Thursday, 20 February 2020

Forests Legislation Amendment (Compliance and Enforcement) Bill 2019

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Ms D’AMBROSIO:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Mr MORRIS (Mornington) (12:47): I am pleased to rise to open the second-reading debate on the Forests Legislation Amendment (Compliance and Enforcement) Bill 2019. It is not a terribly complicated piece of legislation. As I think the explanatory memorandum says, this is about making a number of changes to the regulation of timber harvesting and firewood collection, and that is a fair summary of the contents of the bill.

Before I start to move into the detail of the bill, I do want to first of all acknowledge the briefing and the offer of information that we received from the minister’s office. It is always helpful and, regardless of whatever position we may respectively have on a particular bill, it is very important that we have informed debate. As the government holds all the information, if we are going to have that informed debate, then we are reliant on the government. I did appreciate what was provided. I also need to say that I was afforded a similar quality briefing and offer of information with regard to a bill earlier this week, the Great Ocean Road and Environs Protection Bill 2019, and I launched straight into the bill and neglected to make that observation. So I make that observation about both bills.

As I mentioned, this is about the regulation of timber harvesting. It is about the regulation of firewood collection. Basically it amends three acts, the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act 2004, the Forests Act 1958 and the Conservation, Forests and Lands Act 1987. Two new offences are created. One replaces an existing offence but changes the nature of it a little bit—so that is an offence of undertaking timber harvesting operations without authorisation—and that is an amendment to the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act. The second relates to the unauthorised removal of firewood from state forests.

The bill allows the incorporation of documents into both the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act and the Forests Act and the incorporation of documents by reference in any instrument created under the act, with the exception of the regulations—and I will come back to that a little bit later in this contribution. The bill will make relevant codes of practice binding on VicForests and will allow the secretary to enter into enforceable undertakings regarding the codes. It will allow authorised officers to require the production of documents by VicForests itself or by a VicForests contractor, and there are some other provisions around the production of documents by other persons. The legislation will allow the secretary to seek an injunction to compel a person to comply with a relevant law or any condition of a works approval, authority or notice under the Conservation, Forests and Lands Act 1987, and it removes a range of redundant provisions, particularly from the Forests Act.

It has been put to me and, I am sure, to most members who have an interest in these subjects that given this bill was introduced in late 2019 and we have had, as we know, a significant event in the intervening period which has caused enormous damage to our forests, particularly in East Gippsland and the north-east, that this bill should be withdrawn and basically the whole scale of the bill enlarged—the native timber industry closed down forthwith, effectively, is the sentiment that goes along with those suggestions. I certainly do not share the view that the native timber industry needs to be closed down, but I make the point that this bill is about improving, in the view of the government, the regulation of the native timber industry and firewood as well. It is not about the merits of the industry. I am sure many will disagree with me but in my view, however terrible the events of late December and early January—and they were terrible, I think we are all agreed on that—and whatever the impact, that is not particularly relevant in terms of this particular piece of legislation.

With regard to most of the details of the bill, I will just run through them. In terms of the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act there is a proposal to substitute new section 45 to double the penalty units for a person and almost triple the penalty units for a corporation for undertaking timber harvesting operations without authorisation. There is a move to make this offence a strict liability offence, so the manner in which events are interpreted changes and new section 45A will attribute certain conduct of a VicForests contractor to VicForests itself.

Clause 5 of the bill extends the time limit for bringing in a proceeding for an offence under new section 92A—so that is the new section. It moves that from two to three years, which seems quite reasonable.

Clause 6 introduces some transitional arrangements to ensure that attribution of conduct does not occur retrospectively. Again, this is quite reasonable.

Clause 7 is the clause that will require VicForests to comply with any relevant code of practice despite any other legislative provisions. Now, I have not been working in this space all that long—just over a year. I do not know what the history is, that VicForests are apparently not required to comply with the code of conduct, but it seems entirely reasonable to me that they should.

The next clause, clause 8, extends to the secretary’s power to enable enforcement of those codes, and on this side of the house we would not argue with that concept at all.

Clause 9 is the clause relating to the production of documents, so—

Mr Pearson: Come on, mate, put your back into it!

Mr MORRIS: Have you read this bill? I reckon I’m doing a sterling job. You have got to have something to be excited about, and there are one or two things in it that I will get excited about, I can assure you. But it will not necessarily keep you awake until lunchtime.

So, an authorised officer—always exciting–will be able to require the production of documents specified in a notice from VicForests or a contractor without a court order. As I mentioned earlier there are other circumstances where someone other than VicForests or a contractor may be required to produce documents, and that option will be available to the authorised officer through an application to the Magistrates Court. As with all these things, the VicForests contractor and VicForests change seems entirely reasonable. Whether it is reasonable with regard to others we will have to see how it plays out, but there is a safeguard in there of inserting the requirement to deal with the Magistrates Court, so we are not uncomfortable with that. There is a penalty included in there for false or misleading material—20 penalty units for an individual and 100 penalty units for a corporation.

Clause 10 provides the incorporation of documents by reference to be inserted in any instrument created under the act, with the exception of the regulations. Now, this sounds about as exciting as the authorised officers, I agree, but in fact it is an issue that I think as a Parliament we need to be aware of for two reasons. Firstly, we are essentially delegating the powers of the Parliament to the authors of the incorporated documents. I am not suggesting we should not be doing this, but it is effectively delegation. By doing this we are allowing the law to be changed through the simple change to be made in a document, and we need to be wary of that and we need to make sure we know what documents are being incorporated.

We also need, I think, to recognise that for those who are not lawyers, and that is obviously the vast majority of the population, it is not necessarily logical to say, ‘All right, well, there’s an act and there are regulations and then there is this whole raft of other stuff that effectively has the force of the legislation or the subordinate legislation, but it’s not in the same place and it’s not controlled by the Parliament’, which means that for those who are familiar with the system it is fine—it is a bit like incorporated documents in planning schemes; if you are used to working with them and you know where they are and you know where to find them, then you can put the picture together—but for the average person on the street it is a far more difficult thing. So while I am not objecting to clause 10, I do think we need to be careful in this bill, or any other bill that we might consider, how essentially this delegation of the Parliament is used.

Clauses 11 and 12: 12 is a statute law revision; 11 is a savings provision—pretty straightforward.

Changes to the Forests Act: clause 13 is a similar provision to clause 4. In this case it creates a new offence of cutting, splitting or otherwise removing timber from a state forest, unless authorised, with 50 penalty units or a year in prison. Again, it is a strict liability offence, and the intention, as I understand it, is to ensure that there is similar treatment for that conduct, regardless of the circumstances or public land categories, because there is a range of measures under various acts that pick up similar issues.

Clause 14, incorporation of documents for the Forests Act—we covered that under the earlier bill.

Repeals: there is a series of spent provisions in clause 15, clause 16 repeals the power to establish a forestry education facility at Creswick and clause 17 provides for the repeal of regulation-making powers regarding that board. It is rather sad that we do not have a forestry education facility anymore, but given the fact that we do not, clearly we do not need a reference to that in the Forests Act and we do not need a reference to a board for a non-existent organisation.

Clause 18 repeals provisions for the continuation of licences and leases in relation to the Otways. The remaining clauses that affect that act repeal redundant provisions.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Ms Spence): Order! Loath as I am to interrupt you, member for Mornington, now is the time to break for lunch.

Sitting suspended 1.00 pm until 2.02 pm.

Mr MORRIS: I am delighted to be back after the luncheon break. Before the break I was talking about the detail of what is in the bill in terms of the clauses. I had worked my way through until I got to the changes to the Conservation, Forests and Lands Act 1987. They are pretty straightforward. Clause 23 removes the exception clause that applies to VicForests with regard to codes of conduct, which is consistent with the earlier changes that have been made. Clause 24 provides capacity for the secretary to seek injunctions compelling a person to comply with a particular law, conditional works approval, authority or notice, which is an opportunity missing in the current legislation and again is pretty straightforward. Clause 25 makes statute law amendments, and clause 26 repeals the act.

As I mentioned at the start of this contribution, there is a view that the events of December and January now make these changes redundant. I certainly, as I have explained in the house, do not support that view. But I do not think we can consider this legislation without keeping in mind the background and the other events that are affecting the timber industry because, as every member of the house is well aware, on 7 November the Andrews government announced it was going to rip the heart out of the timber industry. It was going to effectively sacrifice the timber communities for what in my view is simply an ideological position related to the inner city.

It is ironic that we are now debating a bill that for the large part seems to be further regulating the industry. The industry is going to be closed down, but we are debating further regulation of the industry. The fact is that the decision to close down the native timber industry will gut regional communities and it will destroy the livelihoods of thousands of families—it is just crazy.

One of the things that really irritates me about this debate is that facts do not seem to matter. Facts just do not apply in this case. There is no science in this. It is all about what makes you feel good. Because the fact is—as everyone in this house is aware—that 94 per cent of Victoria’s forest area is either unsuitable or unavailable for timber harvesting. A lot of it should not be available. A lot of it is in national parks. A lot of is reserved, for perfectly valid environmental reasons, and that is what a balanced approach is all about. Ninety-four per cent of it is not available. Of the area that is available the annual utilisation rate is 0.04 per cent—less than half of 0.1 of 1 per cent. It is a tiny fraction of the resource. If you can claim that that makes the industry unsustainable, it is just absolutely crazy.

I think we need a better standard of debate than the misinformation—and I am not putting this on the government—in the broader debate. The misinformation, the myths and frankly the lies that have been told in this debate out in the community—again, I am not putting this on the government, I want to make that clear—are basically one misleading statement after another, and it is not reflecting well on our democracy as a whole.

The fact is that this Victorian timber industry provides a renewable resource. It should not be sacrificed on the altar of ideological outcomes. We are still going to need timber. If we cannot get it from our own forests and we cannot get it from plantations—and I will come back to that in a second—then it is going to come from overseas. It is going to come from sources that are a whole lot less sustainable, sources that are unsustainable, particularly compared with our own.

Frankly, the way this event has been waged and the way that it has been waged for decades is not a good reflection on our society, but I think people are tired of these sorts of divisive debates. There is an opportunity here to take a sustainable industry, to work with it and make it an asset for metropolitan Victoria and for regional Victoria for decades and generations to come, but the decision was made on 7 November to close it down. So I say it is not a decision that in my view is about the environment, it is a decision about politics. The fascinating thing about this bill is it suggests there was little, if any, input from the Victorian public service with regard to this policy, because if this had been on the books as part of an essential evolution, the bill we are debating would not have been brought in. Having served in government, I know what goes into bringing a bill into the house, and you would not put the resources into the sort of work that has gone into bringing this bill into the house if you had an intention to close down an industry.

I mentioned that I would come back to plantations. We do not know, and clearly the Premier does not know, where we are going to get our timber from when the industry is closed down. Back in November, a week or so after the announcement, we asked the Premier how much high-quality appearance-grade plantation timber would be ready to harvest in 2030. He did not answer. Why didn’t he answer? Well, he knows damn well that there is not a single hardwood plantation tree going to be ready by 2030, and yesterday in a briefing—I will not go into detail—it was confirmed that the overwhelming majority of whatever we grow in plantations between now and 2030 is going to be softwood. It is not going to be the sort of timber that is appropriate for structural uses. It is certainly not going to be the sort of timber that is appropriate as appearance-grade timber. It is certainly not going to be the sort of timber that is available for furniture.

Michael O’Connor of the CFMEU has said very, very rightly that the plan put forward by this government does not provide workers, in his words:

… with a fighting chance to transition or leave the industry with dignity.

It is just an appalling policy approach for this industry. Interestingly Mr O’Connor—and this is from 12 December last year—was quoted as saying the plan to move to plantation supply was vulnerable to natural disaster. I am quoting again:

The rigidness of the plan leaves the workers’ jobs it is meant to secure vulnerable to factors outside of the government’s control …

For example, if there is a major bushfire which damages the resource …

We had the major bushfire. It did not damage the plantation resource, but it gave us a pretty clear indication of what could happen. There are factors outside the government’s control, and the government has proved it cannot manage native forest. It cannot protect native forests. It cannot take the steps necessary to protect native forests. Why should we expect the government to do any better, frankly, managing plantations?

Now, I mentioned on my review of the bill that there were a couple of things that were of concern in terms of the opposition’s appraisal of the bill. Clause 4 increases significantly the penalties for unauthorised timber harvesting. It replaces the existing provision, the existing section 45, but it turns it into a strict liability offence. So you do not have to prove intention; if the damage has occurred, then the liability is there. Now, the penalties have increased significantly. They have doubled and tripled respectively, individual and corporate. I question the need for strict liability. If people are negligent—if they set out to harvest outside a coupe or if they set out to damage a forest—then an appropriate prosecution should occur and we should throw the book at them. I do not argue that. But the existing clause does not contain a requirement for strict liability, and I question the need for it. Of course it will depend on how closely this is enforced and the manner in which it is enforced.

I know that there is some concern in the industry that this clause will be used to drive the larger agenda and try and push the industry out earlier. I give the government more credit than that, but it is a risk. I know the industry is concerned about it. I am certainly concerned about it. My colleagues on this side of the house are concerned about it, and we will be watching the implementation of the new section 45A very, very closely.

I think it is also interesting that we do not see any amendments to create a similar offence for those who attempt to physically disrupt lawful harvesting. There is no comparable offence in this bill. There is no $19 800 fine for individuals. There is no $100 000 fine for organisations. I think it is important that people stand up for their rights and have the opportunity to have their say and express their view even if, as happened yesterday in this place, it is counterproductive. Frankly I think what happened yesterday was counterproductive, but how is it fair that people going about their business lawfully, harvesting timber in accord with permits and in accordance with law, can have their livelihoods disrupted, their incomes disrupted, by people who are effectively subject to a slap on the wrist? That is simply no fair. If we are going to have a regime strictly enforcing one set of activities, we should have a similar control strictly enforcing people who seek to disrupt them, because this is a double standard. It is a double standard that is inherent in this bill, and unfortunately it is often a double standard in the way this government approaches country Victoria.

Clause 13 relates to the cutting and removal of timber in state forests. It is a new offence. The fine is in excess of $8000 and a year in prison.

What we do not know about this bill is whether it is possible for someone to find themselves prosecuted under the changes made by clause 4 and under the changes made by clause 13. I think it is an indication of the government’s view that a prison term is proposed in this case and not in clause 4, but we need to have an explanation of whether someone who is charged under one provision can also be charged under another, because they might find themselves as an individual subject to $28 500 in personal fines and a year’s imprisonment. I do not think that is the intention of the act, but it would be useful to have that point clarified.

