Thursday, 4 August 2022

Sustainable Forests Timber Amendment (Timber Harvesting Safety Zones) Bill 2022

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Mr LEANE:

That the bill be now read a second time.

Ms BATH (Eastern Victoria) (16:45): I am really pleased to rise this afternoon to make a contribution on behalf of The Nationals and the Liberals on the Sustainable Forests Timber Amendment (Timber Harvesting Safety Zones) Bill 2022 and to put on the record that The Nationals and the Liberals will certainly be supporting this bill and its passage through the house. We will also be proposing three amendments during the debate to further strengthen the measures and protect both the physical health and the mental health of timber industry workers, contractors and their staff.

This bill is overdue. It is overdue in a very significant way. In the previous Napthine-Ryan government move-on laws were instigated and established to really reject those illegal protesters having a free-for-all in a variety of capacities and a variety of situations. When I first came in here early in 2015 the move-on laws had just been repealed by the government. I have been speaking with industry since that time, and they signified that it felt like the government had just disarmed doors and crosschecked and that protesters then felt that it was open season for being able to go on to coupes and create havoc—and havoc they have created.

I note that in the lower house the then Minister for Agriculture, Mary-Anne Thomas, made some comments, and I agree particularly with her quote from the second-reading speech:

Forestry workers, like other workers, are entitled to be mentally and physically safe as they go about their work regardless of how people may view that work.

Indeed she went on to identify a number of occasions where protesters have really reduced the health and safety of the timber harvesters on timber coupes but also potentially their own health and safety. Minister Thomas went on and spoke about tree-sits, protesters attaching themselves to harvesters or machinery—skidders or headers or whatever it would be—and also the black wallaby tactics. This is one of those tactics that I have spoken about directly with timber harvesters in Eastern Victoria Region and central Victoria—about the fear that goes through a worker as he is going about his legal duty in his workplace, the fear of people in camouflage gear stepping out from behind a tree as a harvester is conducting its work and harvesting trees. The fear that they have is absolutely palpable, and that is not fair. This is a workplace. They should be able to conduct themselves without fear of injuring or, even worse, killing a protester. The bill before us today goes some way certainly towards beefing up protections and beefing up penalties in relation to those.

Another thing that I wish to raise—and this can happen outside a timber safety zone—is spikes on roads like access roads and roads into coupes. It is well documented, and again I have spoken with industry members who have experienced this, where activists actually put spikes on the roads where people either drive to work or drive equipment, which can cause serious damage and endanger life.

I have also spoken with people who were connected when in April last year a young child was brought onto a timber coupe. That is atrocious. It is atrocious as a parent that you would consider it okay to take a child onto any construction site or workplace of danger, but to do that—I think you have just left reality. These are some of the things that this bill seeks to address, and it is addressing them by certainly beefing up some penalties. Deb Kerr, who is the CEO of the Victorian Forest Products Association, has said in public:

The Bill is an important step towards ensuring the safety of forestry workers—but also importantly, the safety of protesters …

Industry and rural Victoria know that the next step in supporting a native timber industry is actually to overturn the ban, and we The Nationals and the Liberals have made a firm commitment. Come 26 November, we will hold that ironclad commitment and overturn the ban to provide hardwood timber flow to the much-needed markets domestically in our regions and in our state to create downstream milling and products that are so needed in construction, in flooring—in a whole raft of areas that we use them in in Victoria. We have made that commitment.

I look and see that we are now up to agriculture minister or forestry minister number 4, so in seven years we have had four ag ministers. To my mind, that shows the level of perhaps lack of appreciation that the Andrews government places on the agricultural sector. We know during COVID, and I will not extend the conversation further, the agricultural sector, when everything was shutting down, fed, clothed and kept us going, and we are very thankful for it. The food and fibre part of that—the fibre is certainly our high-end products that the native timber industry produces.

The purpose of the bill is to amend the principal act, which is the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act 2004. It is to strengthen the regulatory framework around timber harvesting safety zones by increasing the penalties for existing offences, by introducing some new offences and by introducing a banning regime about keeping people off. What we have seen in the past is if a protester has been caught out, they can actually just go around the block or go to the next coupe. So there is a ban of a maximum of 28 days, which we certainly endorse.

The Nationals and the Liberals seek to improve this bill through our amendments, which strengthen the powers of police and authorised officers in certain search and seize criteria in clause 13 and also carve out an exception for authorised timber workers, so people who work there, to bring their companion dogs onto a coupe and keep them there. We feel that this is most appropriate.

During the course of debate I am sure we are going to hear things like, ‘Oh, no, but just trust us. The Andrews government is looking after this industry’. They are not, and the key factor that says that they are not is they are shredding the mental health of this sector. I will share three different ways that they are actually shredding mental health. The Minister for Environment and Climate Action, Minister D’Ambrosio, certainly has to wear a large section of blame for the shredding of the mental health of our timber harvesters and our industry as a whole. We can see by the fact that we are up to the fourth ag minister that ag ministers, forestry ministers, have not made any inroads into standing up for this industry. They have rolled over.

The first one was in the Wombat State Forest and involved windblown timber. Twelve months ago we had a massive number of trees falling over. Dja Dja Wurrung traditional owners there contracted VicForests, who then went on and contracted Jim Greenwood to salvage that fallen timber. Again, and we could go on, this industry operates under legislation and strict regulation, but we have seen when Minister D’Ambrosio, the environment minister, pushed through the Forests Legislation Amendment (Compliance and Enforcement) Bill 2019 recently, she said, ‘Trust us. The regulator has new powers, but they won’t be overstretched’. Well, we have seen in this example that they have been. The Office of the Conservation Regulator demanded Mr Greenwood produce a raft of documentation or face an $18 000 fine. Straightaway we saw that. That was challenged. The Office of the Conservation Regulator was just absolutely out of line. I spoke with Jim just a couple of weeks ago, and he was still so very frustrated. It was costing him solicitors fees—he was very concerned—and accountants fees. This information does not contribute to the lawful activity of salvaging that timber on behalf of VicForests for the Dja Dja Wurrung. That was their clear choice, and we have heard the Dja Dja Wurrung speak about their decision to clean up the Wombat State Forest.

The second part in relation to how this industry is being shredded is the green lawfare being waged by third-party litigators, because the timber code of practice still has loopholes. We have seen in the Supreme Court only now that due to Labor’s failure to close off those loopholes we have got small business operators, contractors and mill operators who are being subpoenaed by the litigators to provide a raft of ridiculous information in a very short space of time. I spoke to one of them today. The litigators are subpoenaing information about their profit and loss statements for the past two years, their interest on paid loans for equipment and their payroll figures. The court case is about a court injunction about native animals. It does not need to look down to somebody’s 14th bottom line about profit and loss for the past two years. This has all been brought about because this government will not close ambiguities in the timber code of practice.

The final one is about the frustration—and this is a wider context—about the environment. The decisions this government is making, through the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning in this instance, are actually deteriorating our environment—not only our native timber harvesting coupes but the larger sphere in relation to DELWP burns. I will give you an example. The other day I was at Kenny Road near Nowa Nowa in East Gippsland. I was speaking with Ian Cane, who happens to be in the apiarists, and we were talking about how apiarists and timber harvesting can work together in the future and what that would look like. And I appreciate his comments. We were standing in a coupe, and there was the humped, cut-end product of the timber harvesting coupe, and it looked terrible. There it was. There were mounds of stumps and the like, the leftover. I have since had a conversation with industry, and Minister D’Ambrosio, through DELWP, has stopped all of those regenerative burns after coupes. No regenerative burns have occurred this year after any coupes have been harvested, so you cannot have proper regeneration. You cannot have the ash bed created in order for those beds to produce new hardwoods in a sturdy and healthy state, and you are also leaving fuel load on the ground. That does not serve anyone, and this is coming through the government’s own directives.

In terms of the specifics of the bill, the timber harvesting safety zones are defined. They talk about active signage around them so people understand that there is a timber harvesting zone and that authorised persons can enter there and others cannot. This bill is an important step, but it is not the final step. And there is still more work to be done.

