But I thank VicForests in particular, and I thank those in senior management, who have done their best in the face of very difficult circumstances where for the past 10 years they have not once had a minister or a Premier who would defend them – not once has a minister gone out and defended VicForests and said, ‘They are doing what the government of the day wants them to do, they are looking after our forests, they are producing timber for our communities.’ Not once have they had that support, yet this organisation have been subject to some of the most aggressive lawfare of any organisation, certainly in the state of Victoria.

We have the green NGOs, the Greens political party and some in Labor who say, ‘The industry’s not sustainable; VicForests keeps losing money.’ It has lost money because it has had to spend tens of millions of dollars defending itself from lawfare. I will add the finding from the Auditor-General in his report in 2013 that VicForests does not receive subsidies. Yet those up there – the member for Melbourne – and those across there and those out there who would shut this industry down have been saying for years that it is subsidised by the taxpayer. It has not been subsidised by the taxpayer – the Auditor-General found that – and it has been subject to this lawfare, which has made it virtually insolvent because of the costs, and not once have we seen a Labor government minister go out and defend VicForests.

On the contrary, as the member for Narracan said, when My Environment lost a case against the government and against VicForests and were awarded $1.2 million in costs against them, what happened? Did they pay it? No, they did not pay it. Indeed it blew out to at least $2 million in interest costs, and yet the government turned a blind eye. So on the one hand you had VicForests suffering this lawfare to shut it down, to increase the costs on VicForests and the timber industry, and the government did nothing; and on the other side when one of the environmental groups gets $1 million in costs awarded against them, we just turn a blind eye – we do not worry about that. How disgraceful of this government. That money was owed to the people of Victoria but for base political reasons the Labor government chose not to pursue it.

And we have seen throughout this process the government chopping and changing. The member for Lowan did an exceptional job in outlining the timeline that we have seen with this industry and how the government has chopped and changed its views. First they said, ‘We’re going to transition to plantation timber’. It took them six years to do anything with $110 million allocated in the 2017 budget. They did not do anything with it. The government took six years to actually start planting some plantation timber, which of course was never going to replace us by 2030. Then in 2019 the government came out and said, ‘We’ll shut down the industry by 2030.’ So the industry started to plan for that; they started to make allowances. In particular the mills started to work out how they were going to survive without the supply of native timber. That did not happen because we had this decision in 2023: ‘No, sorry – we’re going to bring it forward by six years.’ And now ministers on the other side, including the Minister for Energy and Resources, had the gall in the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee hearings last week to say, ‘It’s not our decision to shut down the native timber industry; it was the courts.’ Well, that is absolutely false. As the member for Lowan pointed out, the government had the opportunity, just as New South Wales did, to legislate to minimise this third-party legal action that was attacking the timber industry, and they chose not to do it. I was the one that asked the Premier at the time last year, ‘Have you got legal advice? Why did you not take legal action to shut down this loophole?’ ‘We’ve got legal advice that we can’t do it’, said Daniel Andrews. And when I asked him for it, what did he say? ‘I can’t show you that, it’s legal confidentiality’ – so effectively ‘Trust me.’ It is just rubbish.

I now see the changes to the Gippsland landscape and the Gippsland economic landscape since I came into Parliament, which happens to coincide with this government being in power. You come across the hill at Hernes Oak and you look out to the blank space where Hazelwood power station used to be, and that saddens me every time. We knew it was going to close eventually, but it was brought forward by this government. And now we are seeing fewer and fewer native timber trucks on the road, and the absolutely extraordinarily stupid thing that we are seeing – the native timber trucks that you are seeing on the road these days are coming off the ferry from Tasmania. Indeed you are also seeing trucks bringing in timber from the United States to go into the mill at Heyfield. How do you reckon that is going for the emissions? How good is that for the environment, to be importing it from the United States instead of sustainably harvesting that timber right here in Gippsland and in Victoria? It is an absolute disgrace.

This government stands condemned for shutting down this industry, and I believe it will rue the day. We are already seeing that those blue-collar workers in the west and north are waking up to the Labor Party abandoning them, and it will continue.

Ella GEORGE (Lara) (12:11): I would like to make a brief contribution on this today. From the outset I do want to acknowledge the really significant impact that this legislation has on forestry workers and their communities, and I understand that the transition of this industry is undeniably a very, very difficult thing for all those who have been impacted.