The second thing is that with this particular offence it is a matter of degree. I understand and I support the intent of clause 13. I understand that there have been issues, and I understand that there is a loophole there that certain individuals have exploited. So I have no problem with the solution, and I accept that this is a genuine problem. But again, this is a strict liability offence. As I mentioned earlier, yes, damage does occur regardless of intention, and we need to guard against that. But it comes down to the manner in which this particular change will be enforced. The strict liability offence is created, and then a series of exemptions are included in both the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act and the Forests Act.

This is hardly a plain English rendering of the policy intent of the government. I am not being critical of the drafting; I think perhaps it is necessary in the context of the existing act. But certainly what I would like to see is clearer material both for the members of the public who need to comply with these controls and for those who are enforcing these proposed controls—to make it clear that particularly the existing exemptions on domestic firewood collection remain in place. I know members will have different views on whether we should continue to burn firewood for heat and for energy. But it is a critical fuel, it is a critical heat source in country Victoria, and it is essential that access to that resource is not compromised for those people who absolutely depend on it to cook their food and keep their houses warm throughout our winters.

While the bulk of the bill is somewhere between fine and innocuous—we have no problems with most of it—with regard to clause 4, our concern is very much about how that clause is to be interpreted and enforced. I know, as I have said, the industry are nervous about it. The opposition are nervous about it. Given that it does not change the regime around timber harvesting, we are not proposing any changes to that particular section, but we do believe the government needs to be very, very careful about the manner in which it is enforced.

With regard to clause 13, the firewood, again it is about enforcement. If you are bringing trucks in and loading up firewood illegally, you should be prosecuted. You should have the book thrown at you. But if you are putting enough in your car boot to keep yourself warm for the weekend and you are doing it within the rules, then clearly that is a different situation—and these things are not always enforced in the way that the Parliament intended. So we raise those issues.

So at this point the opposition will not be opposing the bill in the Legislative Assembly, but we are reserving our position and we are happy to have that conversation between the houses about putting some parameters about the way these things are enforced.

Mr PEARSON (Essendon) (14:19): I rise to speak today on the Forests Legislation Amendment (Compliance and Enforcement) Bill 2019. I have listened to the member for Mornington’s contribution, and on one level I agree with him: in some ways it is a fairly straightforward piece of legislation. But, look, it is really important, and it is a very serious matter that is before the house.

Hard things are hard, and when any industry goes through a period of change and adjustment it is incredibly challenging and incredibly difficult for the individuals involved, their families and their communities. I want to say at the outset to the logging communities, to those families, to the people who work in this industry: I respect you, I respect your work, I respect the contribution you have made to our state and I respect the communities and the lives you have made for yourselves. These things are really challenging and they are very difficult. They are very stressful for the communities involved. They are very challenging in an economic sense. It is hard. It is really hard.

Now, I listened to the member for Mornington’s contribution, and I think I am fair in saying that he is suggesting that we are doing this primarily for ideological reasons. I think what I would say to the member for Mornington is: we have to have a systematic and thoughtful and considered response because the industry is facing enormous challenges.

One of the acts that is being amended is the Forests Act 1958, and I raise this from the point of view that this is an act that has been on the state’s statute books for decades, clearly—and I suspect that the Forests Act 1958 probably superseded an earlier piece of legislation. Once upon a time we lived in a world where you could act freely on many of these questions. You could gather firewood, you could cut it down, you could hunt wildlife, you could enjoy yourself from a recreation perspective without any government intervention or oversight and you could conduct a business, which again did not require much in the way of government regulation and oversight.

The challenge, though, we find ourselves in now is that this resource is declining. Look at the damage that these communities and our state confronted during the Black Saturday fires, and I am really pleased that my good friend and colleague the member for Frankston is in the chamber today. He fought on the front line of those fires, and he will tell you that what he saw on Black Saturday was something that he had never experienced before and, I suspect, the state has not experienced since—until the most recent fires. These are a set of circumstances which we have never confronted before. It is not like—with native timber, hardwood timber—you can turn around and plant a seedling today and you are going to have timber harvested in a short period of time. You are looking at decades. If you are looking at mountain ash, I think it takes 40 or 50 years. Indeed, many of the plantations which were destroyed on Black Saturday had been planted after the 1939 fires, as I understand it. So we are confronted with a situation where this resource is evaporating before our eyes as a consequence of these devastating fires.

Now, we have got a view as to what is driving that. We believe that climate change is undoubtedly the major factor that is driving the reduction in this resource. Those opposite probably have a wide range of views within their party room, but we are united in following the science on these matters.

We are here to govern this state, and we are here to make sure that we have got an appropriate regulatory framework in which these assets can be appropriately managed for future generations. Because the resource is in decline and because we have got these enormous challenges facing these communities, we need to come up with a systemic approach—an approach which is across the board about supporting these communities and about having a proper regulatory framework for managing these assets. Now, it is not like it was in 1939 or in 1958 or, dare I say it, before the millennial drought, where you could kind of say, ‘Look, you know, we’ve got all this land, we’ve got all this resource’—almost have the early settler’s view of the world: ‘If it moves, shoot it; if it doesn’t, cut it down’. Well, we cannot think like that these days.

We need to make sure that we have got an appropriate regulatory framework to respond to these challenges, because if we do not do this, if we turn around and we say, ‘Well, we’re not going to support these industries’, and we are going to just say to the native hardwood timber industries, ‘Well, look, you just get whatever resources you can get a hold of and away you go, and we will not intervene’, there is just simply not going to be the resource. What you will then find is that these businesses will be sitting on stranded assets and they will have the harsh reality of owning a business that basically has got no resource in which to operate, and they will be stranded.

In some respects what we are doing here, and what we are confronting now, is not that different to the support that the car industry in Australia went through in the 1970s and the 80s, particularly if you are looking at the John Button car plan—the Button plan.

It is about valuing these communities, and it is about recognising the work that these communities do and trying to support them in a transition. I do not for a moment suggest that this is easy. I do not for a moment suggest that for the families impacted this is not an incredibly stressful and difficult time. Imagine if I was in these communities being the age that I am now. The prospect of being in your late 40s and finding out that by the time you are in your mid-50s or your late-50s you will be out of a job, that the house you live in might not be worth what it is today and that the community that you have raised your family in might not be there in 15 years time—these are really, really difficult conversations to be had around a kitchen table. It is incredibly confronting. It is the definition of an existential crisis for the individuals involved.

What we are trying to do as a government is find a coordinated and systematic way in which we can manage this transition and support these communities. I appreciate the fact that this is a very narrow bill in its own way, but what I would say is that it is part of a broad architecture of reform across this sector to make sure that we get this right. These changes are going to be so profound and their impact will be so significant that there is a need to make sure that we get this right. If we do not, what will happen to these communities? What will happen to these workers?

I remember the State Electricity Commission of Victoria (SECV) in 1989 had a workforce of 24 000 people and by the mid-1990s it had 8000. In one sense you could argue, purely from an economist’s perspective, ‘Well, you clearly had feather bedding. You went from 24 000 to 8000, so therefore that is a net gain for the economy’. You could argue that, but you could also make the point that there were 16 000 people that lost their jobs, and that community was devastated for a sustained period of time in trying to respond to those changes. That was an instance where the government was not interested, the government did not intervene and the government did not have appropriate transition frameworks in place. It just basically said, ‘We’re going to sell off the SECV, we’re going to rationalise it, we’re going to strip it down, flog it off and then we’ll let the market sort these things out’. Again my good friend the member for Frankston has talked about, in the past, what it was like in those communities at that time. It had a devastating impact.

Now, if you take the view that you are not going to intervene and that you are going to just let market forces dictate how this is going to unfold, then just say so. Just say, ‘Look, the industry is going to be in transition and these communities can fend for themselves’. But we do not believe that. We value these communities, we value these workers and we appreciate and value the contribution they have made to our society and our community for decades, and we stand with them now. This piece of legislation is an important element of the architecture of that approach as we try to work with these communities to guide them through and to work with them step by step across the next decade as these changes unfold. Hard things are hard. This is a really tough issue to confront, but real leadership, the true leadership shown by the Andrews Labor government, is to meet these challenges head on and to not shy away. It is to stand your ground and to fight your way through it and to support these communities on the way through. That is what we believe in.

Ms McLEISH (Eildon) (14:29): I rise to make a contribution to the Forests Legislation Amendment (Compliance and Enforcement) Bill 2019. I just want to pick up on a comment that the member for Essendon made about tackling challenges head on and make it clear to him that the government has avoided meeting with the timber workers directly on this issue for quite some time. For him to pretend otherwise is just simply ludicrous.

Forests are a particularly important part of Victorian communities. Some 6.4 million hectares of public land is in forest. They have many uses. People recreate in them doing all sorts of things, whether it be bushwalking, camping, riding, prospecting, four-wheel driving or dirt biking, and I am sure, Deputy Speaker, that you would know all of the uses of our forests. But I think they can also coexist quite happily, the recreational users and the timber industry.

Of course, I want to acknowledge that the traditional custodians of the land have had wonderful relationships with the land and forests and have had a great role in managing them for some 40 000 years, and to know that they are the oldest living culture in the world is really quite remarkable, but they relied very much on forest management techniques and also used them for recreational purposes.

It is important that we have rules around the operations of what happens in a forest and how it happens. I certainly have no issue with that. The bill that we have before us has the aim of improving the regulation around timber harvesting and firewood collection. They are both quite important uses, and certainly in my electorate they are both quite important. The underlying aim here is to ensure that Victoria’s forests can be managed and improved into the future, and I think that there are lots of things that need to be done to manage and improve our forests into the future.

The invasive species, the invasive animals and plants, are doing a real disservice to our wonderful forests. It is very easy to just head up towards Whitfield from Toolangi and to see, three-metres high, acres and acres of blackberries that are really strangling out forests. It is easy to go to Toolangi and to notice that stringy bark forests are now being strangled out by wattles, and that some of the wonderful features we have in our forests are being lost because they are not being managed appropriately.

I want to touch on, first of all, timber harvesting, because timber is the ultimate renewable resource—it grows back—and people love timber. Time and time again we see in people’s homes wonderful timber furniture, floorboards, benchtops and blinds. It is extremely popular. At the moment the popularity of timber is really quite high. You can talk to Planet Ark, manufacturers or people who sell the end products about how people do love their Australian timbers—and they love their Australian timbers much more than they love the imported things. One of the other features that timber has is the warmth that it generates. If you go into a room that is beautifully lined with timber, you feel that sense of warmth. It is important that we look to manage our forests and have a sustainable industry.

The acts that are being amended here are the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act 2004, the Conservation, Forests and Lands Act 1987 and the Forests Act 1958. As I have alluded to, these are being amended to alter the rules around the regulation of harvesting. The Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act is being redrafted. New section 45A spells out exactly who can undertake harvesting operations, and it ups the penalties for people contravening that quite substantially. We have clearly laid out in new section 45(2) who can undertake timber harvesting operations. As you would think, that is VicForests, VicForests contractors, somebody who has entered into an agreement with VicForests around the harvesting or sale of the resources and somebody else who is linked to that.

As I mentioned, the penalties have been upped quite significantly from 60 penalty units up to 120—that is by about $10 000—and for a body corporate from 240 penalty units to 600 penalty units. Penalty units are $165.22, if I remember correctly, so these are upped quite substantially, plus we have the introduction of an offence.

The second-reading speech by the minister refers to meaningful consequences for those who break the law and providing a meaningful deterrent for those illegally harvesting. Now, I put it to the minister that we also need meaningful consequences for those who break the law and seriously disrupt harvesting operations. We have had protesters dancing around in black gear, being unable to be seen. The machine operators are very worried that they may not see somebody and that they could kill somebody. We have had people tree sitting and chaining themselves to the machinery. We had a disgraceful situation where somebody actually needed their gear not just to do the harvesting but to help out with the bushfire effort, and there was somebody chained to their gear for several days so they could not use it. That was absolutely disgraceful. They need more than a slap on the wrist; they need meaningful deterrents as well. I think that the minister, in instances where people have ignored the public safety zone legislation, really needs to look at what is happening there.

On the rules around harvesting operations, the operations are arranged and planned by VicForests and conducted by their contractors. The changes here pertain to both and make it clear that VicForests must ensure its contractors comply.

The collection of firewood is actually something that is quite topical in light of the fires that we have just had. People see so much firewood lying around on roadsides. Many people in country areas see this as an opportunity to reduce the fuel load as well as to have firewood available to heat their homes. For many people in country areas, firewood is extremely important. I myself have a wood fire, backed up by gas bottles. A lot of country towns and certainly properties do not have gas mains, so you would otherwise be relying on electric heaters, which are quite energy intensive and quite costly. Certainly you see a lot of low-income earners, younger families and retired people who rely on the collection of wood. They collect it themselves or somebody else goes out and collects the firewood. Different councils have different arrangements in place, typically for autumn and spring. Murrindindi and Mansfield have very clear operations. At Nillumbik they play with the zoning up there so there is no collection of firewood, and I think a lot of people in Nillumbik would not mind that.

I want to talk about the importance of forestry and how it has had its heart ripped out by this Labor government, certainly towards the end of last year. This industry, the timber and forestry industry, employs directly over 15 000 workers in forest growing and management, harvest, haulage and primary and secondary processing.

My electorate has the Powelltown mill, run for a long time by the Fox family. The hills around Powelltown have been harvested several times and burnt as well—1985, I think, was the last time there were fires. But they have the Leadbeater’s possums back living in them. The forests regenerate; they grow and thrive again. There are Reid Bros at Yarra Junction and Kelly’s timber in Wesburn, with Hugh Kelly there. We lost the Dindi mill. Just recently I went to the Corryong sawmill and spoke with the manager there. It is run by Graham Walker. They are very concerned about the future. There is the Glencoe Group, who do prefab wall frames and roof trusses in Alexandra.

I have contractors all through my electorate. They are absolutely gutted by the decisions made by the government. I never thought I would say it, but I am on the same page as the CFMEU here—an unlikely ally. I am actually happy to see them taking the fight up. Perhaps the fight should have happened a little earlier, but they are now looking to protect the jobs of workers, and mostly these are young men.