Often people in the industry in my Eastern Victoria Region feel that courts have a slap on the wrist effect. We have even seen larger fines paid through crowdfunding. And we also saw an example in the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee the other day where my colleague Mr Danny O’Brien asked the Minister for Agriculture about a $2 million court debt that MyEnvironment now does not have to pay because the government said, ‘Look, we’ll just let it go’. They cautioned VicForests to say, ‘We’re not going to pursue that $2 million’. That is $2 million worth of taxpayers funding that they are no longer going to bother pursuing. You know, other people—as I just mentioned—are having to show their laundry basket in order not to get a fine and MyEnvironment can get off scot-free. There are winners and losers in this race, and it is highly unfair from a government that purports to serve all Victorians. It is laughable.

In relation to some of the clauses, I am interested in the prohibited thing. They talk about PVC pipes and metal pipes. I want the minister at the table to identify whether a metal spike is also considered a prohibited thing. That might be something that the advisers in the box will be able to share with us.

A lot of the clauses in this bill look at beefing up penalties. Clauses 4 to 9 and 18 look at increasing those penalty units from 20 up to 60, so around $3500 up to $11 000, and there is a raft of those ‘failure to comply’ offences, which I will not go through in great detail. Clauses 8, 9 and 17 look at beefing up the various penalties in relation to infringements up to 120 units—you are looking at roughly $22 000 or 12 months imprisonment. So it is putting that bar up higher, and that again is a reasonable and appropriate thing to do. Also if you are trying to get out of providing your name and address, you have got some higher penalties there as well. Clause 13 talks about search and seizure of a prohibited thing and lists the various activities that they apply to. We certainly endorse those, and I am going to speak to our amendments shortly, which identify how that is going to be improved. Clauses 19 and 20 look at miscellaneous changes around a banning notice—a stay away notice, we will say—and a keep out notice, and there are penalties there.

Opposition amendments circulated by Ms BATH pursuant to standing orders.

Ms BATH: Speaking to the amendments that have just been circulated, the first one seeks to allow an authorised person, so a forestry worker, someone who is allowed to be on that coupe and that timber zone, to have their companion animal in the form of a dog—and it specifies ‘dog’—in those timber safety zones. What we know in other capacities and on other worksites is that on a building site it is not uncommon for workers, for tradies, to sometimes bring their companion animal there for the day, and I will provide an example in this case that would be appropriate. Many coupes are far away, are remote, and there are workers who are single and who, if they are up on those coupes for extended periods of time, would certainly have a caravan there and that companion animal can certainly be tied up and appropriately tethered during activity but at smoko, at lunch and at the end of the day they can be released as their companion animal. They can also act as a level of security so that in the middle of the night if protesters come onto that worksite they can bark and provide some level of security for the harvester. We think that that is appropriate, so that is the first amendment to clause 6.

The second two relate to clause 13, and these amendments will remove the restriction on the search and seizure powers of police and authorised officers to only work in timber harvesting safety zones—so expanding that power for authorised officers to actually conduct seize and search and interrogation discussions under the law outside the zone. Now, protesters are very smart and coordinated, and I know, having spoken with timber contractors, it is quite often that they will stand 1 to 2 metres or a short way out of that timber zone and authorised officers have no authority at all to check their bags, check their cars or conduct any sort of search upon their body. The second part looks to allowing those police officers to conduct a body search in circumstances where they reasonably believe that the person is in possession of a prohibited item in or near a timber safety zone. What happens, again, is that people are clever and they can have a metal spike in their bag, an authorised officer is approaching them and they insert it up the sleeve of their jumper or the like. Certainly then the authorised officers know that there is intent, but there is no action and they have no jurisdiction to remove that implement that could be seen as endangering either themselves or the harvester. So these are our amendments. I have had some discussions with some of the crossbenchers—and thank you very much for that discussion—and I would hope that the government will consider these amendments as a quite sensible carve-out and giving increased effect.

Finally, in the last few minutes I would just like to cover off on the issue around wood flow. The government is closing the industry, and if that continues, in the very near future we will run out of our valuable source of hardwood timber and indeed plantations. At the moment there is a chronic shortage. I have been speaking with Fenning in East Gippsland. They were on standdown and were doing some repair work, but they have very limited flow, very limited wood supply. That is going to have ramifications downstream without a doubt. These are our small communities who employ mill workers. It is very, very serious. But the grand plan for the forestry plan in terms of plantation is just a furphy. Indeed Philip Hopkins, who is a well-known timber reporter, went into some detail about plantation supply. In essence it is just insufficient to be able to take up that slack. So the government can spin all it likes about that, but genuinely we will come to a cliff and the only thing that we will be able to do is to import. Victoria will have to import further from countries that do not have the strict regulations, code of practice and high standard of environmental protections that Victoria does.

Finally, if you listen to the Greens and various other environmentalist groups you would think that the whole of our state was under threat from native timber harvesting. It is not. The greatest threat to our forest systems is indeed bushfires. We have seen that—1.5 million hectares to bushfires. That is the biggest threat that we face. We only use 5 per cent; 95 per cent of our state forest is locked up in national parks and state reserves and is excluded from harvesting. Of that, only a small amount is harvested and regenerated annually—that is if DELWP do the burns right and we get proper regeneration.

Two more points: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fourth report, back in about 2019, clearly stated that a well-managed forest system provides mitigating effects for climate change. So all the bunkum that we hear about how we need to lock it up because we are locking in our carbon—once you harvest a tree and put it on your hardwood timber floor, it is locked there and that forest can grow new timber and capture new carbon dioxide, making it safe and secure. Planet Ark have a slogan, ‘Make it Wood’—make it with wood—and that is what we should be doing well into the future.

As I said, our timber harvesters during the fire season are on the front line, clearing pathways. Indeed in many ways they are also clearing pathways for environmentalists who are trying to shut them down. When those harvesters are no longer there, who will clear our roads and who will protect our towns? This bill goes some way, and as I said, we will be supporting its passage through the house, but we also want to strengthen it with those amendments.

Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (17:11): I rise to speak on the Sustainable Forests Timber Amendment (Timber Harvesting Safety Zones) Bill 2022. I believe that everyone should have the right to protest, but I also believe that protesting should be done in a way that is safe for everyone—that does not endanger the lives of protesters or workers. Everyone is entitled to a safe workplace, and for too long our forest workers have not had that. They just want to go to work and do their job. They understand the dangers of the work that they do, and timber harvesting coupes are hazardous worksites. But a number of the protesters obviously do not see the risk that they are placing themselves and the forest workers under. Indeed their actions are putting workers under undue stress. It has an effect on their mental health, and some forestry workers have said they are constantly looking over their shoulder. It costs them time, it affects productivity, it affects their pay packets, it affects their health and it affects their safety. So I agree with the intent of this bill.

Having said that, in September last year we passed the Forests Legislation Amendment (Compliance and Enforcement) Bill 2019. That bill created offences for workers, and now we have this bill protecting the safety of workers. It is a shame that this government did not put the safety of the workers first last year. This is an example of the government’s piecemeal approach to legislation. They could have done it right the first time.

After listening to the amendments, I will be supporting the amendments today. I have no problem with people bringing their dogs to work, especially for their own safety and for their own mental health. We all love a little dog alarm. Especially in isolated situations, it is great to have a little dog in those places. Also, it would seem that there should be the right to search protesters if they feel the protesters are carrying weapons such as spikes. They are just not needed, and we need to make sure that the safety of people is adhered to in such isolated places, where you cannot just ring up 000 and get the police there.

Here in Victoria we are watching people going bankrupt in the building industry consistently at the moment. We obviously need timber for our buildings. This government wants to build more homes. We need to build more homes here in Victoria, and we need timber to be able to do that. So we need to rely on local Victorian timber to build Victorian homes. It is really sad to see the building industry suffering the way that it has been. So many have gone under at this time. If this bill makes things easier by making sure that we have local timber, we need to make sure that that is the case.

Mr MELHEM (Western Metropolitan) (17:15): I also rise to speak on the Sustainable Forests Timber Amendment (Timber Harvesting Safety Zones) Bill 2022. This bill proposes a number of amendments to the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act 2004 which aim to improve workplace safety for forestry workers. The proposed amendments are in response to the increase in dangerous forest protest activities in the safety zones since the announcement of the government’s plan back in 2019 to end native logging in Victoria by 2030.