I have been listening to the contributions in the chamber today from my colleagues, and I do want to note the respectful debate that we have been having and also the passion of so many members in this place for their local communities and supporting their local communities, particularly those forestry communities, with this transition. In particular I did note the member for Narracan’s passion in standing up for his community, and while we may disagree on many things, I think the thing that we all in this place have in common is that we are all here to stand up for our communities.

I do want to thank the workers, the forestry workers and VicForests, for their patience and their resilience in confronting this. I appreciate there have been many challenges along the way, including this transition being brought forward. The Lara electorate is not home to a forestry community – that is not something that has been part of our community for a long time – but we are home to the port, and the timber and woodchip coming through the port are a big part of our local economy. So in a way it does have an impact on our community in Geelong, like so many other rural and regional communities.

I know that other people want to make a contribution on this legislation, so as I mentioned, I will keep my contribution short, and I will end my remarks here. Again, I just want to acknowledge the impact that this has on forestry workers and on forestry communities across rural and regional Victoria.

Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (12:13): I also rise to speak on the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Repeal Bill 2024. This bill does two things: it repeals the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act 2004 so as to formally end commercial native forest timber harvesting and abolishes VicForests and returns forest management responsibilities to the government. I understand also that this is an issue that is very strongly felt across the chamber, and I respect the members of this Parliament who have come here and put those views.

I came from the forest movement. I spent my entire life working to protect our environment and to protect our climate, and I bring that into this Parliament. I am also here to represent a very large group of Victorians who have also spent their lives fighting to protect our native species and the habitat that they call home and also trying to protect the climate from the emissions that these activities produce.

Jade Benham interjected.

Ellen SANDELL: I acknowledge that the member for Mildura just said ‘Oh my God’, but I think we do need to have this debate respectfully across the chamber, and all members have a right to come into this place and share their views on something that is a really big reform and a very important issue for so many Victorians.

When Labor announced that it was finally abolishing VicForests, it was about time. The Nationals need to realise that although this is an industry that they have been backing for a long time, it is an industry that is no longer sustainable in any sense of the word. VicForests was a cowboy company that logged, burnt and destroyed some of the most precious and carbon-dense native forest habitat in the entire world, which exists here in Victoria. We are so fortunate to have these incredible forests here in Victoria, yet we were destroying them at an incredible pace – many, many MCGs per day. It was a company that was losing money for years, even before the court cases, a company with terrible environmental performance, as outlined in many Auditor-General reports, and a company that was found to be engaging in illegal activity. VicForests threatened countless species’ survival. They pushed our faunal emblem here in Victoria, the Leadbeater’s possum, to the brink of extinction. They pushed greater gliders to the brink of extinction.

Let us be clear about what actually happened to this wood once it was logged. The vast majority of it ended up being used to make cheap woodchips, pallets and paper. The member for Gippsland South in his contribution talked about the fact that our forests were logged to make wood like what exists here in this chamber and that that stores carbon – not true. It is actually not true. If you look at the exact science, if we actually care about good science in this place – I think that this chamber and all of our parliamentarians should rely on good science – we should rely on an evidence base. Let us look at the science. The science says that when you log a native forest only 3 per cent of the biomass ends up in high-grade timber products that can store carbon. The vast, vast majority ends up going into the atmosphere once you log – just debris left on the ground that degrades and then is turned into emissions. And the vast majority of what is taken out of the forest –

A member interjected.

Ellen SANDELL: This is not me; this is peer-reviewed science that says this. It is peer-reviewed science from one of our most respected universities. If you would like to dispute the peer-reviewed science of one of our most respected universities, you can take that up with that university and the academic community. The vast majority of the biomass that is taken out of a forest ends up as woodchips, cheap pallets and paper. Paper does not store carbon; paper degrades in a short period of time. I remember meeting a representative of VicForests when I was at one of the international climate conferences, and the evidence that she showed me that logging stores carbon was that they found an old newspaper that still existed from a few decades ago. She said, ‘Look, we made paper and this newspaper still exists. Someone has kept this newspaper. Look, it’s storing carbon’ – one newspaper. Well, actually the vast majority of paper degrades into emissions into the atmosphere. Only 3 per cent ends up as high-grade product. If we want to talk about science, let us actually use proper, peer-reviewed science.