I am alarmed that we are importing timber at a great rate. Many of the businesses say it is very hard to get locally grown timber anymore. I see that Yenckens Hardware in Yea, Alexandra and Mansfield use wood from Ryan & McNulty in Benalla, but they say it is increasingly difficult. I think we should all be very concerned globally if we are going to be relying on imports from Indonesia and South America, countries that have much less regard for the environment than we have here, and looking at decimating forests at rates we do not approve of.

Plantation timber becomes habitat. Plantations take a good 20 to 30 years to grow, depending when and where— (Time expired)

Mr CHEESEMAN (South Barwon) (14:39): It is with pleasure today that I rise to speak on the Forests Legislation Amendment (Compliance and Enforcement) Bill 2019. In reflecting on the elements of this bill and the circumstances that Victorians forests find themselves in, along with those who have derived their incomes from those forests, I have reflected a little bit on the circumstances of my early life.

In the 1990s I lived in a small country town called Durham Lead, which is south of the Buninyong township. In growing up in that area my father, myself and my younger brother for a few weekends each year would go into our state forests and we would harvest timber to feed our fireplace. That was indeed the principal way in which our home was heated, particularly in Ballarat’s particularly cold months. In doing that we would apply for, I think it was, a three-month licence, where we would go down to the department of conservation and apply for a permit. A forester would have previously marked out a coupe, which would be perhaps about three times the size of this chamber, and you would take the unmarked trees. If my memory serves me correctly, typically the trees that the foresters—that the department—wanted you to keep were predominantly marked with pink fluorescent colour to highlight the trees that ought to be kept, and they were generally the larger trees, generally the trees that had not been cut before. They were the better specimens. For, I think, more than a decade we would undertake this activity when the bush was drying out after the winter months, and we would often put that timber aside after cutting it up for 18 months or so to enable it to dry out.

Through that period my father was working for the University of Melbourne school of forestry out of Creswick, and I through this period would have been between the ages of about 12 and about 18. Whilst my dad worked for the school of forestry, he was not a forester; he was a technical officer there. But having said that, he was bringing home conversations that he was having with the academic staff in the lunch room about this concept called climate change, and I particularly in the first half of that period struggled to understand the concept. I found myself every Saturday playing football and certainly in the wetter months it would be exceptionally wet and muddy, and I found the concept quite difficult. He was telling me that what the scientists were telling him in the lunch room was that there were different species that had historically not competed as well and other species that were the dominant species in the bush but that things were starting to change and there was this scientific notion that the forestry officers were becoming aware of as a part of the global scientific community.

It got me thinking about climate change. I became interested in it, and in fact I went off to study for a bachelor of applied science to learn about climate change. It was a topic that I was particularly interested in. I also, through that period of time, started to think about the nature of sustainability and the fact that the Victorian forests which had of course supported many families, many communities, from an economic perspective were not a renewable resource unless as a state you took active steps to indeed add to the Victorian asset, native forests. It has become, I think, pretty apparent really over the last couple of decades that we need to have appropriate regulation put in place to ensure that those forests can be preserved for future generations.

Part of the challenge of climate change is that we see our forests much, much drier than what they have historically been. As a consequence of that the fire behaviour when a wildfire goes through those forests is that it burns at a much, much higher level, meaning that the trees—our native forests—do not have the same capacity to bounce back as they once might have been able to do. We have seen that not just this summer but about 10 years prior to that, with Black Saturday. Indeed I suspect perhaps the Ash Wednesday fires, which were in 1983 almost to this day, were again an example of the consequences of climate change.

I am very pleased that the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change is at the table. I know her electorate in the northern suburbs has supported many, many former automotive workers. I know she is very, very cognisant of the challenges when industries go through adjustments, and I know her thoughts are certainly with those workers. It is because of her experiences in the northern suburbs that I know that she has a very keen understanding of the challenges of many of our regional communities, particularly ones that have for many decades supported timber workers. I think these legislative arrangements are appropriate. They are the right arrangements. We as a Labor government, we as active members in the labour movement, will be acutely aware of the challenges of forestry workers. When industries are going through these types of challenges, the reality is that it is Labor governments that will support those communities as those adjustments are required. I, and I am sure most of my colleagues who have had experience with regional and rural Victoria, will continue to advocate and support legislation that supports these communities to make sure that we have sustainable industries.

The fires that we saw just over the last couple of months are unprecedented. They will have profound consequences. The minister is aware of that, the Premier is aware of that and the department is actively doing the work that is required to understand those consequences. I think these legislative amendments are appropriate, they are necessary and they come from a government that cares about regional Victoria.

Mr T BULL (Gippsland East) (14:49): I rise to make a contribution on the Forests Legislation Amendment (Compliance and Enforcement) Bill 2019. I guess there is some irony in getting up and talking about timber harvesting and firewood collection so soon after the experience that we have just had in East Gippsland.

I would like to talk initially about the firewood collection aspect, which is an element of the bill, and the potential to have more of a scaled system of punishment, if you like, in relation to the offence. I guess we are talking about scales of penalty, for want of a better description. When we talk about firewood collection in country areas, my electorate would certainly be one of those areas where a very, very high percentage of our population relies enormously on their annual firewood collection. We are probably very fortunate in comparison to other areas of the state to have such a huge amount of firewood available to us and our various communities, which, as you would know, are spread out over a very large footprint, a large geographical area.

When we talk firewood collection there is a massive difference between going out with a chainsaw and cutting up a couple of trailer loads of yellow box or something like that, compared to, maybe, a pensioner living adjacent to a state forest going out and collecting her morning sticks. I can remember my wife’s grandmother, who for years and years and years down at Lake Tyers would go out every morning and just pick up her morning sticks to light the fire for the day. At present those instances carry significant penalties, and I think we perhaps could have introduced levels of penalty or scales of penalty that were more appropriate to the offence.

I know in Parliament, when we introduce new laws and we introduce new regulations, in many, many, many cases we rely on discretion being used by those on the ground who are enforcing these penalties, but I think we perhaps had an opportunity here to differentiate between whether that was around the quantities of wood collected or—you probably do not want to go into the type of wood collected—something to differentiate between someone taking a trailer load or a ute load full, as compared to someone who is going out and picking up their morning sticks. So a little bit more attention, I guess, to the scales of penalty perhaps would have been good.

The other element that I want to point out is—probably ‘hypocrisy’ is too strong a word—I would say some differences of approach in relation to different areas of this government’s enforcement regime. Here we are tightening up the laws on illegal timber harvesting, and I have no qualms at all about cracking down on people or groups who intended to do the wrong thing and illegally harvest firewood from our bush, but we also have at the same time a number of locations across the state, particularly in my electorate, where we have a number of illegal protesters that are stopping timber harvesters from logging their coupes, which is a perfectly legal pastime. It is a perfectly legal form of employment that has been through the various approval processes that have allowed timber workers to go in and harvest their coupes. Yet we have protesters who will turn up and, without any serious enforcement or action, will be allowed to hold up those very important works for long periods of time. These are workers who have to pay mortgages. These are workers who have kids at school and families to support, and I would like to see, I guess, the same level of urgency to crack down on illegal firewood collectors perhaps be applied to other people who perform illegal acts within our forest areas and who have a far, far, far greater impact on the economy of local regions and the mental health and ability to work of local families than someone who collects illegal firewood does.

These illegal protesters should be dealt with quickly and efficiently, and they should be punished accordingly. The fact that they hold up legitimate work is something that this government should also crack down on. The bill also has implications for the timber industry generally, and it would be remiss of me not to mention again the great work that our timber industry did over the recent fire period within our region. As I mentioned in this place last sitting week, these timber worker crews were at the forefront of fire protection work and then they were at the forefront of the road clean-up. The public often does not see the great work that these timber workers do at the fire front, and there is a pretty good reason for that—that is, they are generally out there ahead of the fire crews on many occasions. You might see a TV camera sneak in, and there is a bit of fire in the landscape and they are there with the fire trucks around them. These dozer drivers, for instance, are a step ahead of that. They are out, often, putting in firebreaks with fire lapping at their machinery, and I know of two timber worker dozers this year that were fire damaged while the dozer drivers were driving them. When we talk about being at the coalface, I do not think you can get any more coalface than that. The reason that that sort of footage does not get onto our mainstream media is very much because it is too dangerous for a TV crew to be there filming and taking in that footage. They just cannot be there.

These people are so critical to our local community not only for the important roles they play around fire time, whether it be cutting those firebreaks or whether it be clearing the roads; they are also critical to our communities economically. If you have a look at townships like Orbost and Heyfield, without a timber industry in those towns those towns simply do not exist. They simply do not exist. In Heyfield alone over 50 per cent of the people who live in that town are supported by the mill there. If we do not have the mill, the pub closes. The two primary schools—if they do survive—are getting rid of teachers. The Heyfield Kangaroos football club instantly cannot field teams. The local cricket club and tennis club go down the gurgler. So when we talk about the future of the timber industry, I think we wash over the wider importance of that industry to the communities.

Just on the timber industry, after the great work that these people did on the fire front, as I stand here now, they are not all back at work at present. They were there leading the charge. They were defending our homes, defending our communities, opening our roads, and now for various reasons they are not back at work. Roadside clearing commenced when we were obviously getting these roads open, the Princes and Monaro highways, but there is so much more of that work to be done now. These timber workers should have more work at the present time than they have ever had before. The coupes are still there to be harvested. Yes, some have been fire impacted, but the mixed species do not die. I note that the Premier in here made some commentary around them being destroyed. Those timber coupes are still there. The trees are now sprouting again, and they can be harvested next week—it is just that they are black on the outside. But they are still alive, and they certainly can still be harvested. So that, combined with the fact that we have all this roadside clearing to do to make sure that we do not have our highways closed for a month again—which is totally unacceptable—means that those timber workers should be flat out. They should be choosing the jobs that they are doing at the moment. They should not be without work, and yet I was talking to some earlier this week who have still got problems with getting back to work because there is a lot of dithering going on by the various departments in relation to getting them back to work.

In winding up, yes, we are not opposing this bill, but we need to put more focus on getting protesters out of the bush and letting people do their work and keeping our timber industry in work.

Mr FOWLES (Burwood) (14:59): It is my pleasure to get on my feet for happily the last time this week and make a contribution on the Forests Legislation Amendment (Compliance and Enforcement) Bill 2019. I have listened carefully to the speakers from both sides of the chamber, and I think as Victorians we can say that we all value our native forests. Our native forests provide an important economic resource. They are important for biodiversity, recreation, cultural values and quite obviously we use our native forests for different purposes. Those purposes of course include timber harvesting. There is an inherent tension between some of those usages, and there is no doubt about that. There is no doubt that some of the usages of the forests are likely to come into conflict. The role of government in those circumstances is balancing the values, balancing the activities and making sure that the regulatory regime that results from that balancing exercise is in fact fit for purpose.

This bill comes before the house, though it was in contemplation before this fire season, at a time when we are acutely aware of the impacts of fire on our landscape. I just wanted to commence my contribution around this bill by recapping a few of those matters, because they are germane to the broader issue of management of this particular natural resource. Over 1.3 million hectares of public land—the number, still, is just staggering; it has been said, and I have said it a number of times, but it is just a whopping number—that is parks and forests, have been impacted by the fires this season. That public land represents 85 per cent of the total fire area. So those public lands, parks and reserves are about a third of it, and state forest makes up the remaining two-thirds of those public lands. Eight-hundred-and-seventy-thousand hectares of state forests have been affected. That is more than a quarter of our total state forest. More than a quarter of our total state forest has been affected by this fire season alone. So clearly any action we take in relation to the very important management of this natural resource is going to come at a time of heightened scrutiny and heightened feelings about the regulatory approach in relation to this very important natural asset.

It is worth noting that Parks Victoria has deployed about 40 per cent of its workforce into eastern Victoria in relation to these firefighting efforts. That is an extraordinarily large impact. I want to thank the personnel from Parks Victoria and Forest Fire Management Victoria for all the hard work they have done in incredibly difficult circumstances throughout this fire season—a fire season that I should note is of course still upon us. It is still continuing.

This bill is about regulating the timber harvesting usage within our natural forests. Clearly there is a whole bunch of other usages, and indeed there is a whole bunch of other recommendations in the report that underpin this particular bill. There is a whole bunch of other recommendations, and there have indeed been some announcements by government, some policy changes, in relation to the felling of native timber. Those matters are still to come before the house, but this bill quite specifically addresses the issues we had in relation to the failed prosecution of VicForests in late 2018 by making sure that we have the right tools, the right regulatory processes and the right enforcement regime to ensure that the sourcing of timber from our native forests is done legally, is done safely and is done in accordance with the legislation that has been enacted by our state.

So how does it do that? It clarifies the key offence provision for illegal timber harvesting to ensure it unambiguously applies to VicForests and its contractors—that there is no escape route with a contractor working on behalf of VicForests for VicForests to then somehow dodge liability in relation to any improper gathering of timber. It also allows, very importantly, the use of contemporary mapping tools so that we are not relying on paper maps, particularly lower resolution paper maps that sat at the heart of this prosecution that fell over a couple of years ago. We are simply relying on the very best tools and the very best data available to us at any one time.

Can I say that the fire context is an important one. This summer has clearly been a very, very difficult time for the Victorian timber industry, but it has also been a difficult time for our wildlife. Over 25 per cent of the harvestable coupes on the timber release plan have been fully or partially affected—over 1 million hectares of parks and forests. It just bears saying again that the totality of our approach around the regulation of this resource has never been more important. It has never been more highly scrutinised either. By ensuring that it is clear that illegal timber harvesting applies to VicForests and its contractors, my constituents and the people of Victoria more broadly can feel more secure that their timber is being sustainably and legally sourced. We only ever want to see timber being made available for sale or export in Victoria having been sustainably and legally sourced. That is the only category of timber that ought be available to us.

The bill also helps protect our native flora and fauna, which are increasingly vulnerable. Over the past 12 months the conservation regulator has led investigations into international wildlife tracking and the unauthorised destruction of wildlife, resulting in a number of prosecutions. That is the same regulator that will be regulating these revised provisions under the act. This legislation will increase the conservation regulator’s powers to investigate and prosecute those who are guilty of breaches as well as ensuring that the code of practice for timber production can be enforced effectively. By creating stronger regulations around the removal of firewood, we protect the native habitat for this fauna, which has seen a significant amount of disruption over this bushfire period. Under this bill we bring the penalties for illegal logging into line with the penalties under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Amendment Act 2019. All of these changes protect our wildlife, and I can assure constituents in my electorate that that is something that I care deeply about—and I know and I understand and I respect that it is something that they care deeply about.