The most common dangerous tactics being employed include the erection and occupation of tree-sits at hazardous heights. My understanding is that sometimes they are erected about 40 metres high, and we all know, for example, that if someone falls from that height basically their chances of survival are very minimal. My understanding is that if you fall from less than 15 metres you might have a slight chance of staying alive, but these are very dangerous activities, and they need to stop. They also include protesters locking themselves onto active harvesting machinery and black wallaby tactics, which Ms Bath talked about, involving camouflaged, masked protesters running in and out of timber harvesting safety zones. These dangerous tactics create the risk of serious injury or death for forest workers, authorised officers and protesters alike.

As a former union official I always, for 25 years, supported the right of people to protest, and I will continue with that approach—that people are entitled to protest peacefully without infringing on others’ safety or putting the lives of others in danger. That is the only problem I have got with what is happening in the timber harvesting industry—some of these protesters are putting workers at risk of injuring themselves in some of the examples I talked about. I do not believe these sorts of behaviours should continue. Now, their right to protest should be protected and is paramount. This legislation does not prohibit or try to stop that from happening. In fact I respect the right of activists who want to voice their opinion about policies, whether it is the government’s forest policy or any policy in relation to forests or timber harvesting et cetera. But that right stops at the exact point where someone else’s rights start.

When these workers go to work they are entitled to work in a safety zone without being harassed, without being intimidated. In some of the examples we have talked about they use UHF radios to try to find out their names and their families et cetera. That puts enormous stress and mental pressure on these workers. They should not be subjected to those sorts of pressures. We have a responsibility as legislators and as a government to make sure that workers are not being subjected to this sort of behaviour. That behaviour should be stamped out and people should be called out and punished should it occur, because, as I said, every Victorian is entitled to a safe workplace. No worker or their family should have their livelihood and wellbeing adversely impacted by illegal—and I underline the word ‘illegal’—activities in their legitimate workplace. When harvesting is taking place in accordance with the law of the state of Victoria, that should be allowed to continue uninterrupted. That does not mean that people cannot protest to change that law; it is people’s right to do that, and I respect that. But whilst Victorians—whether they are companies or workers—are carrying out a lawful task, they should not be prevented from performing that task or going about their job.

Some of the amendments that are part of this bill will increase penalties for most offences related to the timber harvesting safety zone, prohibit more things from being able to be possessed in the zone and clarify the offence of interference with timber harvesting operations, including interfering with authorised personnel and machinery. That is another example: locking yourself onto machinery. It is heavy machinery we are talking about. You could be playing with some hydraulics and then getting that machine rolled over, killing yourself or killing other people. That is dangerous. I know how to deal with heavy machinery. It is not a small toy to play with; it is very dangerous machinery. And protesters should not be allowed to get away with interfering with heavy machinery. The bill includes a new banning notice power for authorised officers and police officers and also gives new search powers to authorised officers and police officers for them to enforce the law in Victoria.

Some of these examples, I have been advised, have been happening. I have had a number of meetings in last few months with both workers from the timber industry and contractors, and they have raised all of these concerns with me. I think some of these concerns are addressed by this bill before the house, and hopefully that will go a long way to addressing these safety concerns.

This is not about debating whether or not we should stop timber harvesting today or tomorrow or the day after. The government has the 2019 plan which we set out—that by 2030 native timber harvesting will cease in the state of Victoria—but this bill is not about debating whether we should continue harvesting of native wood or not. This is a specific amendment, very narrow, which relates to the protection which we owe to workers in the industry to make sure their lives are not put at risk as a result of some irresponsible protesters. It is not all—I am sure most of the protesters mean well and want to raise their issues, and I respect what they are doing—but a small number could put workers at risk, and that is what this legislation is about. It is about making sure that workers are not put at risk.

The penalty increases are in line with what is happening in other states like Queensland. I will not go through go through them all, but there is a significant increase, for example, for refusing or failing to comply with a direction to leave a timber harvesting safety zone; that penalty will increase from $3634 to $10 900. The list goes on about the various offences. There is a substantial increase in penalties. Hopefully that will stop people from behaving the way they are behaving.

I will conclude by saying this, and I mentioned it earlier: unsafe workplaces can have significant mental health impacts, especially when the illegal activities making them unsafe are also potentially endangering others. There is enough stress already on workers in the industry about the fact we are going to stop harvesting by 2030. There is the issue about job security: ‘Where’s the next job going to be?’. We do not want to add another worry, another risk, that they could lose their lives or they could be seriously injured as a result of some of the actions of some protesters—not all protesters, as I said earlier. I think it is very important that we give them a bit of comfort that we will make sure that when they go to work to perform their work in accordance with the law in Victoria they will be protected and that if people break these laws they will be dealt with. It is all about protecting the safety and wellbeing of these workers in the sector, and I support the bill before the house.

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (17:24): I rise to make some comments on the Sustainable Forests Timber Amendment (Timber Harvesting Safety Zones) Bill 2022, which I can say from the outset I will be supporting. By and large this is a good bill. It is overdue recognition of the damage protesters are doing to legitimate business, of the stress and danger they are choosing to inflict on timber workers and of the threat their extremist ideological beliefs pose to individual livelihoods and to the entire forestry industry. Let us not pretend they are campaigning against individual infringements or isolated acts of bad practice. Their approach is total. They are protesting to stop timber harvesting completely, and they believe it is within their rights to use any means possible to achieve that end. Now, while much of this behaviour is already illegal, it is evident that some activists are not deterred, and those who bear the brunt of their self-indulgent ideological arrogance are timber workers just trying to do their jobs.

Operating heavy machinery in the darkness and in sometimes obscure terrain is inherently stressful, but when you add protesters chained to equipment or marauding around active sites camouflaged in dark clothes and balaclavas, you begin to understand the nightmare it presents. The provisions in this bill which allow police and authorised officers to issue on-the-spot bans to individuals are therefore welcome, as is the prohibition of items including metal pipes and PVC, and of course so is the increase in fines and potential prison sentences for existing offences. On this point I would just note that the government is extending more protection to the timber industry here than it does to farmers suffering from the trespass and criminal behaviour of animal activists. On this side we argued for the fines present in this legislation to be levied on those offenders too, but sadly the government failed to listen. Overall, however, I welcome the step this bill represents towards preventing this intimidatory, illegitimate economic warfare.

I would like to take a moment, however, to address another reason why I would welcome an end to these protests. It is not just about the methods used; it is the arguments themselves. In important ways these activists are just wrong. Their preconceptions about the timber industry and forestry workers are so strong that they see only a caricature of the reality. I support this industry, not just because of the livelihoods provided, the regional economies supported, for the high-quality local timber resource produced or for their essential firefighting efforts; there are also ecological and environmental arguments for sustainable forestry. These operations are nothing like the wholesale deforestation, denuded landscapes and scorched earth nightmare scenarios painted. When Labor seeks to buy the votes of urban environmentalists conjuring up images of Brazilian rainforest-style logging operations, they are dishonestly and emotively exploiting ignorance, not pursuing science-led policy to improve forest ecology.

A few weeks ago I presented a petition here which eloquently explained how wrong it is that contemporary environmentally sustainable forestry operations are blamed for the damaging ecological legacies of wildfire, past land clearances, invasive species and historical harvesting. It went further in noting that locking up forests and throwing away the key is the very opposite of supporting the environment. To quote:

… contemporary timber harvesting is a valuable tool that creates mosaic disturbances—increasing species richness, biodiversity and ecosystem resilience.

The idea that disturbance is devastating is unscientific. It ignores the evidence as well as maligning the motives of those involved in the Victorian native timber industry.

Ecological thinning is of positive benefit to ecosystems. It promotes greater diversity. Trees of different sizes and ages provide different habitats, for example. We know about the importance of hollow-bearing trees, and it has been demonstrated that thinned plantings, where a smaller number of trees grow more rapidly due to increased competition for light and nutrients, more quickly produce these essential old-growth characteristics. We also know that larger trees are less susceptible to drought, so in a world with higher temperatures and more frequent drought, areas with diverse tree stocks, including larger trees, will survive. Those with overstocked, denser, uniform plantations will not, with catastrophic consequences for the rest of the ecosystems which rely on them.