VicForests was even found to have illegally spied on ordinary citizens, citizens who had the gall to keep an eye on VicForests and what they were doing – something that the government refused to do. These were ordinary citizens who were keeping VicForests to account, and then VicForests hired private investigators to go and spy on them – not activities of a trustworthy organisation. In the absence of government or VicForests actually obeying the laws that they were required to obey, citizen scientists, environment groups and lawyers, all inspired by a love of these ecosystems, actually had to go out and do the work of surveying for threatened species, which VicForests was legally required to do but was not doing. They had to go out and prove that endangered species existed and that VicForests was acting illegally and then take that to court. I think that all Victorians owe a great debt to these groups for volunteering their time for literally decades and for putting themselves and their bodies on the line, whether that is through direct action, citizen science or legal means, to protect something that belongs to all Victorians and our kids and grandkids. I want to put some of those groups on the record, because they have done incredible work over a huge amount of time: the Victorian Forest Alliance, Environmental Justice Australia, the Victorian National Parks Association, Wildlife of the Central Highlands, Friends of the Earth, My Environment, Forest Conservation Victoria, the Wilderness Society, the Wombat Action Group, Friends of Leadbeater’s Possum and all the scientists, the barristers and everyone else who have committed their lives to protecting something so precious. We will look back on them and we will thank them.

In response this government has tried to stop activists and citizen scientists from doing this work. This government even passed laws to ban people entering timber harvest zones – $21,000 fines people were risking. But even after all this, these community groups were vindicated. VicForests was found to be doing illegal activity, and after decades and decades of work from local community members, Labor was finally forced to admit what we had known for a long time – that logging simply could not continue. It was not compatible with our climate targets, it was not compatible with our goals to protect the environment and it was not financially sustainable. There was no wood left, and Labor was finally forced to stop native forest logging.

Labor then promised as part of this, and we have the press releases to prove it, to turn these forests into reserves, to protect them for all Victorians – for our kids and grandkids to go into the bush and experience these places and enjoy them in perpetuity and for traditional owners to be able to manage these landscapes, making sure that they have the right to the landscapes and the country that is their right. The government also gave about a billion dollars to workers and logging contractors to transition them to plantations, because we need to realise that workers have that right to be transitioned into new industries or to take packages. We have no beef with the workers who have been doing these jobs over many years; they deserve support as well. But this government gave them that support – nearly a billion dollars of that support.

But it seems that old habits die hard, because you would think that Labor after all of these decisions would simply cut the cord and say, ‘Okay, logging is over. Let’s refocus the environment department on restoring these forests, ensuring traditional owners can have ownership over what happens there, protect the damaged forests with specialist staff who’ve got these skills and then move to plantations for our softwood and hardwood needs.’ But seven months into the end of native forest logging it is clear that this culture of destruction has actually not ended with the end of VicForests. A lot of this culture has simply been rehoused by moving the same people, the same contractors and the same culture into the department and into Forest Fire Management Victoria.

Two weeks ago Forest Fire Management Victoria, or FFMV, killed an endangered – a critically endangered, I should say, the highest level of endangerment – greater glider while creating fuel breaks in the Yarra Ranges National Park. This is not just a state forest, this is actually a protected national park. The Labor minister and the department were informed well ahead of time by citizens and locals in that area who were taking on the surveying work the department should have been doing. The department and the minister were actively told that critically endangered greater gliders lived in the trees they were about to fell, and doing anything that threatens the life of a listed species is actually in contravention of the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. Yet FFMV carried on and those groups were fobbed off, and now the greater glider has been killed.

Last Friday we saw that play out exactly the same way. Contractors under the cover of darkness fenced off an area of the national park and knocked down an ancient grandmother tree, a hollow-bearing giant. It was not a fire risk, as the science shows, but now it has been cut down it will be a fire risk, because it will be replaced by something smaller and more flammable. This ancient hollow-bearing grandmother tree was felled because FFMV just could not be bothered to look at another route for their firebreak, talk to an expert or even check their science. In fact they are not even required to do any surveying for threatened species before they log. Tragically, this looks like it is just the start of logging 2.0. So we support the government officially abolishing VicForests, but we cannot allow it to just exist in another form. FFMV can still continue to do its crucial work of reseeding native forests and protecting them, fire prevention where the science demands it and cleaning up areas that might be a public safety risk, but it cannot and should not do it completely unsupervised without any regard for the environmental effects of that ‍–

Steve Dimopoulos: It doesn’t do that.