The biggest changes around the production of the documents relating to the planning and the conduct of timber harvesting are very important. The increase in penalties is very important. The extension of time in which charges can be brought is important, and underpinning all this we are seeking to ensure that no corners are cut, that these operations are conducted ethically, that they are conducted transparently and that they are conducted with due regard for the social licence that timber harvesting enjoys in this state. The ability to exploit a natural resource, and I mean that in the technical sense of that word exploit—to utilise a natural resource for a fit and proper purpose, to do so ethically and to do so in a sustainable fashion—nothing, frankly, could be more important than that.

As a government we are committed to striking the right balance between the environment and jobs. There is always that balancing act. Some in this chamber would always come down hard on one side of that balancing act. Others who sit a bit closer to me in this chamber would always sacrifice any number of jobs on the altar of political purity.

Mr D O’Brien: Who are you talking about?

Mr FOWLES: The Greens.

Mr D O’Brien: Right.

Mr FOWLES: Ease up, ease up! So it is important, I think, that we recognise that the balancing act falls, I think sensibly, to a Labor government—because it is a Labor government that has at its core a commitment to workers and their jobs but only a Labor government will give due regard and full respect to the environmental values that underpin our great state of Victoria.

Mr D O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (15:09): I am pleased to rise to speak on this piece of legislation as well, and I find myself a little bit shocked—I am going to stand up and, not with the very last bit, I am going to agree with the part towards the end of the member for Burwood’s conversation. I did need to clarify for a second who he was talking about when he was saying that some in the chamber will sacrifice jobs on the altar of purity, but I endorse the member for Burwood’s comments—so everybody note this moment down in time.

This legislation is about the enforcement of regulations and the need for strong regulations around timber harvesting. It is also about firewood, and I will come to the firewood element of it later. I do not think anybody could argue with the need to have strong regulations when it comes to native timber harvesting processes, and I am not going to comment on the detail of this particular bill other than to say there are already very strong rules in place and very strong codes of practice that are adhered to by the timber industry when they are harvesting a coupe. That is something that is regularly disregarded by protesters and environmental NGOs and of course our friends the Greens here—and I use that term advisedly—on this issue. They do not generally understand the very, very strict rules that exist around, particularly, the forestry code of practice.

That in itself is one of the reasons that when we talk about the amount of timber available to the forestry industry it is in fact a hell of a lot more than what is obviously available as general management zones in our state forests. Because of the timber code of practice there is a significant amount of forest that is not available, because it is either too steep or it is close to a stream—and of course we have more recently had issues with zones for threatened species, which I will not go into today.

While I am happy to support strong regulation, what has been frustrating for me, and I think very clearly many in the industry in probably the last year or two, is that there has been an increase in the level of protest action on timber coupes. While we need to enforce strong regulations to ensure that timber harvesting is done appropriately, I would actually like to see some enforcement when it comes to those protesters who illegally invade timber coupes and stop law-abiding people doing their job. We heard yesterday in a briefing from the government on its timber industry plan how the protesters are continuing to change their tactics. We have seen vision in the last week or two of masked protesters coming into coupes and refusing to remove their masks. It was said to us yesterday in the briefing that a couple of protesters were literally very nearly killed recently. I think this government needs to be doing a hell of a lot more when it comes to enforcing the safety and the right of workers to go about their lawful business in a timber coupe without being harassed, without people setting up tripods and platforms and without people standing in front of machinery and stopping people from work.

I say that there are existing on-the-spot fines that were introduced by the now Leader of The Nationals, the then Minister for Agriculture in the previous Liberal-Nationals government, that the timber workers themselves have told me immediately dried up the protests. They just stopped because there were $800-and-something fines for people who illegally went into a coupe. I contrast the lack of action now under this government—the lack of enforcement by authorised officers and by police getting to coupes where work has been stopped—with the fact that when an awful incident of the killing of hundreds of wedge-tailed eagles in East Gippsland was discovered a couple of years ago the department proudly boasted that it had 30 staff working on that particular investigation. So they can find 30 staff for an investigation into eagles’ deaths, but they cannot find the authorised officers to get to a coupe to allow people to go about their law-abiding business.

I just want to say that the member for Burwood talked a bit about the bushfires. We heard in this place yesterday the Greens call for the second time in two weeks for an end to native forest harvesting now because of the fires. In addition we have seen court action in the last couple of weeks that has stopped logging in a number of coupes in the Central Highlands on the basis that there may be threatened species in those coupes and as a result of the fires we need to take an extreme precautionary principle. It staggers me that the Greens are asking a question like that. As the member for Burwood said, the stats are that we have lost 1.5 million hectares to bushfires over this summer—1.5 million hectares. The forestry industry, as VicForests will tell you, has access to harvesting or harvests on average about 3000 hectares. It staggers me that the Greens and these protesters going to court still think that the big threat to our forests is logging. When 1.5 million hectares have been burnt by the fires just this summer, we are talking 3000 hectares in forestry. It is just ridiculous and it highlights the absurdity of their position on forestry generally, bearing in mind that when it comes to VicForests operations that is taking out about four in 10 000 trees. And, hey presto, those trees are actually replanted and regrown. So it is a ridiculous situation, and it is likewise a ridiculous situation that this government is actually shutting down the forestry industry. It is important to note that the Liberals and Nationals have committed that if elected in 2022 we will reverse that ban.

I appreciate that this bill when it comes to firewood is about clamping down on organised firewood collection. I just make the point that firewood collection is far more important than many members in this place will realise, because in many areas of country Victoria—in many of our small towns and our rural areas—people have access to nothing else for heating. They really do not have too many choices. I believe that while the firewood collection areas that are available are good, we could have a lot more of those areas opened up for access to the general public for their personal use. I look in my electorate alone, driving around there, and there are numerous areas of state forest that are not logged. They are not national parks, they are not particularly attractive to tourists or anything. There are hundreds and hundreds of hectares of forest that could be used, where timber has fallen, where there are roadsides, where there are tracks through and where firewood could be accessible. I think the government should be looking at the option to open up more of those areas.

Finally, a particular bugbear of my community is access to roadside firewood collection. As someone with a fireplace myself, it breaks my heart, driving around my community sometimes, seeing how much timber is available on the roadsides. I get that there are safety issues. We certainly cannot have people on state highways pulling over with trailers and trucks and things, collecting their firewood. But there are thousands and thousands of kilometres of roads—including some of the VicRoads roads—across our state where there is very little traffic, where there are often opportunities to go off the road and collect firewood, and it can be done. I know some will say, ‘Oh, but it’s also habitat’, and everything. A number of years ago I raised an issue about this—it was actually not related to trees; it related to native vegetation, to grass—and a VicRoads officer said to me, ‘Oh, but you’ve got to understand that the road reserves are sometimes the best remaining stands of native vegetation’, to which I replied, ‘But it’s a road reserve. It’s not a national park. It’s not there to preserve the trees or the grasses. It’s a road reserve’. I think there is an opportunity for us to have more flexibility in our local government areas and also state government, from Forest Fire Management Victoria and the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning to allow better access to firewood that is there. Indeed it is in many cases a fire hazard itself.

I have just received a letter back from the minister. I had written asking about access to firewood in the forested areas around Loch Sport, where it is a considerable issue. Naturally enough, it is not available in a national park, and I get that, but we could be doing more right across the state to clean up our roadsides and allow people to get access to that firewood as well, where it is safe to do so. I think that is something we certainly should be doing.

Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote) (15:19): This season large parts of our beautiful state were burning, and some parts still are. The television glared with scenes of colossal walls of flame, of brave emergency workers on the front lines, of communities facing a threat the scale of which is still hard to comprehend. In Melbourne smoke surrounded us and we all felt that eerie foreboding that came with it. I found myself unpacking a new air purifier in my 10-month-old daughter’s room and switching it on. I felt a sense of relief that she would breathe easy through the night, but back in my own room I was restless.

There may be some opposite who want to disagree, but make no mistake: the scale of the fires we saw this season were the result of hotter, drier and more sustained risk conditions. In my inaugural speech I spoke about our moral responsibility to act on climate change and transition to a clean energy economy, and I am proud that in the short time since I was elected and in the previous term I have seen our government continue to act strongly and decisively to lead us in that transition. Last year the Andrews government announced the biggest environmental protection policy in Victoria’s history: an immediate end to old-growth harvesting and a transition for the native timber industry to end native forest logging by 2030. More than 186 000 hectares of forest across Victoria became immediately exempt from logging, with more than $120 million set aside to ensure the industry is fully supported, with long-term sustainable jobs that give regional communities a genuine pathway for the future. This means a great deal to me and my community, and I take this opportunity to read an email from one of my constituents, who wrote:

Hello Kat,

Before the last election I emailed you asking the Labor government to stop logging our old growth and native forests. The recent announcement to end this practice is great news. Thank you. Obviously, this displaces a number of people in the industry, which is devastating. As a taxpayer I am more than happy to help fund transition projects to help these people into another field of employment. In the long term, economically ceasing this practice will lead to more prosperity for the state.

My community understands that transition is hard. They understand that we have a responsibility to support the livelihoods of families in timber towns, that to do anything less would be a complete betrayal of our duty to these communities and to these workers, many of whom put their lives and their equipment at risk to assist our emergency services in the bushfire crisis. My community gets it, but disturbingly the Greens political party do not. When the forestry announcement was made last year we saw an email bulletin go out from the member for Melbourne. It reads:

You’ll be hearing a lot of bluster from the logging industry … about jobs. But the fact is, there are many more jobs in plantations, tourism and conservation, than there are in native forest logging.

I will leave aside the work of the Australian Young Greens who were forced to backtrack, shamefaced, after making absurd comments about baristas outnumbering miners recently, but it shows just how fast and loose these guys are with the truth and how much disdain they have for workers who do not fit their virtue bubble.

The forestry industry is at the heart of many small towns in the state’s east, but when it comes to the livelihoods of families in timber towns, when it comes to the viability of small towns and the need to help these communities secure their long-term future, the Greens political party could not be more insulting. But, hey, it makes for a great email campaign, doesn’t it.

‘Bluster’ about jobs! I can only imagine how insulting that is to the workers and their families who are living this transition. But it is also insulting to the vast majority of my community, because I know from having many conversations with constituents that they get it. They see that governments make tough decisions, and that is the burden of government. We are criticised and we are praised for these decisions, but core to governing is finding balance and fairness in decision-making, not being victims of circumstance, not lying inert and definitely not letting fear govern the day.

When broken down to the level of the effects that the transition has on individuals and their families, my community understands that you cannot just dumb these things down to a glib line in a bulk email. They know exactly what redundancy can do to families, and they know that industry transition is not just the provision of barista courses. They know that the truck drivers and bulldozer operators—many of whom, as I said, volunteer their time, their safety and their private equipment to create firebreaks for catastrophic fire seasons such as this year, such as 2013, such as 2009 and such as 2006—deserve to be talked about as people, not denigrated with words like ‘bluster’. These workers are not going to suddenly become baristas in tourist cafes. They must be supported to move out of native timber harvesting, because jobs in these towns mean the towns stay alive.

The transformation in these timber towns is no different to the huge transformation that suburbs that I represent have undergone. Communities in Northcote, Thornbury and Preston that used to be powerhouses in the textile, tannery and auto components industries have undergone change—change that has been difficult and that has been necessary. Different names may be on the front gate and different businesses may occupy the factories and warehouses, but jobs have remained and skills have been retained. I have said before and I will say it again, the interests of the environment and our working communities are not mutually exclusive. With the right policy mix we can put sustainability at the very heart of thriving economies.

But of course, when it comes to doing the hard work of nutting that out, the Greens do not show up. The Legislative Assembly has an Environment and Planning Committee—they do not show up. In fact for every single parliamentary committee in the lower house they do not show up. They have not bothered to join a single one. For the Gender Equality Bill 2019 they do not show up. Why would they bother when it is easier to mount email campaigns and slick slogans? Forget the actual work, forget the tough decisions, forget the impact on people’s lives, on their job prospects, on where they grew up or on where their kids go to school; let us just make sweeping demands and let others do the hard work. But they will take credit for it; they are good at that.

Indeed the member for Melbourne has taken that to a whole other level. Her own web page takes credit for ceasing cattle grazing in national parks, and I have to say that this piece of news was a surprise to me. No doubt it would also be to the former Deputy Premier and former minister for environment, Mr Thwaites. Cattle grazing was banned in 2005 by the Bracks Labor government, and not only was the current member for Melbourne not in this place in 2005 but there were no Greens political party members in the Parliament until 2006.

But I digress. For my own part—

Mr D O’Brien: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, while I do not wish to stop the member for Northcote having a good whack at the Greens, because I am in full agreement, she has got 2½ minutes to go and has not yet even mentioned the bill or gone to any of the topics related to the bill. If she is going to belt the Greens about their lack of care for forestry workers, she probably should be reflecting on the government’s position of shutting down the timber industry as well. So please ask—

The ACTING SPEAKER (Ms Suleyman): Order! Thank you. I will ask the member to continue.

Ms THEOPHANOUS: So I am very happy to stand up and support this bill. It is a bill that achieves even more protection for our forests. There you go.

Victoria has around 6.4 million hectares of forests on public land, vital ecosystems that support biodiversity and air quality but also jobs and recreation for Victorians. Our forests must be properly managed and regulated, which is why we introduced the Office of the Conservation Regulator. Recently we have encountered limitations in the regulatory framework, and there is a need to improve oversight and accountability measures to increase penalties and create stronger deterrents for illegal timber harvesting and give more powers to the regulator.

This bill delivers vital reforms to increase accountability of VicForests and its contractors. To ensure the offence will be more effective in deterring unauthorised timber harvesting and to ensure the punishment is commensurate with the potential environmental harm, the penalties for illegal timber harvesting are doubling.

At the end of the day we can sit around and talk about climate action, or we can do something about it. We can sit around bashing and undermining Labor, or we can act. I choose action, and I think that we must bring people with us, fairly, inclusively and logically. That does not mean virtue-signalling rhetoric or disrupting and alienating communities, because to galvanise the support needed to achieve real action we cannot afford to alienate sections of our community.