This is a small fraction of the science behind this basic truth, but I would also like to add a couple of interesting cultural considerations. The government’s own Biodiversity 2037 strategy notes that one way of increasing biodiversity is to get people involved in nature. Who would have thought? That is actually quite a profound truth for a government report, and it is totally contradicted by locking up forests. We care about the things we are involved with, the things we have contact with. That is one reason why, contrary to what some in Fitzroy might think, farmers care about their land and animals and timber workers care about the health of their forests. This government also claims to recognise the importance of Indigenous knowledge and cultural fire practices, yet given the decades of fuel supply built up in national parks and other areas, where harvesting has been prevented, slow burns are no longer possible. Proper management, including selective harvesting, would slowly remove this oversupply and enable cultural burns in the future.

In summary, I reject not just the methods of the protesters but their essential arguments too. They are hopelessly preconceived and automatically assume that any human interaction with the environment is by definition harmful, especially when there is—shock, horror—some commercial element.

What this bill does not do, however, is deal with the single-biggest threat to the timber industry, and that, I am afraid, is not the protesters at all; it is the government. We have spoken at length in this chamber about the absurdity of the Victorian Forestry Plan and the damage its ban on native timber harvesting will do. In my view, it is this ban which the environmentalists should be protesting against. Selective, careful forest management operations will be outlawed, yet the demand will not disappear. Instead we will have the environmentally unfriendly importation of inferior timber from different parts of the world with much lower ecological standards, and we will shut out the generations of knowledge of those stewarding the forest today.

I have mentioned before James Kidman and his father, Murray, who together run an extraordinary business called Otway Tonewoods. They source and prepare limited quantities of carefully selected high-grade local blackwood, satinwood and mountain ash. Much goes to Melbourne’s celebrated Maton Guitars, who make instruments with a worldwide reputation and whose customers include internationally famous musicians. The remainder goes to other specialist instrument makers in our state and sustains an industry with generations of knowledge. What is the alternative here if we trash this supply chain? Would the government and the environmentalists prefer them to import the wood from mega plantations halfway across the world? Or perhaps make the guitars out of plastic? Victorian wood is not just a beautiful and sustainable material, it is a natural carbon store. It is exactly the sort of business which those who care about the environment should be supporting, not destroying.

My final point here is to point out the hypocrisy or the incompetence of a government which claims to protect the timber industry with this legislation and yet not only outlaws significant chunks of that industry but fails even to deliver the transition policy it promises—namely, investment in plantations. My coalition and Public Accounts and Estimates Committee colleague the member for Gippsland South has done much to establish this. We have heard at PAEC that, despite the 2017 budget’s allocation of $110 million to new plantations in the Latrobe Valley, not a single new tree has yet been planted—$110 million, and not a tree planted. All that has happened so far is the replacement of 500 hectares of existing plantation land—in itself an absolute fraction of the total timber requirement. The harm this does extends way beyond the timber industry and out into the wider economy. Already we know how badly the shortage of available timber is affecting house building and how the growing waitlists for deliveries and spiralling material prices are beginning to impact housing supply and property prices. This can only continue to get worse, and the consequences will be deeply damaging.

In conclusion, while I support this bill, it does very little to repair the damage this government is doing to the forestry industry. It is not so much giving with one hand and taking with the other as patting on the back with one and knifing in the chest with the other. While the bill quite properly further discourages illegal protest, the government’s ban on native timber harvesting perpetuates the ignorant preconceptions of these same protesters and in fact encourages them further. While I will vote yes today, reversing the ban on native timber harvesting will be one of the greatest privileges, and I hope one of the measures, of the new coalition government in November.

Mr MEDDICK (Western Victoria) (17:37): Let me begin by sharing part of an open letter that was written to the government on 7 June this year. It was sent to the Premier, the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Workplace Safety and was signed by 12 respected and democratic institutions that do not support this bill. They are: Environmental Justice Australia, the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, the Australian Democracy Network, the Victorian Forest Alliance, Environment Victoria, the Victorian National Parks Association, Friends of the Earth Melbourne, Liberty Victoria, the Human Rights Law Centre, Friends of Leadbeater’s Possum, Act on Climate and the Wilderness Society. I quote:

Victorians have a long and proud history of peaceful protest. The freedom to protest sits at the heart of our democracy. It allows those without financial means or access to politicians and platforms to be able to be heard and effect change. In the context of a climate crisis, continued destruction of First Nations Country, and collapsing ecosystems, we need to protect this right more than ever.

Non-violent protest and the ability of people to speak up for justice is the cornerstone of a progressive government. So it surprises me that the government is criminalising protest, particularly when that protest is grounded in social and environmental justice. People are protesting to protect our home. Yes, our forests are wildlife habitat; yes, they are core to biodiversity; yes, they are crucial to the future of our species, but the forests breathe for us too. Nature is our home. There is a reason that people protest. In this case they do so because the government—all governments—are not doing enough; they are not doing their job.

Australia is seen as one of the most shameful examples of bad environmental management around the world, and Victoria is complicit in our international reputation. We have the worst record of species extinction. VicForests, the government’s logging agency, is currently subject to nine community legal cases because it keeps breaching environmental laws. VicForests continues to act on the instructions of the government to log native habitat, seriously and irreversibly harming greater gliders, Leadbeater’s possums and other small animals by destroying their homes. Whilst governments usually look only to the current election cycle and budget cycle, the burden caused by the destruction of our forests will not be carried by us but laid upon our great-great-grandchildren. This is why more than ever people must have the right to freely and safely protest the felling of forests, especially when bills such as this make it easier than ever for bulldozers to mow down the homes of native animals and destroy the lungs of this land.

The government, like all governments since 1788, see native forests as a resource to exploit rather than a source of life, particularly for native animals. Native animals and the forests that they live, love and play in rely on us to be their voice, whether in this chamber or in the forests themselves. People usually protest out of desperation, when all other alternatives—conversation, deliberation and negotiation—have been sought and failed. Rather than make it more difficult to protest, why not remove the reason people are protesting in the first place by bringing forward the time frame of the government’s commitment to end old growth logging of Victorian native forests and also bringing forward the transition packages for just transitions for these workers?

If the government is serious about guarding against environmental collapse and biodiversity decline, the people would no longer need to protest. They could go home to their families and get on with the other things they would rather be doing. Without the logging there will be no need for protest. Without protest there will be no need for these heavy-handed laws. As a long-term advocate for workplace safety I support any clause in any bill that makes work environments safe. I will support any clause in any bill that prohibits actions that could injure or kill any worker in any environment. That in this bill is where my support ends. This legislation in the view of many in the community undermines our democratic processes, specifically the right to protest. Nowhere else do we see penalties applied simply for protesting against policy. What we see in this bill is that fines are tripled simply because of the geographical location of where that protest takes place. Where is the evidence that this extreme increase is required? And what about the expanded search and seizure powers that officers have, which use intimidation in logging areas to keep people from protesting?

This bill also introduces banning notices. The previous minister explained that these banning notices mirror the ones in the Wildlife Act 1975. I do not support those and I do not support these. Those banning notices stop people from rescuing injured ducks and these banning notices stop people from protecting forests. These bans criminalise compassion and courage. People who protest on behalf of forests, oceans and animals do so to prevent harm, not to cause it. People expect the government to act in the best interests of the people, which means the environment on which we all depend for life and health—everyone, without exception, including all of us in this chamber—yet the bottom line is the excuse for all manner of environmental devastation and animal cruelty no matter the cost.

Just like our rights must be tempered with responsibility, our freedoms must be tempered with respect for the freedoms of others. I am specifically referring to the rights of non-human native animals, many of whom are now facing extinction in the very areas we are seeking to log. Now, I realise I am but one voice here, but I will make sure that my voice speaks for those who are so often ignored, particularly when their lives and habitats come into conflict with the human desire to make money. Our forests, when seen through this lens, are at the mercy of economic expediency.

Further in her second-reading speech the previous minister asserted that this bill is to prevent people protesting in a way that places themselves and others at risk of death or injury. Let me state very clearly once again that I support all rights of all workers to undertake their work safely and I support all laws and clauses that enshrine workplace safety. I always have, I always do, and I always will. But this bill is not just about workplace safety. Rather it removes the civic guard of protest, which facilitates the destruction of forests, and this places everyone at risk—workers, protesters, animals and the public alike. But because the harm is invisible to the eyes of the government, they ignore it, and because the ones most immediately at risk are other than human—they are animals and their forests, ecosystems, habitats and landscapes—they are considered expendable. We continue to sacrifice our diminishing and endangered native wildlife for the sake of our short-term interests at the long-term expense of this continent. This bill is not in the interests of non-human animals, of Aboriginal nations or the health of our landscape, waterways and forests. As is often the case, narrow economic interests are once again prioritised over the health and wellness of country, which is ultimately the health and wellness of all of us.