Ellen SANDELL: Well, it does – let alone for commercial purposes. The Minister for Environment is interjecting and saying that FFMV does not do that, and I would love to have a meeting with him to discuss this, because on our understanding and everything we have seen on the ground FFMV does not do the environmental surveying before it goes in. If that is not the case, I would love to have a conversation with the minister about that.

The Greens will be seeking three very sensible, responsible amendments to this bill, and we urge everyone to support them. We will move them in the other place, but I would be happy to make them available to members before this bill comes to that other place. First, we want to see FFMV embed strong, transparent ecological reporting and harm minimisation practices into their bushfire prevention works and their storm clean-up and debris clean-up works to make sure that if we are creating a fuel break it is not through hollow-bearing trees that are full of critically endangered animals. I am sure that everyone could agree that that is a sensible thing not to do. Our first amendment would require agreements and arrangements under section 62C of the Forests Act 1958, which relates to the prevention and suppression of fires and recovery from fires, to include ecological assessments where works impact or are likely to impact threatened and endangered species and to demonstrate that the department has given proper consideration to and ensured that operations are in accordance with all action statements available for the 117 forest-dependent species listed under our own endangered species law, the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 1988.

Secondly, we want to empower the EPA and the Office of the Conservation Regulator to investigate ecological impacts from those fire-related, storm debris clean-up or safety management activities and make appropriate recommendations, because currently works undertaken by the department cannot actually be investigated by the conservation regulator even when they are known to threaten critically endangered species. Even VicForests, as poor as their performance and culture were, theoretically had some level of accountability and oversight and requirement to do ecological surveys. But FFMV, as part of the same department as the OCR, has none of that. Our next amendment would give investigatory powers to the EPA as well as the OCR, given that the OCR actually currently sits in the same department as FFMV, to ensure that investigations are done at arm’s length and done properly. We would also, while it is not within the scope of this bill, encourage Labor to consider moving the Office of the Conservation Regulator from the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action to another department, perhaps the Department of Justice and Community Safety or elsewhere, so that we stop getting the same old ‘DEECA can’t investigate DEECA’ excuse.

Our third amendment is to ban the sale of timber collected from these works being sold commercially. This is because we believe that so much of what is driving this fuel break work, salvage logging or storm debris clean-up is not the need for these works or the driver of public safety but actually the commercial drive from timber mills, some of which are owned by this government, and the logging industry, who want free wood from our native forests to feed their mills to sell to make woodchips, paper and sheet pallets. These mills have received free wood from our public forests for decades, and they do not want that to end. If we cut off this commercial driver, hopefully any work done in our forests will be because it is actually needed for safety or ecological reasons informed by scientific research and community safety, not because the logging industry wants to make a quick buck. These are three perfectly reasonable, moderate reforms which any government that claims to want to save threatened species and protect against bushfires should want to support.

While we are talking about science, I mentioned before the science of carbon storage in forests, but we also need to look at the science of how to prevent fires. We all want to do everything we can to prevent bushfires and prevent the danger from bushfires, but the latest peer-reviewed science shows that actually logging a forest makes it more fire-prone. It might seem counterintuitive, but think of it like this: big, old trees are often not the ones that are burning. It is the younger trees that are more fire-prone. When you take out a big, old tree, you open up the canopy, which allows more wind and actually fuels the fire even more. So while the member for Gippsland South says, ‘Oh, it’s fine, we can log forests; they’ll regrow,’ (a) actually we lose heaps of carbon in that process, which takes hundreds of years to recapture – that is what the science says – and (b) it make those forests more fire-prone, as you have lots of twiggy trees, smaller trees and big open canopies, which actually fuel more fire. So if we do want to protect people from fire, which I hope that everyone in this place would like to do, let us look at the real science that says that old, wet forests burn much less hot and much less frequently than these forests that have been logged. Also, putting in logging roads opens up routes for people to go in and light fires and opens up wind tunnels and all of that, which adds to fires as well.

Finally, I would like to put on record my disappointment that the minister has refused our requests for this bill to go into a consideration-in-detail stage. The consideration-in-detail stage is the stage where we are supposed to get answers and we are able to ask lots of questions of the minister – it is an important method of transparency and accountability – but this government refuses to do that, to avoid scrutiny. We requested that this bill go into consideration in detail a while ago, and it was refused at the last minute. We have got a lot of questions we would like to ask about this bill even though we are supporting it.