The Labor Party has always fought to make things fairer, not with symbolism but with real reform and genuine transition. Change never is easy, but only Labor can prevent that pendulum swinging between conservative inertia and heavy-handed idealism. It is in that nexus that change does happen, and change must happen. For that reason I commend the bill to the house.

Ms BLANDTHORN (Pascoe Vale) (15:29): It is with great pleasure that I also rise to speak on the Forests Legislation Amendment (Compliance and Enforcement) Bill 2019. Victoria’s natural environments, from our forest to our coastlines, are internationally renowned. Our 6.4 million hectares of forests on public land are treasured and enjoyed by all Victorians, and a number of members of this house today have spoken to the various ways in which all of our communities, from the city to the bush, enjoy our natural resources.

Our forests are crucial to the ongoing preservation and sustainability of our ecosystems, and they are a habitat to many flora and fauna species, including threatened species and species that we have seen greatly suffer over recent weeks with the devastating impact of the bushfires. Protection of our environment is a key area of priority for my constituents in the electorate of Pascoe Vale, who place great importance on our government acting on climate change. They also are important for the sustainability of our natural environs and our ecosystems. Our Victorian forests play an integral role in absorbing carbon dioxide and therefore assist in combating the challenges that climate change brings to our environment and indeed to our community as a whole on a range of levels.

Furthermore, it is important to acknowledge, as the minister did in her second-reading speech, the connection and relationship that the traditional owners and Indigenous communities have with these lands and their role in caring for their country. With all of these interests in mind and an understanding of the impact these forests have in supporting our regions in tourism and in resources, jobs and our local economies, it is important that we act now in striking the right balance for effective management and regulation of these environments for the future. As the member for Northcote so eloquently just put it, protection of our environment and the protection of the jobs and job security of workers in these local communities are not mutually exclusive.

The Victorian community rightly expects that our state forests are protected and that all harvesting or management activity that does occur occurs in an effectively regulated environment. Our community expects that illegal activity will attract significant penalties, and this bill responds to these community expectations and to the recommendations that were contained in the Independent Review of Timber Harvesting Regulation. Our government is moving to ensure that we have a framework that enables timber harvesting activity in our Victorian forests to be effectively regulated and therefore managed and sustained for future generations. This legislation before us is yet another example of the ways in which the Andrews Labor government is delivering for our environment, delivering for our regions and delivering in the interests of all Victorians.

The bill has four principal objectives, and they work to improve the regulation of both timber harvesting and illegal firewood collection in Victorian state forests. In achieving this, this bill will amend the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act 2004, the Forests Act 1958 and the Conservation, Forests and Lands Act 1987 to improve tools and powers that facilitate timber harvesting regulation. It will also improve key offence provisions for illegal harvesting of timber, improve the powers for investigation and enforcement and improve the rules around the collection of illegal firewood.

I will return to the first objective of the bill, which is to amend the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act 2004, the Forests Act 1958 and the Conservation, Forests and Lands Act 1987 to improve tools and powers that facilitate timber harvesting regulation. It is crucial that in effectively regulating timber harvesting in Victoria we ensure that our dedicated regulator, the Office of the Conservation Regulator, has the tools and the powers required to perform their important roles and their important responsibilities.

We know from the key recommendations and findings of the independent review that legislative and regulatory reforms are needed in order to facilitate more effective and modern regulation of timber harvesting in Victoria. In acting on these regulations and in seeking to achieve the best practice in timber harvesting regulation, this bill ensures that proportionate options are available for the regulator in responding to instances of non-compliance. We are making sure that there are clear powers and a range of regulation tools that can be used by the regulator and that where there are urgent gaps there will be reform around regulations. We are making sure that clear powers can be utilised, and in so doing we can boost the confidence that the community will have in the regulator, knowing that they have access to what they need to fulfil their role to ensure that there is effective regulation.

This is all part of ensuring a modern and effective operation of regulation of our timber industries in Victoria. This was a key recommendation of the timber harvesting regulation review, and in their introduction on page 5 they said:

The regulatory framework for native timber harvesting in state forests exists to ensure that the environmental, cultural and economic values of our forests are protected and enhanced for current and future generations. As Victoria’s timber harvesting regulator, it is DELWP’s role to act in the collective interests of the Victorian community in ensuring compliance with this framework.

It is critical that the public has confidence in the operations and conduct of Victoria’s timber harvesting regulator.

That is exactly what this bill will achieve.

The second objective of the bill is improving key offence provisions for illegal harvesting of timber. As mentioned previously, we know how naturally valuable and precious the trees in our Victorian forests are and how crucial they are to the future of our environment as a whole. In our efforts to make sure that our forests are maintained and improved into the future and that we can continue to support biodiversity across the regions, we must make sure that illegal harvesting of timber is effectively deterred and that where it happens and where there are wrongdoers they are held to account for their actions. If the community is to be confident in the regulation and maintenance of our forests, they need to be sure that unauthorised timber harvesting will not be tolerated.

We need to ensure that unauthorised timber harvesting does not fall through the cracks of missing gaps of regulation. The community needs to know that our laws regarding illegal timber harvesting can effectively deter wrongdoing and that penalties are significant enough to respond to incidents of wrongdoing or where there is environmental harm involved in these acts. In working to achieve effective regulation and deterrence of unauthorised timber harvesting in Victoria, this bill substantially rewrites its key offence provision. The relevant offence, being the offence contained in section 45 of the Sustainable Forest Timber Act, will be revised. This offence will act to prohibit the undertaking of unauthorised timber harvesting by any person unless undertaken in accordance with a relevant licence, allocation, order or other authorisation.

Through this bill we are ensuring that this offence is consistently applied to all people undertaking timber harvesting in Victoria’s forests. Importantly, we are also ensuring that VicForests is responsible to timber harvesting activity that their contractors engage in, and in so doing we are increasing the accountability of VicForests as a whole. Furthermore, we are also increasing penalties for any offence. We are working to create penalties for unauthorised activity that act as an effective deterrent and as a meaningful punishment that responds to the potential environmental harm that is caused by the incident.

The third objective is improving the powers for investigation and enforcement. The current laws and regulations relating to timber harvesting create challenges for enforcement, and that has clearly been determined. A range of enforcement powers for investigations are lacking. The review made recommendations for the creation of new powers and protections in better assisting authorised officers to conduct their duties, and these recommended powers included the coercive power to obtain information and documents. The report itself says:

Create new powers and protections to assist Authorised Officers in conducting their duties, including coercive power to obtain information and documents rather than having to rely on clause 20 of the Allocation Order.

This bill will address this recommendation through the creation of a power for authorised officers to require the production of documents relevant to Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act 2004 compliance. Creating this power will be crucial to investigations, aiding monitoring efforts and ensuring regulatory compliance.

In relation to objective four, improving the regulation of illegal firewood collection, we know that many regional Victorians rely on the firewood resources within state forests for heating their homes in colder weather conditions; certainly members of this house have just attested to that. These resources become particularly important to people from low-income backgrounds, who struggle to afford to stay warm in winter, or people without gas connections. In fulfilling these needs we have designated firewood collection areas and seasons where people can legally take firewood from state forests for domestic purposes, and this will obviously continue. Through this bill we are working to address deficiencies that exist in firewood offences. We are not seeking to punish those people who are simply seeking to keep their homes warm in winter. This is another area where this bill is working to clarify offences and improve regulations, ensuring that we strike the right balance between all values and all interests in our Victorian state forests. We are making sure that there are clear offences in place that effectively deter individuals from doing the wrong thing and prevent their wrongdoings from impacting the future sustainability of our forests.

This bill is about protecting a range of community interests and values in Victorian forests. We are ensuring that the natural environment is effectively managed and regulated and that relevant rules and laws can be enforced effectively. We are acting to ensure our forests can be improved and sustained for future generations.

Mr McGHIE (Melton) (15:39): I rise today to speak on the Forests Legislation Amendment (Compliance and Enforcement) Bill 2019. Victoria’s public native forests are important to all Victorians. Often whilst I am talking to constituents in my electorate of Melton I am surprised by the many people from very different backgrounds who have a strong love of our forests. It is important for all these Victorians, and even for others who might not be directly connected to our wonderful forests, that these amazing resources are managed for the benefit of all Victorians. Melton is of course a gateway to many great areas of forests and parks as you leave metropolitan Melbourne and enter regional Victoria via the Western Highway. Lerderderg State Park, Wombat State Forest and other great forest areas are right on Melton’s doorstep.

Victoria has about 6.4 million hectares of forests on public land. The biodiversity that forests support, the role that they can play in relation to water and filtering our air quality, are more than just the natural beauty that we can enjoy. They also provide vital economic opportunities and jobs around management, tourism and cultural engagement. Recreation is also a vital part in our everyday lives, where we are reminded and encouraged to be more active. Forests increasingly play a role in the decision of many Victorians from diverse backgrounds as to where they spend their recreational time. Often these varied recreational, economic and other uses of our forests can be as varied as the people who use our forests. That is why it is essential that they are managed in such a way that benefits all Victorians. It is also important to acknowledge the deep connection Victoria’s traditional owner communities have with the land and that forests are a very important part of this, holding memories and identity. They play an important part in culture and identity that many of us may not comprehend. For all these reasons it is important that environmental, cultural and economic values of our forests are protected and improved not just for us now but also for generations to come.

There are still people in my electorate that rely on firewood collection for heating. This bill will improve the regulation around timber harvesting and firewood collection. These are two important uses of Victoria’s state forests to ensure that Victoria’s forests can be maintained and improved into the future. The amendments in this bill will improve the regulation of timber harvesting and firewood. The amendments modernise the legislation and hold people to account for any illegal activities.

This legislation has been introduced by the hardworking Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, who is at the table, and I commend her for her hard work and dedication to not just her portfolio but to Victoria. In 2018 the minister directed the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning to initiate the Independent Review of Timber Harvesting Regulation. This was an important directive to ensure that timber harvesting regulations keep up to date and are in line with the community’s expectations. It was a first step to make sure that modern, best practice regulations of timber harvesting are in place in Victoria. This review made several recommendations about legislative changes to provide modern regulatory powers. This bill addresses these recommendations. Regulations for timber harvesting are important and the regulator must have the ability to respond to anyone not complying with the regulations designed to protect the sustainability of Victoria’s forests. It is also important that the powers given to the regulator are clear and proportional and that there are a range of regulatory tools for them to use. This is important for a modern approach.

Sensibly, one improvement in this legislation is the revised offence that will prohibit any person from undertaking timber harvesting operations in state forests unless they are undertaken in accordance with a relevant licence, permit, allocation order or other authorisation. This offence will allow oversight of harvested timber and will mean conditions are imposed to manage the environment and any risk to it. It is an expectation that harvesting on public land be regulated and that those not obeying the regulations to manage the environment sustainably or illegally are subject to consequences that are meaningful. It is vital that a reasonable deterrent is in place to avoid environmental harm from those ignoring the regulations put in place to protect Victoria’s forests. Deterring this initially is important, but it is just as important to punish those acting illegally. That is something that this legislation achieves. This legislation also provides investigative powers to help authorised officers obtain important information and documents to help fulfil their duties.

In regional Victoria there are many people who rely on firewood collection in order to heat their homes in the colder months. These people are more commonly from areas of low income and opportunity. It can come as a surprise to many of us, especially when we have access to natural gas connections, that many in regional Victoria do not have access to this resource. For them, collecting firewood from state forests is vital and necessary. Of course firewood is a limited resource and also needs to be managed to protect the environment in a sustainable way. Improving regulations so that these Victorians can harvest firewood to keep warm is important, and regulation is necessary to prevent illegal collection by those seeking to make a profit whilst denying Victorians an important resource to keep their homes and families warm.

This legislation continues to protect that need so that firewood can be taken legally from state forests for domestic purposes in the designated firewood collection areas and seasons. The regulations will ensure that firewood is taken fairly and cannot be illegally sold for personal profit. Previously firewood offences have not been sufficient in dealing with this issue. This legislation addresses this by creating a new offence to prevent the cutting, felling, obtaining, removing or taking of timber from Victoria’s state forests, irrespective of location or the status of the timber, unless the timber is taken in accordance with an authorisation. This offence will regulate the illegal taking of timber, including firewood, from state forests for all purposes and ensure that the conditions that allow timber to be cut and taken from state forests can be enforced.

In no other time in Victoria’s history have our forests been so deeply valued as part of sensitive ecosystems. With some ecosystems found nowhere else on earth, they are a home for extraordinary biodiversity and wildlife, a refuge from climate change, support important regional economies through tourism and are a resource for firewood and timber. It is essential that with the range of competing interests for our forests that the use of this important resource is effectively managed. If people and agencies do the wrong thing, then they should be held to account. This is what this bill delivers. It was this government that introduced the Office of the Conservation Regulator, a dedicated oversight function to ensure that the protections afforded to our natural environment are in step with the law and therefore community expectations. This government is protecting our forests and Victorians’ access to them.

The Victorian government is providing more opportunities to enjoy the great outdoors and make it easier for Victorians to get out and take advantage of our beaches, forests and bushland. The Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change introduced a bill into Parliament last year that I spoke on, which created a new marine and coastal park along the Bass Coast. This delivered on a key election commitment, providing more camping opportunities along Victoria’s rivers.

Before the 2018 election the Victorian government committed $105.6 million in a historic boost for camping by building new campgrounds, upgrading facilities and tracks, and making family holidays more affordable. I have previously contributed in this house about how important it is to my constituents in the Melton electorate that access to camping is available. Giving opportunities for access and healthy vacation time in our public forests is an important recreational resource for many families, and it can help to develop a love of nature and for how the world works from educational experiences in the natural world.

The Victorian government has also recently introduced new legislation to better protect biodiversity in Victoria. The Flora and Fauna Guarantee Amendment Bill 2019 was passed in Parliament last year and will help to prevent flora and fauna from becoming threatened, restore the conservation status of threatened species, provide longer term protection for critical habitats and improve enforcement powers and penalties for all offences. The Victorian government has also created a nation-leading 20-year strategy to improve, to protect and to work together to support Victoria’s biodiversity: Protecting Victoria’s Environment: Biodiversity 2037.