The workplace safety clauses I support, but this bill as a piece of legislation simply streamlines the destruction of country. For this reason I cannot support this bill.

Mr BARTON (Eastern Metropolitan) (17:47): I rise to speak on the Sustainable Forests Timber Amendment (Timber Harvesting Safety Zones) Bill 2022. I will always stand up for the rights of workers to be safe and secure at work. Today is no exception. This bill will introduce harsher penalties for the public entering timber harvesting zones. Under these changes members of the public who enter timber harvesting zones could face 12 months in jail or $21 000 in fines. This is not about the right to protest but rather the health and safety of our forestry workers. Clearly the current penalties are failing to deter protesters. These sites have incredibly dangerous machinery. Interference with these machines has consequences that cannot be overstated. It is mere luck that we have not seen severe injuries as a result of these protesting methods as yet. It is my understanding that in recent years the number of workplace invasions has increased significantly, and timber workers face greater safety risks because of this.

I support the right to peacefully protest, but many of these protests have been far from peaceful. Many tactics have been used, including protesters hiding in undergrowth and jumping in front of operating machinery, children being brought into timber harvesting zones and steel spikes left purposely on forestry roads. These tactics are ruthless and dangerous, and they must stop. We cannot wait for the worst before taking action. Timber workers deserve a safe workplace today. Of course I understand the good intentions behind many members of the public who choose to peacefully and legitimately protest forestry logging. However, we already have a transition plan in place right now for the Victorian government to cease harvesting native forests in Victoria.

At this time we are experiencing extreme timber shortages which, combined with a number of economic factors, have left the building industry in mayhem. We have a housing crisis in Victoria. The existing housing stock is not enough. We must continue building more social and affordable housing. For that we need more timber. This is not the time to be putting the safety of timber workers at risk. Of course turning up to work each day knowing the tactics that have been used in the past is tough on mental health for our timber workers. This bill will protect and support the physical and mental health of our timber workers, so I commend this bill to the house.

Mr BOURMAN (Eastern Victoria) (17:50): About time.

Mr HAYES (Southern Metropolitan) (17:51): That beats ‘I will be brief’, I suppose. He did say he would be brief, so he is a man of his word.

This legislation really can only be described in a few terms—an overreach, undemocratic, authoritarian. I am honestly shocked and dumbfounded that we are here today debating a bill that threatens to send people to jail for protesting, let alone protesting about issues of national and global importance. The right to protest is a healthy and thriving part of our democracy. Suppressing it under any circumstances sets a very dangerous precedent.

You may be surprised, but I support some of what Mrs McArthur was saying tonight. What we really need to be doing and what we should have been doing for many, many years is establishing new timber plantations and reforesting areas that have already been decimated—well, not decimated, just devastated. This is where Australia should be going: creating a high-value timber industry, not raiding old-growth forests, and protesters that are pointing towards the destruction we are carrying out are really helping us today. These people are not criminals. I mean, climate change—the state of the environment report and our own report into ecosystem decline point out that we are going in the wrong direction. We are clearing trees at a great rate. We are not replanting and revegetating. We are not creating a new timber industry, which we should be doing. Anyway, I just think that we are going the wrong way and that we are going to punish the wrong people.

This bill proposes doubling the penalties for non-violent direct action and citizen science surveying. Citizen science surveying, really—jail? Send people to jail for citizen science surveying in areas designated for logging? Under this bill protesters attempting to prevent or disrupt native forest logging in Victoria will face a staggering 12 months jail or $21 000 in fines. How is this proportionate? There are many well-documented cases of violent criminals convicted of assaults and muggings sentenced to a year in prison. Does the government seriously think that peacefully protesting logging carries the same severity as violent crime? I remember there was a guy that was stopped the other day bringing Macca’s and stuff like that through customs—illegal meat through customs—without declaring it and is likely to be face up to $3000 in fines. I mean, this guy could have brought foot-and-mouth disease into Australia. He is going to cop $3000 in fines maybe, and here we are talking about $21 000 fines for people protesting. The bill is a dangerous attack on democracy.

The government’s rationale for this legislation is, to paraphrase, ‘We want to make sure workers go home to their families each day’. Well, yes, of course we do. Every worker should be able to go home to their families, as Mr Meddick just said. Yes, of course we want to send people home in good health, yet as Daniel Cash, barrister and president of Lawyers for Forests, wrote in the Age:

… I have handled dozens of cases involving protest activity in Victoria’s native forests for over a decade and I am not aware of a single instance of protesters preventing forestry workers from going home safely to their families.

To push forwards with erroneous and overreaching punishment is one thing, but to let hyperbole run wild and depict these protesters as reckless thugs is truly shameful. Remember the extraordinary fines and prison sentences proposed in the first edition of the pandemic legislation? Well, these fines and jail sentences should go the same way.

These are not people protesting because they want more money. These are not people protesting with ulterior political motives. These are people protesting because they care about the health and wellbeing of our state, our country and our planet. Consider the recently released state of the environment report that I mentioned before. These are people who care about climate change. They care about habitat destruction and the protection of native wildlife. Above all they care about future generations. They are not criminals, and to treat them as such would be just wrong—plain wrong. The government wants to pick on logging protesters. Well, will they be imposing these excessive fines on other protesters, such as those who block the West Gate Freeway? I am quoting a paramedic’s viral post on social media from when there was a blockade of the bridge by construction workers:

It took me over an hour and a half to move 10km to hospital. And tonight, hours after we expected these protests to end, the freeway was still shut. All of these extra delays are to your family members, your friends. People genuinely needing attendance for emergencies.

So why is there one rule for presumably government-sanctioned protesters and another rule for other protesters? When this government announced it would ban forthwith logging old growth and phase out native forest logging by 2030, it seemed to be taking a fair dinkum step towards protecting the environment. Since then it appears that there has been somewhat of a reluctance to stick to that promise. In recent Environment and Planning Committee hearings we have been told of the goalposts being shifted as to what actually constitutes old-growth forest now. Seemingly the government is providing itself with some wriggle room to at least partially renege on that commitment if they have not done so already.

So unfortunately a great deal of goodwill from the government’s phase-out has been lost, especially when you consider that VicForests itself is at the centre of controversy. The bureaucracy has been the defendant of lawsuits pertaining to unlawful logging and has even referred itself to the anti-corruption watchdog over spying allegations. Government ministers would have received a joint letter by a range of key stakeholders on this issue—mentioned by Mr Meddick too—including representatives from Environmental Justice Australia, the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, Environment Victoria, the Victorian National Parks Association and the Human Rights Law Centre, just to name a few, and I would like to quote a powerful excerpt from their joint letter, which is rather relevant and very powerful:

While you work to further criminalise protest, VicForests—your government’s logging agency—has repeatedly broken logging laws. The recent decision of the Full Federal Court in Friends of the Leadbeater’s Possums v VicForests confirmed that VicForests contravened six state environment laws in 66 areas of forest and unlawfully logged, including by failing to avoid serious and irreversible damage to the vulnerable Greater Glider, failing to protect the critically endangered Leadbeater’s Possum and destroying protected tree species.

You can forgive the community for wanting to keep a close eye on their conduct. If anyone needs a watchful eye cast on them, it is not the community, it is not protesters, it is this bureaucracy. I will not support those who wish to scapegoat protesters who seem to be trying to protect our environment, and I vehemently oppose this bill.

Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (17:59): I rise to speak to the Sustainable Forests Timber Amendment (Timber Harvesting Safety Zones) Bill 2022, a bill that purports to improve Victoria’s legislative framework for safe timber harvesting. The bill is said to respond to increased dangerous forest protest activity in timber harvesting safety zones, but the government have not been able to document evidence of increased OH&S incidents in their briefing to my office. Rather, it seems like it was a vibe thing, that we are worried that this could be. Well, my vibe is that this is not an OH&S bill at all. Rather, it is the corruption of an OH&S framework for the primary purpose of criminalising peaceful protest. It is crude. It does not have my support.