We would like to ask: will the new iteration of logging under FFMV once VicForests is abolished actually be subject to any environmental laws? Why are they flouting their current responsibilities under current laws? We would like to ask where the nearly $1 billion of taxpayer money – money from every worker in the state, I must say; every worker has chipped in to give the logging industry $1 billion – has gone and how it is being spent. It was supposed to be spent to move loggers out of native forests into plantations, but what has actually happened is it seems like a lot of the industry has just taken that money and moved their operations to Tasmania, where they are logging endangered species habitat, or now they have just taken jobs in the department to log in our national parks. Where has that billion dollars gone? Is that a good use of taxpayer funds – to just give loggers money to continue to do their work? We now know that the government is selling those logs from those national parks, which are supposed to be legally protected from logging.

We have got a lot of questions that need answers, but this Labor government does not want to answer them. It is disappointing, but we will take these up with the government in the upper house. On that, I would like to commend the bill to the house and commend the final nail in the coffin of VicForests, an organisation that should have been shut down a very, very long time ago. I look forward to continuing discussions with the government and everyone else in this place about supporting our very sensible amendments.

Nick STAIKOS (Bentleigh) (12:32): I rise to make a very, very brief contribution on the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Repeal Bill 2024. It is one of those bills that comes to this place that just demonstrates that the job we have as a government is not easy. We have got to be here for the difficult decisions, and this really is one of the difficult decisions. I believe it to be the right decision for all sorts of reasons – the environment is one. There are a few other realities as well that we have to face. I do think, however, that right now our first thought has to be with the workers associated with this industry.

I do take issue with the way the leader of the Greens ended her contribution using language like ‘final nail in the coffin’. That is not appropriate today, because we need to make sure that we continue to look after workers who are transitioning or who have transitioned out of this industry and assist them with the continuing transition – and this government has done that. At the very least I think this legislation provides the certainty that these workers have not had for many, many years. This government has provided more than a billion dollars in support for the transition, and that includes a number of different initiatives, particularly for native timber workers – redundancy payments, relocation payments, recognition of prior learning, community forestry hardship payments, one-on-one case management and training support. Victoria of course has a very substantial free training program. It is fair to say that through this process the government is case managing workers into employment. It is appropriate that we do everything we can to ensure that workers in the timber industry continue to enjoy the dignity of work. I commend the bill to the house.

Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (12:35): I rise today – and it gives me no pleasure to rise – to speak on this bill on shutting down the timber industry. That is exactly what it is. The real people that will feel the impact of this today are the workers throughout my region in the Latrobe Valley and through Gippsland and around regional Victoria that are in the timber industry. I note that the member for Melbourne stood up before talking about how bad the timber industry is and the impacts – with white paper. If you want to talk the talk, walk the walk. Do not come in here with white paper and read off that to talk to us about bad things about the timber industry. I find that a real kick in the guts to everyone in my community. The white paper manufacturing industry being shut down – since I have become a member – is just a disgrace. We are now getting white paper coming in from overseas and – I note that the Leader of the Nats stood up before – we are now starting to have issues with our printers that do not accept this white paper.

It is just one of the on-flow effects that are not thought about. Sometimes we do not think about the wider impacts that are going to happen. But to come in here and talk for 15 to 20 minutes off pieces of white paper and try and tell us how bad this is I think is hypocritical of a party. I state that it is the Greens that are actually shutting down this timber industry through being activists up in the timber industry and putting mums’ and dads’ lives at risk by what they are doing in protesting about the timber industry. Coming in here, talking and walking out and not listening to how it is affecting and impacting our regions is just a disgrace.

There has been some very respectful talk in the chamber today from those opposite, and I am 100 per cent sure that they are feeling the pressure from people that live in their seats that are impacted by the closure of the timber industry. We have heard the member for Gippsland East and the member for Gippsland South talk about the impacts that it is going to have in their communities – to the point where in far East Gippsland the consequences are that it is virtually going to shut down timber towns. I do not understand that. You do not get that back. Once people leave, it is very hard to get them back into these timber towns. We lose not only the people that are in the coupes cutting the trees down and putting them on their trucks. There is a stat – from when I spoke to people in the Latrobe Valley that have logging trucks that run up and down: there are 100 associated jobs with every single truck that runs up and down the roads. You see the amount of timber trucks that run up and down the road; well there are up to 100 jobs associated with every single truck. They are the on-flow effects that we do see and we do feel down in Gippsland.