Of course we also have the Victorian Forestry Plan to ensure a long-term and sustainable future for Victoria’s forestry industry and for the Victorian workers who rely on it. This historic plan involves VicForests extending existing timber supply arrangements to 2024, after which time native timber supply will be stepped down before ending in 2030. Logging in remaining old-growth forests will cease immediately. As part of the plan $120 million will be set aside to ensure the industry is fully supported, backing long-term sustainable jobs and giving local workers confidence about their future. The plan includes the largest environment protection policy in the state’s history, with immediate protections for the iconic greater glider species, native fauna and Victoria’s remaining old-growth forests. Under the plan 90 000 hectares of Victoria’s remaining rare and precious old-growth forests, aged up to 600 years, will be protected immediately. To protect the future of the greater glider, alongside dozens of other threatened species, including the Leadbeater’s possum, the action statement maps out more than 96 000 hectares of forest across Victoria that is immediately exempt from logging.

This government has commitment to protecting our forests for all Victorians. This legislation is just another example of that commitment, and I commend the bill to the house.

Ms GREEN (Yan Yean) (15:49): I am pleased to join the debate on the Forests Legislation Amendment (Compliance and Enforcement) Bill 2019. A lot has been said on forests in recent months, and it has certainly been a contentious area. Can I say that the harvesting of timber in Victoria has long been an important industry in this state. But industries like this require regulation, and that is the intent of this bill.

During the Environment and Planning Committee’s inquiry into tackling climate change in Victorian communities we have been hearing some really disturbing information. One of the pieces of evidence that we heard was from Mark Norman, who is the chief scientist at Parks Victoria. This was late last year, so before the dreadful, dreadful beginning of the fires here in Victoria that have beset our state this summer, beginning in spring. One of the things that he said that horrified me was that due to the warming and the drying of our climate there is a very, very real certainty that mountain ash in Victoria will become extinct in a few short years. I nearly could not sleep that night. I could not imagine our state and the community that I represent without those beautiful, beautiful trees—certainly after the fires of Black Saturday, the Kilmore East fire in particular, that ravaged the Sherwin Ranges across the Great Divide, across the northern part of my electorate. Of course people have different views about the trees and whether they had contributed to the damage and the rate of death, but overwhelmingly in the fallout in the years after that, the research that was done showed that the community had a very, very real sense of grief at the loss of trees in their lives and in their communities—almost as much as their loss of loved ones and their homes. That was even from people who worked in the industry. So that is one side of the argument.

I was pleased when we did discover, after an assessment of some months, that there were still some stands in the reaches of Upper Plenty—a few small stands of Victorian mountain ash. The same has been with the devastation of the fires this year: the initial assessments have proved, as bad as they are, not quite as bad. But we are still seeing that the action that we took and the announcements that the government made last year in relation to the future of this industry—we were saying then that if there were significant fires, that would place this industry under even more stress.

Of the evidence that we have taken before this parliamentary inquiry, I would particularly reference the evidence that we took in Violet Town last week. The community of Violet Town in the Strathbogie shire have actually got an old racetrack that is no longer used in the Strathbogie shire, in Violet Town, and it has been planted as an urban forest. We were told about it by the proponents, those who had delivered it, and then we went for a walk out in it. They talked about the importance of thinning and harvesting and that it will be there as a carbon sink but it will also be there to provide the community with a reusable resource for heating and cooking. I thought that was a really innovative way to respond to climate change but also to deal especially with those poorer members of the community and be able to give them a cheap source of heating for their heating needs. It underscored that the timber industry can be a sustainable industry. Some of the other logs—they are about two or three years away from maturity, I think—were planted in about 2006, and some of that timber could be used for fencing, for seating and for those sorts of things.

I am pleased to see that this bill before the house will improve the regulation of timber harvesting and firewood collection, which are two key uses of Victoria’s state forests, to ensure that Victoria’s forests can be maintained and improved into the future. I am pleased to see that it will particularly clarify the offence provision for illegal timber harvesting to ensure that it unambiguously applies to VicForests and its contractors. It increases standards of accountability for VicForests and increases penalties for the offences. This is a resource that belongs to all Victorians, so certain individuals should not think that they can get away with misusing it.

It creates a new offence prohibiting the cutting, felling and removal of timber from state forests that applies consistently across the entire state of Victoria. It expands the regulatory tools for graduated and proportionate responses to non-compliance, including injunctions and enforceable undertakings. It creates a power for authorised officers to require the production of documents, a power that is vital to the functioning of the regulatory framework. It harmonises the legislative provisions relating to VicForests’ compliance with the Code of Practice for Timber Production 2014. It also will allow for contemporary mapping tools to be incorporated into key regulatory instruments for timber harvesting and ensure that these maps are enforceable. I have certainly had representations from my community about this mapping. It makes several technical amendments, including repeals of spent and redundant provisions of the Forests Act 1958.

It is not a bill that has attracted a lot of attention in the community. I think the forestry conversation has really more been about the announcements that this government made late last year but also the impact of the recent fires. I want to put on record that as Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Victoria, I will be putting first and foremost the importance of the economic future of those that are employed in the timber industry. I was lobbied recently by someone from Myrtleford who was extremely concerned about the mill there, the Carter Holt Harvey mill. The fires might have reduced its timber resource down to about three years worth, which is really quite concerning.

I know that transition is not easy, but we must respect these workers and these communities that have depended on this industry for such a long time. I have spoken before in this place about the town of Forrest in the Otway Ranges. I was there again only on Monday last week. I visited Platypi Chocolate, which is absolutely magnificent. It is just opposite the mountain biking trails that are there. I do not think anyone thought, 20 years ago, that Forrest would have a future without forestry. It is now a vibrant, beautiful little town, with Platypi Chocolate, a great little pub, a caravan park and a brewery. It is a place that people love to go and visit. I think with our climate warming, more people are going to want to go into wet forests and do physical activity like mountain biking. With the construction of the trails there, the boardwalks and everything like that, I think we see that there is still a future for timber use and the timber workforce there. It is not going to be just baristas that are needed, as important as baristas are. I would urge those in timber communities who are fearful for their future to go and visit Forrest, to go and visit the Otways and to go and visit the Wombat State Forest to see what is possible.

We have the largest country caucus that we have had in a very long time in this Labor government, and we will stand up for workers in regional Victoria and for the proper regulation of forestry.

Mr CARBINES (Ivanhoe) (15:59): I am pleased to make a contribution on the Forests Legislation Amendment (Compliance and Enforcement) Bill 2019. In particular I want to cover in my contribution how the bill addresses some of the recommendations of the independent review, chaired by Nial Finegan, the Independent Review of Timber Harvesting Regulation: Panel Report to the Secretary of the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning of October 2018.

Can I say of Nial Finegan that I have had the opportunity to work with him both in his role at the Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA), where he was of course the CEO, but also much earlier than that in his role as regional director—perhaps it was—at VicRoads, certainly in the northern suburbs of Melbourne. We had a number of conversations about Bell Street, the mall in West Heidelberg and some projects that we worked together on that I was constantly reminding him of, some of the legacy issues that we were able to deal with out there. Then of course my previous roles as Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment and Parliamentary Secretary for Water gave me the opportunity to work again with Nial in relation to the EPA and particularly our government’s work in the review and the updating of the environment protection act, which was very significant work for our government.

I was pleased to see his role in chairing the independent review of timber harvesting regulations. In particular I will quote from the foreword:

What is abundantly clear is that the system of policy, legislation and regulation is dated, complex, convoluted—indeed labyrinthine—and difficult to use, and DELWP is neither an effective or respected regulator. During our consultations, we found a highly polarised and contested environment, strained relationships between parties, a lack of trust and frustration. These features undermine the realisation of better outcomes from forest management and forest values for everyone.

Not only that, but of course if you do not have a clear understanding of where the accountabilities are, people get frustrated. That leads to further issues in relation to firewood collection, its legality and trying to manage that on our public lands.

Can I say in particular that there are a couple of recommendations before I go to some aspects that perhaps the bill has not picked up. What I wanted to touch on, picking up from that foreword and that particularly incisive assessment, was that what we are trying to do here is to make sure that the bill responds to some of those more significant legislative limitations that have been outlined that have prevented the effective regulation of timber harvesting in Victoria. There have been several high-profile regulatory issues that we are aware of which have increased the community and media and stakeholder scrutiny on the legislative framework. Those issues have highlighted that the framework is performing in a manner that is not consistent with community expectations, and that has been picked up in that independent review.

The bill seeks to address three recommendations of that review that resulted from the failed timber harvesting prosecution in late 2018 and to identify significant legislative gaps that limit the effectiveness of the timber harvesting regulations. In particular there are a couple of areas where the bill seeks to pick up on recommendations 10, 11 and 12, in part and in full. They are the recommendations that seek to improve the existing regulatory tools, including the offence of unauthorised timber harvesting operations. It also enhances the regulators’ ability to apply graduated and proportionate tools in response to non-compliance. Other recommendations call for action such as changes to organisational policy and procedures—not only that but also addressing, in the findings of the independent review that were just touched on, that some of the actions have been too reactive by the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning in its approach to regulation. So expanding the power to seek an injunction to compel certain conduct will provide the regulator with an additional tool that can be used to pre-empt and prevent environmental harm in the first place.

There are a couple of aspects that the review made recommendations about that the bill does not seek to address at this time. We are trying to use the existing timber harvesting framework and to ensure that that framework operates more effectively, so some of the longer term reforms that have been suggested in the independent review have not been picked up at this stage. That includes recommendation 14, which recommended that the government consider modernising the legislative framework in broader terms. As we have stated here, we are trying to work through the existing framework and make that more effective in the short term. The bill also does not seek to address, this time, recommendation 10, and that is about providing directions and suspension powers for authorised officers. Amendments to make those sections more effective and compliance tools require careful consideration around unintended consequences—that they are identified and managed. These and other reforms will be considered by our government when we implement the measures that are already outlined and committed to in the Victorian Forestry Plan.

I also wanted to just pick up a recent article in the Shepparton News. I would like to reference the date for that, and I will provide that to Hansard: 2 October 2019. It is ‘Time to dob in illegal loggers’, and I quote:

Today’s front page story on the illegal felling of trees north of Shepparton comes on the back of similar activity in bushland near Mooroopna reported last month.

We have no way of knowing whether these illegal activities are being performed by the same people, but they are to be condemned whoever is responsible.

Random tree felling is upsetting and highly destructive. As well as destroying the natural habitat of hundreds of species of native birds, mammals and reptiles …

Again, our communities are being undermined by our poor practice, and we need to make sure that there is community confidence that prosecutions are successful. We need to make sure that the regulatory framework backs in not only compliance officers but the department so that where cases are prosecuted people know that if you are going to, on balance, take these risks and break the law, there are going to be consequences. At the moment too many people behaving poorly do not believe that there are significant consequences and do not believe that they are likely to get caught. That is what we were seeking to address through that independent review work that was done in October 2018. We need to give the community confidence that the law will be applied. We need to deter those who seek to act in their best interest, perhaps, but not in the best interest of the community. We need to protect our public lands. We need to make sure, as has been outlined here, that some of those issues that we are seeking to address in this bill are able to occur.

Can I just say that what was very clear from those opposite when they were in government was that, as we well know, they presented no plan for the protection and management of Victoria’s natural environment. They decimated the operations of Parks Victoria, where one in 10 staff lost their job, and of course they crushed the support provided to coastal volunteers. We know where those opposite stand when it comes to the natural environment, and what is really important here is that in picking up on some of the issues outlined in this legislation we are trying to give the community greater confidence that those perpetrators will be brought to book and that the law that applies will be able to see more successful prosecutions in the future.

But what we really want to get to is to send a very clear message from the Parliament to not only those who seek to log illegally but also those who seem to be collecting firewood illegally as well and to make it clear that you will get caught and that there are appropriate legislative frameworks in place that will be applied to you to see that you are brought to book in our courts. Where that has been undermined in the past has led to that independent review work and has led to this legislation today. There is more that I think we can do into the future, but in the short term what we want to do is provide greater effectiveness to the existing timber harvesting framework—and that is what this bill is about.

I also reflect: everyone has their stories from the past of being able to go out into our public lands when you are camping or when you are on holidays and load up the boot with firewood to take back to wherever you might be camping. We certainly did that around Lake Eildon, growing up as kids. Down there on Maintongoon Road, down there at Bonnie Doon, we would do that. Getting out in the natural environment, being able to load up the boot there with the family and getting out there and collecting firewood—no-one is trying to take those opportunities away from families. But what we do need to make sure of is that for those who seek to take where they should not and those who seek to take more than is appropriate, we have some regulations to apply. That is really important to give confidence to the community that this is a resource that needs to be shared, it is a resource where there needs to be accountability and it belongs to all Victorians.

Can I also praise the work of our Indigenous representatives and the work that they have done in having input into this legislation and this work. I commend the bill.

Ms THOMAS (Macedon) (16:10): I might begin by picking up on some of the points made by my colleague the member for Ivanhoe. There is no doubt about it: there has never been a better time for Victorians to enjoy all that our natural environment has to offer, because this is a government that has created more opportunities for families to get out into our parks and into our forests with our great outdoors package that is seeing more families take up the opportunity to take out a tent and go and experience the great outdoors, as indeed the member for Ivanhoe did as a young child.

This bill is a really important bill in that it does look to our forests and ensures that we are taking good care of the estate managed by the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change. I might just talk a little bit through what the bill actually seeks to do. It amends the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act 2004, the Forests Act 1958, and the Conservation, Forests and Lands Act 1987 to clarify the key offence provisions for illegal timber harvesting to ensure that it unambiguously applies to VicForests and its contractors. It increases standards of accountability for VicForests and increases the penalties for the offence. It will create a new offence prohibiting the cutting, felling and removal of timber from state forests that applies consistently across the entire state of Victoria. It will expand the regulatory tools for graduated and proportionate responses to non-compliance, including injunctions and enforceable undertakings. It will create a power for authorised officers to require the production of documents, a power that is vital to the functioning of the regulatory framework. It will harmonise the legislative provisions relating to VicForests compliance with the Code of Practice for Timber Production 2014 and will allow contemporary mapping tools to be incorporated into key regulatory instruments for timber harvesting and ensure these maps are enforceable. It will make several technical amendments, including repeals of spent and redundant provisions of the Forests Act.

It is an important bill, and I want to go back and talk in a little bit more detail about how it fits within the context of this government’s work to ensure meaningful protection and care for the environment, balanced at all times with the need to create jobs and opportunities in regional Victoria. Let us be very clear that it is only Labor governments that can manage this balancing act. On the one hand we have the Greens, who have no concern whatsoever for the job-destroying approach that they would take to the management of our environment—no concern whatsoever. Let us be clear. The Greens currently represent an inner-city bubble. They have no understanding of the way in which economies operate in the communities that I represent—for instance, the towns of Trentham or Blackwood or Kyneton or Daylesford and so on—or indeed, Deputy Speaker, the communities that you represent. The Greens have no understanding of how our regional economies work.