I have spoken in this place many times in criticism of native logging. It is unnecessary and there are far better options. We are already seeing native timber plantations; there is hemp for paper et cetera. It seems quite absurd to me, these repeated legislative efforts to shore up an industry which is being completely phased out by 2030. So laws like this where the consequences could also be the permanent phasing out of some of our most precious endangered species also set a dangerous precedent, and we heard that from Mr Hayes—that we start herein using OH&S as a form of stopping protests, and where do we stop?

Forest protests are not arbitrary. As we have seen in court cases like Friends of Leadbeater’s Possum v. VicForests, there have been numerous contraventions of environmental laws in numerous forest areas where unlawful logging occurred that failed to avoid serious and irreversible damage to the greater glider, which was less than a month ago listed as an endangered species. I think it is important to understand—and I have met with them—that the average protester is a 60-year-old woman taking a photograph of a habitat tree with a GPS location in shot to document that that particular tree should not be cut down. Freedom to protest sits at the heart of our democracy. It is enshrined in our charter of human rights. It is a right that we should be protecting, just like the species that are placed in jeopardy by unlawful logging, on which this type of protest is an important check and balance. We have seen this play out clearly in our courts many times, and as Mr Hayes mentioned, this was not once, this was not twice—there have been at least 66 incidents that were alerted by so-called protesters in the forest. You may ask: if a tree with a greater glider in it falls in the forest but there is no protester around to hear it, did it really happen?

I do not support the bill. The Reason Party does not support the bill. In that context I thank Ms Bath for providing me with some information about her amendments on this bill, but I cannot support those either.

Mr LIMBRICK (South Eastern Metropolitan) (18:03): This bill is going to present a unique situation for the Liberal Democrats, in that I am speaking for myself and not for the Liberal Democrats in this situation. When the Liberal Democrats come to a position on pretty much anything that comes through this place or any of our policies we always base it on our underlying principles, and most of the time that is clear cut. People may not know that all of our votes are essentially conscience votes in the Liberal Democrats. I also acknowledge that sometimes the workings on how we get to those conclusions can have alternate paths, and Mr Quilty and I have come to different positions on this. I respect Tim’s position. He is coming at it from a property rights position. But I am coming at this from a different position, and that is the position of government power. I will be opposing this bill.

When we look at what is happening here I differ from the Greens and some of the other speakers that we have had today in that I am very sympathetic to the timber workers. I think that they have gotten a raw deal in many ways. I think that the shutdown of their industry is horrific, as is the way that they have been treated, and I am very sympathetic to their concerns. Similarly, although I may not agree with many of the activists’ concerns and I also do not like some of the tactics that they have been using, I do support their right to protest. One of the first remarks I will make is that it is absolutely incredible to me that in the statement of compatibility put forward by the Minister for Agriculture with this bill apparently this bill does not engage the right to peaceful assembly and freedom of association in section 16 of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. Considering that ostensibly the bill is meant to crack down on some of these protests, the idea that it does not engage that right seems ludicrous to me.

But secondly, I have seen suppression of protests over the last two years. I have seen how protests have been suppressed. I have seen the lengths that the government will go to to stop people protesting for all manner of reasons, and it is for that reason that I cannot and will not give one extra inch of power to the government to suppress protest. Some of the things in here are pretty severe. They are talking about massive increases in fines and penalties for people who protest. They are talking about prohibited items like pieces of pipe and things like this that they suspect that protesters are going to use in ways that they do not approve of. I get it. People chaining themselves to machinery interrupts work and it interferes with what these workers are trying to do. I get it. It is inconvenient, they do not like it and it is bad, but we already have rules against trespass and we already have a bunch of other rules. The way that I am looking at this is they are increasing the penalties—they are not changing the penalties in many cases, they are increasing them—in order to make it financially more difficult for these organisations to operate, because the penalties will be higher and therefore the threshold for them to be able to conduct their protests will make it much more difficult.

It is pretty basic, to my mind, that this is an expansion of the government’s power to suppress protest. Again, given what we have seen over the last two years, I cannot in good conscience support any decrease in the right to protest. In fact I have been a strong voice, as have Mr Quilty and others, to support the right to peaceful assembly, and I think that we should be focusing on how we can facilitate that in many ways, including in this situation. I would much rather see an approach where they can figure out ways to facilitate it. Again, I cannot support this bill, which increases penalties and suppresses the right to protest, so I will leave my contribution there.

Dr RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (18:08): The right to peaceful protest is at the heart of our democracy, and it is under attack right across Australia. For those without deep pockets or access to politicians and platforms, protest can be the only tool many in our communities have to be heard and to secure change, yet anti-protest laws have already been passed in New South Wales and Queensland. They look set to become a reality in Tasmania, and now they are before us here in Victoria. Let us be clear: this crackdown on protest is being executed by both Labor and Liberal-National governments. The old parties are in lock step, captured by destructive industries and their donation dollars. It is a dangerous double act designed to silence communities speaking up for a better, fairer future.

That such draconian anti-protest laws are being rammed through our Parliament here in Victoria, through this bill, just months out from an election, is something all Victorians should find deeply disturbing. Four years ago on election night Labor proudly called themselves progressive, yet today Labor gives us these fundamentally anti-democratic, anti-progressive laws. Progressive governments do not introduce laws like these. This is devastating for our democracy, for forests and for all the life that depends on them, and these laws truly demand some soul-searching from Labor MPs. Have you forgotten that the labour movement was born out of protest, that Victoria is the birthplace of the 8-hour working day, won through protest, or that protest has secured women’s rights, racial justice, LGBTQI+ rights and environmental justice? Without the activists, protesters and environmental defenders the government is seeking to criminalise today, the Franklin River would be dammed, the Tasmanian wilderness would be drowned, the Daintree forest would no longer exist, Kakadu would not be a place to visit to wonder at the world and of course we would no longer be able to marvel at the magnificence of our precious old-growth forests around the country.

I also note the significance of the fact that today a number of unions have recognised the threat of these laws. The United Workers Union, the Maritime Union of Australia and the Australian Services Union have come out today urging the bill to be scrapped. They know that, firstly, the logic behind this bill is a threat to unions, their members and any workers who want to fight for a better life. As they said in their letter to the Premier:

Any stripping away of the right to protest eventually finds its way to further limiting workplace action …

Already Australia has some of the most restrictive laws around industrial action in the world. In the context of a climate crisis, the right to protest must be advanced not diminished.

Secondly, as indicated by that quote, these unions recognise the threat of climate change. Workers across our economy are already facing the impacts of the climate crisis. More frequent and intense heatwaves will become an increasing problem for workers in a whole range of industries. The ability of workers to protest, strike and fight for a livable world and workplace rights in a time of climate change is under threat with laws like these. This bill levels draconian penalties—fines of up to $21 000 or 12 months jail—at members of our community for defending precious native forests from destruction. Protesters will face up to triple the existing penalties, including jail time, for many current protest offences. Search and seizure powers will be increased and broadened in scope, allowing the seizure of any ‘prohibited thing’. Most worrying is the introduction of banning notices, which can be issued by an authorised officer should they deem someone likely to commit an offence in the next 28 days. This is Orwellian in its true sense.

These laws also target the vital work of citizen scientists. These are the dedicated volunteers who have been doing the work our governments fail to do. They are the people surveying the forest to identify threatened species ignored by the government’s own logging company, VicForests. The amazing greater glider, essentially a flying koala, was once common across Australia. In just six years a unique and beautiful creature has gone from threatened to endangered. It now faces extinction. Logging and the climate crisis are the unequivocal drivers of this decline. Time and again citizen scientists identify gliders and other threatened species and protesters defend the forest habitat on the front line while grassroots community groups fight to secure their protection in the courts. A good government would see this often-repeated cycle and make the call: native forest logging needs to end now. Yet Labor is instead choosing to, piece by piece, remove the tools our community has to keep forests safe. First it was laws trying to stop the court cases, now it is these laws to block citizen science and frontline actions.