As I said before, the closure of the timber industry is going to have a detrimental effect on those timber towns up in far East Gippsland, and we do feel for them. It is schools that are going to be shut, it is kindergartens that are going to be shut and it is services that are going to be shut. These people that live up there – if they choose to stay – have been told they can transition. Well, we are not transitioning out of the timber industry. The timber industry has been shut. That is what has happened. We use the word ‘transition’. It is being shut. It is being closed. These people want to work in the industry. They love the bush. They love the environment. That is what they do. They are the keepers that actually make sure that the forest industry can be enjoyed by everybody.

The member for Melbourne said that we do not want to have access roads in there because people drive in there and start fires. Well, I am telling her: people that want to start bushfires could not give a rat’s clacker about a road being there to drive in on. They are going to walk in there regardless. We have all these bloody Leadbeater’s possums and other animals that are in there that are going to be locked up in these areas. The only thing that is going to happen and the only thing we can guarantee by locking up the bush and locking up the forest is that it will burn. We are protecting, supposedly, all these species of animals in these areas, and it is going to burn. That is the number one thing that we know.

We have only got to go back a few years to the horrendous fires that ripped through Gippsland East all the way to Mallacoota. My daughter was holidaying up at Mallacoota in those fires, and who were at the forefront putting their lives on the line and putting their machinery on the line because they had the technology and they had the actual bush smarts to know where the fire was going? These people not only act where the fire is going; they know hours before the wind changes. So they can get there and make a concerted effort to stop the bushfire impacting communities – and these are the people that we are pushing out of the industry. I see that the government at one stage was talking about how there will be bulldozers and people that will come out of Melbourne to protect us. That is honourable, but if they do not know the landscape of what they are dealing with, if they do not know how fire acts, all we are doing is putting people that are trying to defend us in harm’s way.

It is a double-edged sword that we have shut the timber industry down. It is meant to save the environment. It is meant to help with packages that the government has put up for compensation. Well, where is the compensation? It looks great on a piece of paper. It sounds fantastic when a minister from Labor stands up and says, ‘We have these things in place.’ Well, I talk to the people that are involved in the industry in the Latrobe Valley that have worked there for generations. They have seen no compensation. All they have is roadblocks. Every single time they have roadblocks to accessing this compensation. It is unfair, it is unjust and it is just downright wrong that these people that have served us for years and years and years – generations – that have worked in the timber industry are going to feel the brunt. I am sure that people up in far East Gippsland that have been in timber mills really do not want free TAFE to move into another area that may be there. They want jobs on the ground so they can feed their families, keep them safe and put a roof over their head by using the timber that they are cutting down that goes into their houses.

It is renewable. Others have talked in the chamber about carbon capture – some of the waffle that just came out some particular members’ mouths as we have been standing up in here. They say it is scientific, but I think they are scientists that just do not know what is going on. I really do think that. They are just reading facts off a sheet, ticking a box: ‘This is what I’m reading. This must be it.’ Come down, talk to the people that you are actually affecting on the ground, the people that have to put their house on the line now because they cannot afford to pay for the machinery that they were made to buy because they thought, ‘We can transition out of the timber industry. 2030 has been told, so we can work to that.’ Then, bang, the government came in and said, ‘You are done. We don’t care that you’ve put in millions and millions of dollars to jump through hoops so we can extend your contract into the next phase of the timber industry.’ This is wrong. This is unjust. This is one of the reasons I stood, so I could protect the workers in my electorate and in the electorates running right through East Gippsland. I do not commend the bill to the house. This is an absolute disgrace that this is happening, and I am going to protect my workers. For goodness sake, government, come up with the money to make sure they can survive.

Iwan WALTERS (Greenvale) (12:45): At the outset of my brief contribution on the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Repeal Bill 2024 I want to acknowledge the impassioned contributions of many across the house, in particular the member for Morwell, the member for Gippsland East, the member for Gippsland South and the member for Narracan, who are I think very strong representatives of their communities and have a deep insight into the implications of this bill for their communities and the jobs that are going to be lost as a consequence of forestry transition and the loss of VicForests. Also, at the outset I want to acknowledge timber workers and VicForests for their stewardship of our forests. I remember living in Gippsland, in Sale, a number of years ago, and in towns like Maffra, Heyfield, Rosedale and others the impact and contribution of the timber industry was so visible, where often family-owned enterprises employed a lot of people. It is people like that that I am conscious of when I make my contribution today.