On the other hand, the Libs and the Nats have a faux concern for timber workers. Let us be very clear about that. These are not the friends of working people. They never have been and never will be, and we know of course they are very ready to disregard the best interests of the environment at any given time. If you want an example of that, let us look no further than when, under the Bracks government, it was the Labor government that got the cattle out of the High Country.

Mr Carbines interjected.

Ms THOMAS: Yes, indeed, member for Ivanhoe. Those on the other side—and in fact one of the former members for Northern Victoria Region in the other place, who attempted to win the seat of Macedon back in 2014—were big fans of the fuel reduction units, otherwise known as cows. Indeed that member talked about how there were lead cows that knew the pathway through the park in order not to damage the environment. Let us call this out for the nonsense that it absolutely was.

We got the cattle out of the High Country not once but twice, because when the environmental vandals, otherwise known as the Liberal Party, were in power, they put those cattle back into the High Country. I am very pleased it was the Andrews Labor government that then removed them yet again.

As I said, at no other time in Victoria’s history are our forests as deeply valued as they are now as part of sensitive ecosystems, some that are found nowhere else on earth. They are homes for extraordinary biodiversity and wildlife. They provide a refuge from climate change and support important regional economies through tourism and of course as a resource for firewood and timber.

In my community we welcome with open arms visitors from Melbourne and particularly those from the north-western suburbs. To me it is vitally important for the communities that I represent that we protect our unique landscapes and environmental values in order that they may be enjoyed by city dwellers looking for some relief and respite from city life. Indeed the Minister for Planning is in the chamber as we speak, and what I love about both this bill and the Andrews Labor government is how our ministers work in concert to ensure that we are delivering environmental protections that also enable sustainable growth.

Let us look to the distinctive areas and landscapes. As I have already mentioned in this place, it was the Minister for Planning who joined me only a week ago to announce the first statement of planning policy enabled by the Planning and Environment Amendment (Distinctive Areas and Landscapes) Bill 2017 that was introduced in this place and passed in the last term. It will protect the unique environmental values, protect the cultural and heritage values, protect tourism assets and it will draw settlement boundaries that can only be altered by this place. What that means, and why that is really important and an important balancing act for us—again, something that only Labor governments can do—is that we recognise we need to ensure there is a land supply so that we can continue to build new housing stock and that industry can continue to grow, but protecting that area between all of the towns. It is not just the environmental values, but farming continues to be a very important part of the economy out my way.

Before I conclude, and I recognise that I have jumped around a bit in this contribution and traversed a number of topics, I did want to go to the issue of the collection of firewood. This is a really important issue in my electorate, and there are still communities that are dependent upon firewood for their heating. However, I have been having some great conversations with the minister for the environment, who of course is also the minister for energy, and my vision is really to ensure that, for those people who are doing it tough in regional Victoria, who struggle to pay their power bills, we can look at ways through our amazing Solar Homes program to ensure that we are delivering opportunities for people in smaller regional communities to access solar power and to really reduce their energy bills and enable them to use some of the most energy-efficient appliances that are now on the market.

I think there will be an inevitable transition and one that I would say could only possibly be delivered by a Labor government. But this is an important bill. It is part of a much broader strategy of reform, which is of course about balancing the needs for economic sustainability but also protecting our very beautiful natural environment here in Victoria and all of the ecosystems within it. I commend the bill to the house.

Ms WARD (Eltham) (16:20): I rise also with pleasure, as have so many others in this house, to speak on this bill. I was glad to hear the opposition speak on this and not oppose it, because I do think it is sensible, mature and thoughtful legislation. I am glad that there is not game playing going on with this.

It is pretty incredible when you think that Victoria has got around about 6.4 million hectares of forest on public land in this state. That is a lot of land, and it is pretty amazing when you also think that we have lost 1.2 hectares of Victorian land—

Mr Wynne: 1.2 million hectares.

Ms WARD: Yes, that is exactly right—1.2 million hectares of public and private land in our state lost through the recent fires, which I know that everybody in this place is, frankly, quite devastated by. We stand with those communities and we recognise exactly how traumatic this is. We have lived through this before, and I know that we are unfortunately going to have to live through this again in the future, because this is the new climate.

Mr Wynne: The new normal.

Ms WARD: That is exactly right, Minister—the new normal, sad as it is, so it is important that we have thoughtful legislation that does take our environment seriously, that does recognise the importance of regulation. I know that we can have a lot of conversation around the need to eliminate red tape, that ‘The Labor Party ties things up too much’ and we make things hard. Well, actually, sometimes things have to be hard. Sometimes things do need red tape. Sometimes you do have to go through steps to make sure that you are doing the right thing, and we do have to have regulations in place to protect our community, our environment and people’s livelihoods. Our forests are places to enjoy and they are places to revel in the environment, but they are also places of livelihoods. As a government we have got to respect that. We have got to, as a Labor government, thoughtfully walk that path that bridges respecting livelihoods as well as our beautiful environment.

Ms Thomas: Hard work is hard.

Ms WARD: You are right, member for Macedon; hard work is hard, and this government does not shy away from hard work and we do not shy away from making the hard decisions. I congratulate the minister and her staff in the department for all of the work that they have put into the amendments in this legislation as well as the independent review that the minister set up into timber harvesting regulation. I thank them for the recommendations that they have made.

Our forests are a finite resource. We do have to look after them. We do have to work out strategies and plans for ensuring that our regional and rural communities grow and flourish, that they are supported and that they have the jobs that they need. We have also got to make sure that we preserve our natural environment, that we look after the ecology, that we look after our flora and fauna, that we continue to nourish our green lungs that are peppered all the way across our state—that beautiful environment that we need so much to keep our air clean. We have used a modern approach which creates revised offences, including unauthorised timber harvesting, meaning anyone who is harvesting timber without a valid licence, permit or allocation. Actually, member for Macedon, you will be interested in some of the reading that I have done and the research that I have done around this bill. There was a story from the Bendigo Advertiser.

Ms Thomas: Right! The Geelong Addy?

Ms WARD: No, the Bendigo Addy. It talked about consumers unwittingly using illegally harvested firewood because of a raft of forest thefts over many years. This came from a La Trobe University ecologist; in the latest case—this is going back to last year—a large number of trees was taken from around the Castlemaine and Kyneton area:

It is hard to get exact figures on how much Victorian firewood has been taken illegally over the years.

I go to the member for Ivanhoe’s point: this is not people grabbing a couple of logs of wood to take home and chuck in the fire at home. Indeed—a similar experience to yours, member for Ivanhoe—when I was growing up you would go out camping; Dad would put the trailer on the back of the car and off you would go with the kids, probably illegally, bouncing around in the back of the trailer. But it was fun. Trailer rides are a lot of fun. You would jump out, grab some wood, chuck it in, go back to the campground and have your fire for the night. You would be glad for the fire because it could get pretty cold some nights. Some nights are a two-dog night, some nights are a one-dog night, but you are glad you have got your fire.

Back to this article. So anecdotally and from what you can see in the forests, you can see it is quite substantial. The La Trobe Uni ecologist goes on:

“I think there’s certainly been a rise in the amount of illegal felling and fallen timber collection to supply to the Melbourne market as open wood fires become more and more popular as a luxury heating element,” he said.

“You just have to look at what people are prepared to pay for a trailer-load of redgum or box. It is highly profitable, particularity when you are stealing that resource from the public estate.”

So I do find it ironic, and I suspect that the member for Macedon will enjoy this along with me, that some of our inner-city hipsters who like to talk about preserving our environment, stopping logging tomorrow and all the rest of it are actually potentially buying illegally felled firewood because they want to have their fires in their lovely $2 million inner-city abodes.

Mr Wynne interjected.

Ms WARD: Not you, member for Richmond. I am sure you do not have a $2 million luxurious inner-city abode with roaring fireplaces. My nan used to use briquettes. She had the briquette shed down the back.

Mr Wynne interjected.

Ms WARD: I am not going to talk about your pot belly, member for Richmond, but I do want to go back to the terrific speech given by the member for Northcote, who spoke about the member for Melbourne and her reference to ‘a lot of bluster about jobs’ when you are talking about forestry jobs.

Mr Wynne interjected.

Ms WARD: That is exactly right—a lot of bluster. I wanted to talk to that, because I think ‘bluster’ is actually a really insensitive term when you are talking about jobs. I went to what the definition of bluster is, and of course it is ‘talk in a loud, aggressive or indignant way with little effect’. I will tell you what: if that is not a slogan for the Greens party, I do not know what is. So while the Greens can have their bluster, what we will have is actually a serious and respectful conversation about jobs and about forestry jobs.

A 10-year transition is going to be hard, but it is something that we need to do in this state because we do take jobs seriously and we do take people’s livelihoods seriously. Transition is painful and transition is hard, and it is not something to make cheap political points about while you sip your latte in your inner-city abode with your potentially illegally harvested firewood. It is something that you need to take seriously, and you need to have serious conversations with these communities. Do not go and tell them, ‘You can get a job in tourism. Go and be a tour guide’. Do not be so disrespectful as to tell them the kind of work they should have. Go and talk to them and ask them what kind of work they would like to have. Ask, ‘How do you want to be a part of a transition, and how can we support you to do that? Because we respect your work, we respect the value that you get out of your work and we want to help you get the best job that you can get. We want to help you respect the job that you have got and feel respected for the job that you have’. Until those respectful conversations can be had by some of our environmentalists, we are going to continue to have this ongoing tension where regional and rural communities feel disrespected by inner-city elites who do not actually want to listen to them, who do not want to hear what they have to say and who do not want to understand what they value.

On this side of the house we know that those communities value the forests that they work in, they value the communities that they belong to and they want everyone in this state to show the same level of respect and the same level of regard that they have for themselves, and that is exactly what they are entitled to. I am happy to say that this is what this government wants too. This is a government that is showing leadership in this area, that is having a calm, rational and respectful conversation about what we need to do in our forests, and these amendments to the legislation are exactly that. It is a respectful conversation. They are sensible amendments to the legislation that will help protect our forests but will also help protect the livelihoods of people who do legally harvest firewood, who do legally harvest timber, people who go out there and do the right thing. They also need to be protected, which they will be by these amendments to the legislation, and the bill has my full support.

Mr RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (16:30): It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the Forests Legislation Amendment (Compliance and Enforcement) Bill 2019. This significant bill is part of the work we are doing in the protection of environmental assets across our state and indeed in the work relating to the transition that our timber industry is facing. Following on the theme and the points made by the member for Eltham about this industry, I will reflect a little bit in my contribution on the contributions of forestry workers; the environmental assets that we need to protect into the future that are indeed the assets shared by every member of the sovereign state of Victoria; and, into the future, some of these regulations as we transition over the coming decade.

It is a difficult transition. We have seen an analogy of how you deal with transitions into the future. We saw the automotive industry and how the values of a political movement dealt with the transition in automotive and how political parties fronted up to that challenge. We saw those opposite and some of their mates in Canberra goad an industry away, cheerlead it, celebrate it—celebrate taking funding out and leaving workers on their knees and everything that comes with that: the challenges of meeting the family budget, the uncertainty, the depression that is experienced by losing employment and losing those outcomes.

Here on this side we do not leave people behind and we do not squib the responsibility to front up to the hard decisions and the challenges that our state faces. A weaker political movement could have put their head in the sand and said, ‘We’re not confronting this challenge into the future’. Now, we have stumped up and backed by science, backed by the reality of the transition of this industry and an inevitable conclusion that we are facing, we are going to support working families, because that is what Labor governments do. We will not celebrate it and gleefully cheer like the Greens political party. My good friend the member for Northcote summed up exactly everything that needed to be said on the rank hypocrisy of the Greens political party. This is a political organisation that fronts up occasionally to union movement walks through the city. You see them out on the periphery, on the fringes, trying to tap into the union movement, but they consistently leave working people high and dry. In this transition and what we are experiencing with the timber industry, and indeed into the future, we will support working families.

I remember my first interaction as a state electorate officer for the former member for Gembrook with the beautiful, pristine areas through the Black Spur, some pristine areas up through Warburton, Warburton East, Powelltown, Millgrove—just an incredible region of the Upper Yarra. It also has significant environment protection elements to it and it also has logging communities and timber-working communities as well. I observed that balance and that tension quite early on while working out how we can meet those outcomes and meet those challenges into the future. I remember difficult interactions with communities where the risk of losing substantial hundred-years-in-the-making trees and environmental assets was a significant challenge, while also assisting workers to put food on the table and balance responsibilities into the future in a diminishing industry.

We should place on the record as well that this has been amplified with recent challenges from bushfires. I want to also say—and it goes without saying as videos have been shared with members of Parliament, there have been interactions with communities and, you know, our crew will front up to this in our conference in a fortnight’s time—that these timber workers and communities also put their shoulders to the wheel as CFA volunteers, as timber workers who were getting out and building those firebreaks and those lines as well, and we thank them and put on the record their contribution as well. That is what we will do as a government. We acknowledge the challenges that we face. We will acknowledge the realities that we face and not squib it for another couple of years or even 18 months.

Before these decisions were made as well, the irrefutable truth was that the harvest capacity that we face in this state would be greatly diminished by a catastrophic fire event. Unfortunately that has come to pass. It is quite hard to comprehend, but the devastation that we saw with Black Saturday was over 400 000 hectares and the area burnt and devastated is over 1.6 million hectares, so there was a substantial wipe-out of environmental assets and indeed wildlife as well, and the ability to log and harvest has been substantially felt. In the strategic plans and documents put forward by the government, assessed and reviewed, that was a strategic risk. It is a tragedy that that has played out sooner. As a government, as communities and indeed as a Parliament we have to confront that reality going forward into the future. So that is a challenge as we work through transition: how do we support our natural environment and the significant assets? We have seen such a degradation of natural wildlife, the likes and ferocity of which we have not seen, and the impacts that that has on our community and indeed biodiversity is just a significant flow-on effect as well.