That logging is unashamedly propped up by both major parties is a clear sign of the sway that the logging industry and their donation dollars have over both parties. Logging is taking place on First Nations land—country where sovereignty has never been ceded—without consent from traditional custodians. Not only does logging destroy habitat and push plants and animals to extinction, it destroys cultural heritage, threatens our water supply and is making the climate crisis worse. Logging makes our forests more fire prone, and it costs us public money every single year.

Just this month the long-delayed state of the environment report was released, finally. It shows us what the Greens have known and Labor and the Liberals have refused to address: our environment is in crisis, and that crisis is accelerating. Logging and climate change are two of the biggest drivers, yet protesting for action on both these issues is exactly what the nationwide crackdown on protest is targeting.

It is truly gobsmacking, the lengths to which Labor and the Liberals and Nationals will go to keep afloat an industry that has no place in the 21st century. They are on a unity ticket with their digging-it-up and chopping-it-down mentality. We cannot go on as we are and expect to have a livable planet for ourselves, our children, our grandchildren and all the precious life that shares this world with us. The vast majority of Victorians want to see an end to native forest logging. This bill is a disgrace and should be scrapped.

I will finish by saying the Greens are not alone in our fierce opposition to this bill, alongside my colleagues who have spoken out strongly in this place. I want to thank all those groups from across civil society who have taken a strong stand against this. I am proud to be amplifying the voices of opposition to this bill from Environmental Justice Australia, the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, the Australian Democracy Network, the Victorian Forest Alliance, Environment Victoria, the Victorian National Parks Association, Friends of the Earth, Liberty Victoria, the Human Rights Law Centre, the Wilderness Society, Friends of Leadbeater’s Possum, Act on Climate, Melbourne Activist Legal Support, Doctors for the Environment, the Australian Conservation Foundation, the Bob Brown Foundation and CounterAct. Finally, I wish to express my deep gratitude personally and on behalf at the Greens to all the brave activists, volunteers and dedicated grassroots groups who are doing everything within their power to keep our forests safe. You are on the right side of history, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (18:16): I will be brief. The Victorian native timber industry is well managed, sustainable and essential to maintaining our national parks. When this industry is gone, our parks will be increasingly degraded. Without timber workers and their equipment managing things, species will be pushed out, monocultures will emerge and fires will wipe out whole species of plants and animals. It will be a complete disaster.

The bill today is to increase penalties for protesters going into logging areas. Frankly I am somewhat incredulous that this government—the same government that is destroying the Victorian timber industry and destroying the communities that depend upon the industry in the pursuit of some ideological position—wants us to believe that it is the defender of the industry. We will not be fooled. You hate regional timber workers. Their votes do not matter to you.

To the lunatic anti-timber, anti-job, anti-worker protesters who define their lives around this holy war to save the trees: you can stop now. The war is already over. This government has rolled over. The industry is doomed. Jobs in regional communities will be lost. You have already won. Instead of a well-managed, sustainable local industry, you are supporting the destruction of rainforests overseas. Timber use will not drop, but environmental damage will go through the roof—so well done there. Go find something else useful to do with your life. Opposition to nuclear power, which is the only way to effectively decarbonise the economy, in favour of environmentally destructive renewables would seem to be on brand. Hydropower, like damming the Franklin River, is the only other sustainable solution for baseload power, but of course you oppose that.

I also just note that some of the loudest voices against this legislation, against this attack on protesters, were hot to crack down on protesters during the last two years. It is hypocrisy.

On this bill the Liberal Democrats do not have a single party position. As David has said, in the Liberal Democrats every vote is a conscience vote. But because classical liberalism is a coherent, internally consistent philosophy, unlike most others represented in this place, we almost always arrive at the same answer to questions. Today I plan on supporting the bill, and I understand David is taking a different view. For the first time in this Parliament’s term we will vote in different ways. I certainly understand his position, but he is of course wrong.

I believe this bill is about property rights. The protests are not taking place in public national parks; they are happening on land leased to logging companies. Just as with any private workplace, there is no right for protesters to come barging in. Timber workers who have a lawful right to go about their business are continually harassed and interrupted by protesters. People who chain themselves to machinery and camp out in trees in logging coupes are trying to force them to down tools and sabotaging their work.

This bill increases penalties for people engaging in this disruption. Specifically, protesters have been bringing in PVC pipes and chaining themselves to machinery with their limbs hidden in the pipes to make it difficult to safely remove them. The protesters are employing tactics that rely on the restraint of the people they are attacking. In a just world, when you attach yourself to someone else’s bulldozer and refuse to leave, the owner would have every right to remove you. If you intentionally make it unsafe to do this, then you should wear the consequences of that.

But this bill takes a milder approach. The state is apparently eager to avoid protesters being crushed by logging machinery or having their arms sawn off by angle grinders. Instead it is making the penalties for violating property rights a bit more severe. Now, I believe in protest. As part of our fundamental right to free speech I believe in the right to free assembly. Yell and shout, post on social media, hold up signs, publish your pamphlets, march in the street and lobby your politicians, but do not damage other people’s property, harass individuals and sabotage their work. Just as we do not let protesters into office buildings in the city to chain themselves to printers or across workers’ desks, we should not allow them into licensed timber coupes where logging is underway.

To be clear, I understand my colleague David’s position. I am not at all comfortable giving Victoria Police increased powers or increasing penalties for protesters. We have seen how this government uses the power of the state to crush legitimate protest—it uses police brutality. It disturbs me to give any aid or comfort to this attitude. But at least the timber protesters are the government’s fellow travellers; they are unlikely to unleash the full fury of their paramilitary units on them.

The timber industry in Victoria is already being hammered by government-mandated closures and red tape. The least the government can do is properly enforce their lawful rights over their own property. At the end of the day I will stand with the timber workers and regional Victorians involved in the industry. I support this bill.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Bourman): Just as a reminder to everyone, it is customary to use either someone’s title or something rather than just their first name even if they are a party colleague. We will leave it at that.

Ms TIERNEY (Western Victoria—Minister for Training and Skills, Minister for Higher Education, Minister for Agriculture) (18:22): The position of the government is that every Victorian has the right to a safe workplace and workspace. The proposed amendments build on existing laws focused on protecting the safety of all persons who enter into timber harvesting safety zones. These zones are inherently dangerous workplaces where heavy machinery is used and unauthorised entry runs the risk of serious injury or death. The bill does not criminalise protest activity, nor does it alter the places where a person can protest. The Andrews Labor government supports the right to peaceful protest outside the timber harvesting safety zones.

In any democracy the right to protest and engage in demonstration is subject always to reasonable limitations. Timber harvesting safety zones simply are not a safe or appropriate place for protests to occur. It is currently unlawful for members of the public, including protesters, to be inside a timber harvesting safety zone, and this will remain the case. I understand that some in the community are opposed to our native forest industry, but dangerous protest activity presents an unacceptable risk to the safety of workers, authorised officers, police officers and the protesters themselves. We are very fortunate that we have not seen serious injury or death in the timber harvesting safety zones, but this government will not wait for a serious injury or death to occur before acting.

Dangerous protest tactics such as physical interference with moving forest machinery, sitting at heights where a fall would cause death and intentionally camouflaged protesters have had a detrimental effect on the mental health of some native forest contractors and their families, who are put at risk of hurting themselves or others. I know that some have thought overnight that they have hurt someone and have gone out looking for them. It has distressed them, and the anxiety has been significant on them.

In addition to the safety risks, the impact of dangerous forest protest behaviour within the timber harvesting safety zones causes extreme psychological stress. That is due to people just not being clear about whether they have accidentally injured someone else at the workspace. This bill proposes penalty increases to existing offences—they are not new, but they are increases. The already existing exclusion orders will be bolstered by new banning notice provisions. This mirrors other current legislation, namely our Wildlife Act 1975, and only applies to areas of state forest which are timber harvesting safety zones and therefore where access is already restricted.

The bill’s proposed amendments broadly align with approaches that other jurisdictions have adopted, including Queensland and New South Wales, and I understand there is draft legislation circulating in Tasmania that is similar. Overall, some comparable offences in other jurisdictions have higher penalties while others have lower. While there may be variations in these reforms, the trend is towards reforms aimed at addressing dangerous protest behaviour, and the increases are designed to make people think more than twice about undertaking activities that may lead to a situation where a workplace is unsafe.