Economic transition and change are ever present, but to seek to accelerate that, to seek to derive glee from the loss of other people’s jobs and the economic vitality of communities as the Greens have done ‍– they come in here, they run out straight away again; they have not had the courage of their convictions to stay and own their contributions.

James Newbury interjected.

Iwan WALTERS: The Manager of Opposition Business can have his say in due course. I am going to have mine now.

The wilful arrogance, the hubris and the sanctimony, as the member for Morwell eloquently put it, to talk from pieces of paper about the lack of worth of paper and of a timber industry I think takes some hide. But then again, the resource-free, fantasy economics of the Greens – I am not going to call them undergraduate; that would be a disparagement to economic undergraduates all over the world. But as I said, the transition of economies has always been with us. The member for Yan Yean very eloquently talked about looking back at some of the impacts of gold coming and going in Victoria in her electorate. But the package that has been put in place is an important one, so for the Leader of the Greens to come in here and to begrudge the investment that has been made in timber communities to seek to support timber workers to retrain to access the jobs that are so important I think is deeply shameful.

In concluding this very brief contribution, I would like to acknowledge those who have spoken on behalf of their communities. I think the contribution of the Greens on this bill, as with so many, has been deeply disappointing, and I look forward to further contributions.

James NEWBURY (Brighton) (12:48): When I grew up, the Labor Party stood for something. When I got involved in politics, as much as it pains me to say it, the Labor Party actually stood for something, and they would often talk about the fact that they stood for workers. Well, today shows there is nothing left in the values that once underpinned the Labor Party. The Labor Party stand for nothing. 15,000 workers – that does not include the towns, that does not include the community –

Belinda Wilson: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, on relevance, the member for Brighton seems to be not really speaking on the bill at all.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Alison Marchant): I ask the member for Brighton to come back to the bill.

James NEWBURY: I am speaking to the heart of the bill, Acting Speaker. 15,000 workers and their associated businesses, families and communities are being destroyed because of this state government. That is what has happened – a government who have gone silent on the fact that all of these people are having their livelihoods destroyed. Have you seen one single member get up and speak on behalf of these communities, on behalf of these workers? No, you have not seen any. In fact you have seen fakeness coming out of the government when they talk, around attacks they are making on other parties in this place and their opposition to that what the government is proposing. Seriously, talk about blame shifting. It is outrageous that the government is coming in here and causing such destruction because of base ideology. And you see it on gas, you see it on the lock-up of forests – all these issues are policy decisions that have been made purely on ideology. But what this bill does is put the final closure to an industry of good Victorians. It is more than shameful, it is an absolute disgrace that we stand here debating. We have got a government who has put forward a bill in this place to say 15,000 people do not get a job: ‘Fifteen thousand people, you no longer have a job, and we will be happy about it. We will put this bill forward.’ The government should be ashamed of themselves.

Richard Riordan interjected.

James NEWBURY: I am asked by the member for Polwarth what the trade-off was. I am sure there has been a trade-off. The CFMEU have been very, very quiet, haven’t they? They have also had preferred deals when it comes to other bigger government contracts. We can all see that. We know what dirty deals and sellouts have come from this government.

But for the government to move a bill forward to destroy a group of people and their communities – how can they even have the face to get up and speak on it? No wonder they are speaking for 2 minutes. I challenge any member on that side to say a single thing in support of these good people. That shows the truth of what has become of this state government – a government with no values, with no principles. That is what this bill is about, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

What we do now know is that communities have seen it. Communities now see what has become of the once – I hate saying it – great Labor Party. Communities now see it. They know, and you can see how strongly they are shifting away from Labor, who once stood up for them. They once stood up for them, and now they will not – of course they will not.

Belinda Wilson: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, on relevance, the member for Brighton seems to be speaking a lot about the Labor Party and not referring to the bill at hand.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Juliana Addison): I ask the member for Brighton to continue but to refer to the bill, please.