This bill is part of a number of reforms that will be coming over the decade that we have to work through. Importantly as well, it is enhancing VicForests’s accountability for timber harvesting operations that it engages its contractors to undertake, providing that greater accountability and greater transparency and clarifying regulatory tools and investigative powers for timber harvesting to strengthen these tools and ensure that the rules apply equally to everyone. I think that is really important, because the experience when I was a state adviser was that sometimes the knowledge of areas that were being impacted by logging or harvesting would be ambiguous and sometimes there would be statements put forward by the community that areas were being encroached on that were not part of catchments, or there were suggestions that salvaging that was occurring at that time was beyond the realms of what was approved. This will provide greater clarity and provide greater assurance for communities that interact with these communities going forward and make sure that there is that greater accountability as well.

The other thing that I think was an important point raised by the member for Ivanhoe and the member for Eltham as well was around the harvesting of firewood along roadsides. This comes up as well in a conversation in two frames. One is about the natural habitat of various animals along roadsides, so the taking out of that and the impact that has—and we get correspondence and engagement on that. The other side is that by taking the firewood there is a suggestion that that would be a fuel reduction element as well. As was eloquently put forward by the member for Eltham, there needs to be accountability in this space. We used to live in Coldstream, which is not so regional as some of the areas that we talk about. You would grab a bit of firewood, and that would go in the Coonara and that would underpin your warmth through the winter and the like. I have fond memories of those days as well.

But it is not just that. We are talking about widespread, coordinated taking of these assets that really needs to have that greater accountability and oversight. The suggestion or notion that picking up firewood along the roadside—that is, the minimal assets you can take away in a ute or on a trailer—will be a substantial change to impacts of fire I would like to see play out in evidence. That is the suggestion sometimes put forward. I would like to see how that is actually put forward in evidence. We see high overhanging limbs and the impact from that; absolutely that is a conversation to have. The notion that things that are felled are contributing to that and undermining a firebreak—I would like to actually see those suggestions put forward in evidence and what that looks like going forward. There needs to be greater accountability, and there needs to be greater oversight going forward as well.

This is an important bill in a range of reforms that will be going over the decade, but I put again on the record that this Labor government will not squib its responsibilities where there are difficulties facing industries. It will not, like the Greens political party, cheerlead and pray and hope that working people and their families will be undermined and hope that they will lose their jobs or follow some of the absolutely outrageous examples of some environmental organisations, cheerleading bushfires and cheerleading forestry fires and people losing their jobs. You might try to sneak onto marching down Melbourne with the union movement, but we really call out what you are, and we will never, never stand with the Greens political party on issues of protecting working people.

Mr Angus interjected.

Mr RICHARDSON: The member for Forest Hill, I do not think he got a full 50 per cent primary, did he? Yes, he relied on a few preferences to get over the line. You should not be lecturing on preferences, mate. This bill is really important to future reforms.

Ms SHEED (Shepparton) (16:40): I am pleased to rise and speak on this bill. This is an important bill that clarifies and strengthens the regulation of timber harvesting and illegal firewood collection in Victorian state forests, and it is amending a number of pieces of legislation. It responds to a number of concerns about the regulation of timber harvesting throughout Victoria. I have to say it has had an impact in the area I live in, and I will come to that in more detail as I go on.

It is the result of an independent review of timber harvesting regulation that was completed in 2018. The bill places new penalties on unauthorised timber harvesting operations. It increases penalties, which is something that is very important and something that I know the department and Parks Victoria have been calling for for quite a while, particularly in relation to the taking of firewood illegally. The bill increases the time period available to bring charges for an offence from two years up to three years. It places greater accountability on VicForests for actions of its contractors if they breach the offence of unauthorised timber harvesting operations. The bill expands the power for the Secretary of the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning to seek injunctions of various kinds, a broader power than has previously been there.

The 2018 Independent Review of Timber Harvesting Regulation report recommended new powers and protections be given to authorised officers to be able to require production of documents. This is an important aspect of the legislation too. It allows for newer mapping tools to be used and also harmonises legislative provisions relating to VicForests’s compliance with the Code of Practice for Timber Production 2014.

The illegal taking of firewood in my electorate has been a very big issue for the last 12 months or so. I have had a number of constituents come into my office who live on the edge of Reedy Swamp or Gemmill Swamp down by Loch Garry and who hear chainsaws going throughout the night. When they go and investigate in the morning they are finding huge trees that have been logged. It appears to be some sort of illegal firewood gathering activity where large amounts of firewood are being gathered, put in trucks and brought to Melbourne to sell to the public who need wood for fire. This is highly illegal. I have seen pictures of some of the trees that have been cut down. They were really huge old-growth trees in some instances. It has been very concerning to members of my community. People have taken it upon themselves to go down at other times in daylight to video this sort of behaviour and have provided that sort of evidence to the department, so I think people in my community are very keen to see some successful prosecutions out of this. I would say that this piece of legislation certainly increases the penalties for that sort of behaviour, but let us hope it also creates more ability to prove the offences. Some of these tools that are effectively being brought in through this legislation may also help with some of the investigations and capturing people, because I think very often there is a good idea of what is going on but it is hard to gather together the proof that is needed.

The Northern Victorian Firewood & Home Heating Project report was published in 2018. That was an important piece of work that identified people in our northern Victorian community who actually rely on firewood for a number of reasons. This might sound surprising, but out of all households in northern Victoria, firewood is the primary source of heat for 51 per cent of the population. Now, this report also looked at vulnerable communities in northern Victoria, and it found that 55 per cent had no other source of heating, 14 per cent rely on firewood for cooking, 7 per cent rely on firewood for heating water and 43 per cent had to collect their firewood from public land.

So the issue of firewood collection for regional communities remains very important; you see that level of dependency that there still is in our communities, particularly for those people who have no other source of heating. I have the Barmah forest and the Barmah National Park in my electorate, and I often get representations from people who live up in Nathalia and Barmah, bordering the forest, about a number of vulnerable families. I know Peter Newman has talked to me about the very aged woman who is a neighbour of his for whom he collects firewood and leaves for her because that is the only form of heating and indeed cooking that she uses.

There is still quite a need out there, and I know that Parks Victoria at times will say that they are concerned that there is not enough firewood in available spaces. Over the last few years it has been a concern to a number of people that when firewood collection areas are declared, the closest one might be way up in the Gunbower forest or somewhere like that, which really makes it very difficult for local communities to access it if they do not have their own vehicles, trailers and suitable equipment to do it.

I think it is time that some serious thought is put into how we look after those vulnerable communities. No doubt that report that has identified those groups of people will be the instigator of that. I hope that some solutions can be achieved to really assist families, because our regional communities, we know, are ageing communities, and they are unlikely to switch to new ways of doing things.

We saw the rollout of natural gas to Nathalia, probably about four years ago, and I could not help but think at the time what a great pity it was that we were spending so much money on rolling out gas when the money that that costed could probably quite easily have been translated to solar on every rooftop in a town the size of Nathalia. That would have allowed people to use all the existing appliances they had. I believe the uptake of gas has not been terrific in that town, because you need a gas oven and you need a gas heater—it really changes the way you do things—whereas solar would have been just a really nice way of enabling people to continue to use those appliances that they had, which were electric appliances. Sometimes there is a bit of short-termism in all of this. As it stands at the moment it has created a circumstance in a town like Nathalia where you have got some people on gas and some on electricity. And what will the uptake of solar be? It is a bit of a dilemma in a town like that.

I had occasion over the holidays to read a book called Barkskins, an incredible book about the history of timber harvesting and logging in North America and how way back in those early days of the colonisation of North America the reliance on timber was so great, the wealth that could be derived from it was so great and the destruction of so many huge forests was so great. We have seen so much of that happen in our own country, because for so long timber was the only product that we could rely on. And I think of the historic times with the Barmah forest. All of those forests were cleared for red gum timber to build railways, to build ships and to build wharves; the wharves in Echuca are red gum.

The need for that sort of timber at that time was great, but it has left our forests often just with new growth, not like they once were and now much more in need of care. And they very often are not getting the level of care they need. It is incumbent upon governments to take something like the Barmah National Park, an iconic red gum forest—Ramsar-listed—to really preserve it and bring it back to its former glory to the extent that it can. It has management plans which are about to be released, and some of those will be met with some concern in local areas, concern about whether people will have to pay to get into them, whether they will be able to camp the way they used to camp and whether they will be more regulated. All these things are important issues, and I commend the bill to the house.

Mr WYNNE (Richmond—Minister for Housing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Planning) (16:50): I rise to make a contribution on the Forests Legislation Amendment (Compliance and Enforcement) Bill 2019. The bill will improve the regulation of timber harvesting and illegal firewood collection. The bill strengthens tools and powers to ensure that these activities can be better regulated. The bill amends a number of acts: the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act 2004, the Forests Act 1958 and the Conservation, Forests and Lands Act 1987.

So what does the bill do? It clarifies the regulatory tools and investigative powers for timber harvesting to strengthen these tools and ensure that they apply equally to everyone; it enhances VicForests’ accountability for the timber harvesting operations it engages contractors to undertake; it responds to recommendations for legislative change from the Independent Review of Timber Harvesting Regulation undertaken in 2018; and it improves offences for illegal firewood collection to ensure this resource can be managed fairly for those who need it.

These amendments will ensure that the regulator for timber harvesting and firewood, the Office of the Conservation Regulator, has the appropriate tools and powers it needs to do the job. The bill will ensure the environmental damage from unauthorised timber harvesting and firewood collection can be deterred and indeed punished. And that is a thoroughly, thoroughly worthwhile thing.

Just going to the further detail of the bill, the bill amends, as I indicated earlier, those three acts. It does clarify the key offence provisions for illegal timber harvesting to ensure it unambiguously applies to VicForests and its contractors, with increased standards of accountability for VicForests and increased penalties for offences. I think this is a really, really important step. It creates a new offence prohibiting the cutting, felling and removal of timber from state forests, which applies consistently across the entire state of Victoria. So it is a consistent application in all of our forest-related areas. It expands the regulatory tools for graduated and proportionate responses to non-compliance, including in the first instance injunctions and indeed enforceable undertakings. So there is a gradation in terms of what penalties may in fact apply, and we think that that is an important consideration.

It creates the power for authorised officers to require the production of documents—a power that is clearly vital for the functioning of this new regulatory framework. It harmonises legislative provisions relating to VicForests compliance with the code of practice for timber production, which of course you will recall, Deputy Speaker, was a very important initiative of the government. They put in place a code of practice in 2014. And it will allow contemporary mapping tools to be incorporated into key regulatory instruments for timber harvesting and ensure that these maps are enforceable. This actually has got a quite nice synergy also with my part of the department, particularly in terms of planning—the capacity for spatial oversight of timber harvesting with a level of accuracy that we have actually not enjoyed in the past. Finally, it will make some technical amendments including repeals of certain and redundant provisions in the Forests Act 1958. So this is really important, and I think that from the point of view of this government there are a number of aspects of this that we can be immensely proud of.

The Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change has put together here, I think, a really wonderful response to what is an important regulatory environment and one that clearly needed reform and clearly needed strengthening. She has taken up the cudgels with this, as she has done in all of her work as the minister for the environment. Frankly, there is no more passionate person who seeks to protect the environment than my dear colleague who does such a splendid job. And she does this, of course, against the backdrop of what has been—as we knew from the contributions of my colleagues—the most devastating circumstances that we have found ourselves in with these extraordinary fires that we experienced so early in the season.

I mean, the fires effectively started in late November, and can I say that I believe even today there is one fire still running in East Gippsland. That is an extraordinary situation that we have found ourselves in. We saw the desperate efforts, the courageous efforts, of our fire services, of the police and of all our emergency services who really put their lives on the line. They did this not only to save people—and of course we had the tragic deaths of five people—and that is always the first priority, but of course to save property as well. After the reports that we have seen from the Minister for Police and Emergency Services and indeed the Premier himself we stand in awe of all of the amazing work that those wonderful and brave men and women did to protect us.

The companion piece to this, of course, is the Victorian Forestry Plan. It was an absolute delight to be in this Parliament on 7 November 2019 where we released the Victorian Forestry Plan to protect immediately 96 000 hectares of habitat for the greater glider, the Leadbeater’s possum and other threatened species. The plan also immediately protected old-growth forests from harvesting, and the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning estimates that 90 000 hectares of modelled old growth were available for timber harvesting prior to this announcement. The plan also provided, crucially, a $120 million transition package to ensure workers, business and communities have the certainty and support they need as Victoria moves towards the end of timber harvesting in all native forests by 2030. What a magnificent achievement by the minister. What a magnificent achievement by this government.

Of course, our friends over there, the Greens, are going to claim this as their victory. Well, let me tell you it is only a Labor government that was prepared to stand up and to say that it is getting out of old growth but it is going to ensure that it protects the workers in that area as well with a $120 million transition package. That is what Labor governments stand for, and that is what Labor governments do.

Can I say, finally, I wanted to commend the member for Macedon. I had the pleasure of being with her up in the Macedon Ranges. In Kyneton, we were—

Ms Thomas: Yes, Black Hill.

Mr WYNNE: Black Hill in Kyneton.

A member: Was she on her scooter?

Mr WYNNE: Yes, she was on her scooter. It was pretty hilly for her, but we had a beautiful day up there last week. Indeed I enjoyed your company as well, Deputy Speaker. This was where we finally resolved the distinctive areas and landscape strategy going forward for the Macedon Ranges.

It has taken us a while to get there, but we did get there. What has been absolutely crucial about that work is that, as the member so eloquently outlined in her contribution, we are doing a whole range of things. We are in fact protecting some very significant, beautiful natural assets that we enjoy in the Macedon Ranges. But we have also been able to address the question of town boundaries—where population can be but where really crucial and important natural assets are that have to be protected going forward. This is a great piece of work, and I just want to commend the member for Macedon, who has been an absolute demon to get this work up.

With her commitment to not only the Macedon Ranges but the distinctive areas and landscapes regime, she has led our government in this. This is why the Macedon Ranges was our first distinctive area and landscapes framework that we have been able to get away. Of course we will be doing more as well, and we think this is very significant work for us. But in the broader landscape of what we are achieving here, what this bill does today is part of a broader suite of initiatives that only a Labor government can envisage. And it is only a Labor government that will ensure that these commitments that we made in successive elections are in fact delivered and delivered in full.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The time set down for consideration of items on the government business program has arrived, and I am required to interrupt business.

Motion agreed to.

Read second time.

Third reading

Motion agreed to.

Read third time.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The bill will now be sent to the Legislative Council and their agreement requested.