Thursday, 10 February 2022

VicForests

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (22:26): (1739) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Agriculture and concerns the shocking political interference in, indeed total politicisation of, VicForests. Just yesterday we memorably heard from Mr Somyurek:

What is happening right at the moment is the destruction of the public service and government agencies by stacking ALP activists and mates … Going to a government department is like going to a state conference of the ALP. Looking at a list of departmental heads—well, not heads, but people high up—is like looking like a Labor Party branch list. It is amazing. This needs to stop. This is where you have corruption creeping into your system. This is where corruption takes hold.

That was Mr Somyurek. Is this just hyperbole? The case of VicForests suggests it is not. On the very day of these insightful words, the Weekly Times reported that:

… Labor loyalists have been appointed to departmental positions overseeing forestry policy …

One has recently been:

… preselected as the party’s candidate in the key electorate of Preston.

Ms Crozier: Where do they live?

Mr Rich-Phillips: Probably not Preston.

Mrs McARTHUR: Yes. And this is far from the only way in which VicForests has been politicised. This government does not just seek its ends by regulation or legislation, though the absurd ban on native timber harvesting is catastrophic enough. When it sees a target, it adopts an even wider range of methods of attack. We have heard a number of times in this house how VicForests cannot perform their lawful business due to numerous vexatious activist court cases quite rightly termed ‘lawfare’.

Today the Weekly Times reports the minister has told VicForests not to take legal action to recover $2 million in taxpayers funds from anti-logging group MyEnvironment. This is beyond disgraceful. It is surrendering taxpayers money to pander to Green-voting inner-city seats in an election year. When will this stop? When will the Andrews Labor government stop treating the public service as a plaything and the state coffers as an electoral expense account?

The action I seek from the minister is a response to the allegations in yesterday’s Weekly Times article, a straightforward and unequivocal denial that favouritism has been shown to Labor members in appointments and an acknowledgement that there has been no advice whatsoever given against recovering a debt lawfully owed to VicForests by the MyEnvironment activist group.