James NEWBURY: Of course. That is exactly what I am doing, Acting Speaker. I am talking about a bill that has been moved by the Labor government – a Labor government who have forgotten thousands of workers, forgotten about communities – and aren’t they ashamed to be hearing the truth. I have not heard a single one of them get up on their behalf. It is outrageous. I know how many people on this side of the chamber are speaking on behalf of those people who do not have the voice that they deserve. But we are speaking on their behalf – on behalf of everybody who has not got a voice and does not have a job, does not have security and rightly has concerns about their future. What this government has done is outrageous, and every single member who votes for and speaks on behalf of this should stand condemned. The government have an opportunity to hear these words, to hear these pleas, and do something about it. I would hope that in good conscience some of them go to their leadership, who have forgotten the community, and lobby them to see some sense.

Belinda WILSON (Narre Warren North) (12:54): I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

James NEWBURY (Brighton) (12:54): This is outrageous; this is absolutely outrageous. I had just spoken about the fact that there are so many members of this place who want to speak on this bill and called on the government to have the guts to speak on behalf of these communities, and what is the first thing the government do? They move that the debate be adjourned. They guillotine, they gag this debate. Of course they are ashamed to speak on this bill, and you can see it. They were so ashamed that the mirror was held up in front of them that the second that it was held up to their faces they moved a guillotine. What a disgraceful move by this government. The coalition will oppose this disgraceful guillotine.

I do note that an agreement was reached that our members would have an opportunity to speak until the lunchbreak, and the government has broken that agreement. It is absolutely outrageous to think that the government would break an agreement to allow people to speak on a bill. How could that be? Two hours of debate – you are talking about 15,000 people and their livelihoods. People are sitting across on the other side of the chamber smirking. This is not funny. This motion just proves –

Steve Dimopoulos: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the Manager of Opposition Business has impugned members on this side. No-one is smirking other than at his antics.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Juliana Addison): I ask the member for Brighton to bring the tone down a little bit. You are very loud.

Members interjecting.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Juliana Addison): I will ask the member for Malvern to not call out when I am in the chair. I will respond to the point of order made by the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events and say that the member for Brighton can continue with the procedural debate that is underway.

James NEWBURY: I do note that the minister did not in any way call a point of order on whether or not I was speaking on the procedural debate.

This motion – this gag motion, this guillotine – just proves the point that was made in the contribution I made just prior to it being moved. It proves that the government want to hide the fact that they are destroying so many people’s lives. That is what they are doing, and they are so ashamed that they have moved a motion to stop debate. I look forward to hearing from the next government speaker as to why this bill should not be debated, and every single member on their side that gets up to speak on why this bill should not be debated will stand condemned – every single one of them. So we look forward to every single member who gets up and speaks on it. I hope and I would expect that the Minister for Environment, who is responsible for this portfolio area, will of course get up and speak now on this motion. Of course he will.

Steve Dimopoulos interjected.

James NEWBURY: Oh, the minister says it is his lunchtime. Well, I am very, very sorry it is your lunchtime, Minister.

Steve Dimopoulos: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member has impugned me. I did not say it was my lunchbreak; I said the house stops for lunch. I cannot control that; he can.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Juliana Addison): That is a matter of fact.

James NEWBURY: On the point of order, Acting Speaker, I would hope that the minister can delay his lunch on behalf of the 15,000 people that are affected by this bill.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Juliana Addison): I remind the member for Brighton that under standing orders we will be breaking for lunch at 1 o’clock, and this debate will continue after question time as per the standing orders. If you would like to continue your contribution, you have got 21 ‍seconds left.

James NEWBURY: It is 19 now. The government has moved a guillotine because it is ashamed of its own bill. That is a fact. They are ashamed of their own bill, which is destroying the livelihoods of thousands of good Victorians.

Paul EDBROOKE (Frankston) (12:59): Like the rest of the people on this side of the house, I realise the Manager of Opposition Business loves to hear his own voice. What a sanctimonious rant when there was an agreement –

James Newbury: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, on relevance, the member has not yet spoken about the motion.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Juliana Addison): I will rule on the point of order. Given that he has had only a few seconds, I will allow him some additional time but remind him that this is a procedural motion, which is a narrow debate.

Paul EDBROOKE: ‘Confusion hath made its masterpiece.’ Look at how confused these people are over there.

Sitting suspended 1:00 pm until 2:02 pm.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.