Wednesday, 30 October 2019

Public Accounts and Estimates Committee

Report on the 2019–20 Budget Estimates

Mr T BULL (Gippsland East) (10:15): I rise to make some comments on the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee’s Report on the 2019–20 Budget Estimates. There are a couple of issues that I would like to cover off in this contribution.

The first refers to page 136 of that report and the reference to the Gippsland Lakes commercial fishing buyout. What I want to talk about today is a situation that has arisen out of that decision that is going to have a detrimental impact on a local business in Bairnsdale. A gentleman called Matthew Holley, who operates the Bairnsdale Bait Supply, is facing this issue at the moment where he cannot access sandworm because the drought in East Gippsland is having an impact on those stocks, so what he does is source prawns to supplement his business and keep his business afloat. At present he only has a 100-metre conventional bait net to catch his prawns and he has to get the additional prawns from the Gippsland Lakes fishers. Now, come April next year, they are going to be gone. Matthew has made a request to get his stake net licence out to 300 metres and for some other benefits from Fisheries Victoria. The answer to that question that he put forth was that he will still be able to get the prawns from the commercials. Subsequent to that, the commercials have said they are not staying in the sector, so I currently have a question pending and a letter pending with the minister. We need to keep Mr Holley’s business afloat and we need the minister’s support to be able to do that.

Page 224 of this report relates to regional jobs. Robbie Brunt is a timber harvester contracted to VicForests in Orbost, and he has now been told that there are no logging coupes available in his contracted area of Orbost, Cann River and Bendoc. This is very alarming for Mr Brunt because he is only one year into a five-year contract. Instead VicForests have allocated to him a coupe at the faraway location of Benambra, and this is logistically challenging for a logging business based out of Orbost.

Mr Brunt believes the reason he has been allocated this coupe so far away and not a local coupe is the exclusion areas put in place around the proposed Emerald Link trail. If we want to be fair dinkum about saving regional jobs, Mr Brunt needs to be offered more coupes in his local area, and this will require more resources being made available. We cannot just continue to lock up areas and not replace them and expect these timber industry businesses to survive. What I want the minister to do is look after Mr Brunt, and if we are going to put more areas in reserve for the proposed Emerald Link trail, we need to open up commensurate areas of bushland for these timber workers to be able to operate.

I am sure every member in this chamber would know that Orbost as a community has had more than its share of kicks in the guts with the downturn in the timber industry and that is simply because we have more areas going into reserve—and often that is for good reason. Often they are put into reserve because of particular species protections, and that is fine—that is okay—but we do not have the same area replaced for those workers. If we continue to take, take, take, that will be to the detriment of that town and that industry. We need some balance restored here, and I would ask the minister to allocate more timber resource areas in the Orbost region.

Mr Brunt is not the only contractor that is facing this at the moment. He is employing people with kids at school, and he is employing people that have got mortgages. They should have the right to work in their local area and not have those resource areas taken from them.

The final comment I want to make on this report relates to the Avon River rail bridge at Stratford, and I refer to page 121 of this report, which covers off regional rail projects. The budget papers themselves state that this very important piece of infrastructure, the Avon River rail bridge, will be completed in the first quarter of the 2020–21 financial year. That is 11 months away, and on that site we have seen nothing at all at the moment. I would like the minister to reassure locals that this project will be completed on budget and on time. It needs to be up and operating and taking trains, really, by September next year. I cannot see it happening, but the locals are waiting for it—not only from a passenger rail perspective of saving time, but also from a freight perspective to look after those businesses in our region that are looking at transporting their materials by freight. So I would ask the minister to please confirm that this project will be completed on time.