In terms of the issue of unreasonable interference with the democratic right to protest, the freedom to protest is protected by the implied freedom of political communication in the Australian constitution and Victoria’s Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. Charter rights relevant to the right to protest, such as the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly and freedom of association, are not diminished, we believe, by this bill. Nothing in this bill has the effect of banning protest activity which is currently lawful. That is a mischaracterisation of the effect of the bill, this government would argue.

To those who propose that the powers are excessive and could be misused, I reiterate that all measures in the bill were chosen to manage the safety risks in timber harvesting safety zones but go no further than what is necessary. All new powers are subject to appropriate limitations and accountability. For example, in order to prescribe additional prohibited things—items that just simply cannot be brought into the timber harvesting safety zones by an unauthorised person—regulations need to be made. Of course the regulations would need to be tabled in Parliament, and this would provide an opportunity to disallow the regulations. The power to search is subject to strict legal limits: it is limited to particular receptacles such as vehicles, bags and containers; it does not permit body searches; it can only occur within timber harvesting safety zones; and it can only occur when the officer has a belief on reasonable grounds that the search is warranted.

In respect to the amendments pertaining to dogs that have been put forward by Ms Bath, the government will not be supporting these amendments. To a certain extent we understand why they may be put, but the fact of the matter is what we are doing tonight is attempting to create safer workspaces, and to introduce dogs, in the opinion of this government at this time, is to introduce a potential additional factor that could give rise to further unsafe situations in the workplace and create unacceptable risks in controlled environments. So that is essentially the position in respect—

Business interrupted pursuant to sessional orders.

Mr TARLAMIS: I move:

That the meal break scheduled for this day, pursuant to sessional order 1, be suspended.

Motion agreed to.

Ms TIERNEY: There are a number of other matters that I do not have time to go into in this summing-up, matters that have been raised by a number of members, not just in the chamber this afternoon but earlier in discussions with a whole range of people. I am sure that I will be able to deal with those issues, and I am sure that we will not necessarily agree and come to a solution in the committee stage, because I think we have all got our stated positions. They are fairly polarised, but nevertheless this is an ability for the chamber to ask questions of the government, and I am ready to assist in that process in whatever way I can.

I thank members for their contributions so far in this debate. It is an interesting one in that we have, as I said, clearly divergent views. On one hand we would say that certain groupings have overreached, and then there are other groups that say that the government has overreached. It is definitely the position of this government that this is all about the safety of the workplace, and it is about increasing certain penalties, but it is not about creating anything particularly new in terms of— (Time expired)

House divided on motion:

Motion agreed to.

Read second time.

Committed.

Committee

Clause 1 (18:41)

Mr LIMBRICK: This is my first question and one of the very few questions that I have. Anyone that has spoken to me over the last year or so will know my despair and dismay with the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. One of the things that strikes me in the statement of compatibility submitted with this bill by the government is that it does not engage section 16, the right to peaceful assembly. Can the minister please explain why they believe that this bill does not engage that right. It would seem to me that it is fundamental to this bill that it is talking about peaceful protest. Therefore it should engage that right—that would be my thinking. I would like to hear the government’s answer on and why they believe it does not engage it.

Ms SHING: I will seek an answer for you on that one if you can indulge me for a couple of moments.

Thank you for that, Mr Limbrick. The bill itself does not actually impact upon any right to legally protest, given that that right is already proscribed in areas that are not affected by this bill.

Mr LIMBRICK: I thank the minister for her answer. Just to clarify for my understanding, then, the government is saying that because it is already illegal and this is not affecting the legality it is therefore not engaging that right and not limiting the right to protest. Is that what the government’s position is on this?

Ms SHING: Yes. Thank you, Mr Limbrick. The places where you can currently legally protest are not affected by this bill.

Mr BOURMAN: This is more a statement than a question. I heard a lot of banging on about how VicForests are breaking laws and all this and how bad it is. Yet all I hear from the people opposed to this bill is how those other people that are breaking other laws should be getting away with it. Frankly it makes me want to gag—the hypocrisy.

Ms BATH: Minister, this applies to timber harvest safety zones, which sit over the top of timber coupes. Can you please tell me what area, maybe in hectares, these timber harvesting safety zones occur in today and what proportion of the total forest area that is?

Ms SHING: Thank you, Ms Bath. I will be with you in a moment.

Ms Bath, I do not have the figure to hand for the area that you are referring to, so I am happy to take any other questions in terms of how you might wish to get the information that you are after. I assume that you are referring to the entire state, or have you got a specific area in mind?

Ms BATH: This bill applies to timber harvesting safety zones. Approximately what proportion of the entire forested area of the state would they sit on—the current timber harvest safety zones?

Ms SHING: Thanks for that clarification. This bill is limited to working coupes as they are defined. That will change over time depending on what is a working coupe at any one time. So they are small areas, but the location and the area will vary.

Ms BATH: That is absolutely right. Thank you, Minister. The areas will vary, but at any one time—so for the next six months or the like—they will be coupes and they will be specified now as timber harvest safety zones. The point I am seeking to make is that at any one time as a proportion of the entire forest—the forest estate including reserves, national parks and the like—the overwhelming majority, 90 per cent or greater, do not have a timber harvesting zone on them and therefore are entirely excluded from this bill. So the area that is under consideration in this bill—I am trying to get an understanding of the quantum as a per cent—is very, very small.

Ms SHING: They are very small areas. The bill only applies to working coupes.

Ms BATH: Therefore, Minister, any citizen scientist activity or any lawful protest, any protest in any part of the rest of the state’s forests, is entirely separate to and excluded from any of the clauses of this bill.

Ms SHING: This bill only applies to working coupes.

Ms BATH: Thank you, Minister. So therefore all of those citizen scientist activities can occur on thousands and thousands of hectares that are separate to these particular coupes and timber harvesting zones.

Ms SHING: This broader statement depends upon other access arrangements that might exist otherwise in the rest of the state. So simply because an area is a working coupe and therefore these provisions in the bill apply, that does not therefore by extension mean that any citizen scientist can go anywhere else on land throughout the state to do whatever they choose, if that is where you are heading.

Ms BATH: But they are not captured in this bill.

Ms SHING: This bill only applies to working coupes. There are around 7 million-plus hectares of state forest. So they are not captured in any part of the bill that deals with working coupes.

Ms BATH: My next question is: could you provide a list or an example of the list of prohibited things, Minister, noting that PVC pipe is newly included in that and also metal pipes. I did during my speech talk about metal spikes, so I am interested to know a list of prohibited things, like metal spikes, the likes of which have been in access roads outside timber coupes, put there by protesters.

Ms SHING: Thanks, Ms Bath. The definitions at clause 3 include a list of prohibited things, so that means a bolt cutter, or a cement or mortar mix, or a constructed metal or timber frame, or a linked or a heavy steel chain, or a shackle or a joining clip, or a polyvinyl chloride pipe—so PVC pipe—or metal pipe, or any other prescribed prohibited thing.

Mr LIMBRICK: I note that the government has a target for the end of this native timber industry, yet this bill for whatever reason was not drafted with a sunset clause. What was the reason? If the government was confident that the industry would be shut down by a certain date, why wasn’t the bill set up with a sunset clause to coincide with the end of that industry?

Ms SHING: Mr Limbrick, it is amending an existing framework which itself does not sunset, if that provides assistance to you in that regard.

Dr RATNAM: I will acquit all my questions in clause 1. These are some general questions across the bill. Minister, the government is arguing this bill is warranted because peaceful protesters are putting the health and safety of forest workers at risk, yet I note both the people involved in forest protests and indeed the unions I mentioned earlier during my second-reading contribution say there is no evidence of peaceful protest activities actually putting workers at risk. How many OH&S incidents due to the presence of forest protesters have there been?

Ms SHING: Dr Ratnam, can I get some clarity from you as to what you mean by ‘OH&S incidents’, please?

Dr RATNAM: So incidents that have impacted the workplace health and safety of workers, which has been alluded to as the rationale for this bill. Throughout the rationale for this bill it talks about how these laws are needed to protect the workplace health and safety—in other words the OH&S—of forestry workers and cites incidents caused by protesters that have put workplace health and safety at risk. Yet despite repeated requests for material evidence or examples of actual incidents, we are yet to hear of a concrete example from government. I am just curious to know: exactly how many incidents have there been that have justified this bill?

Ms SHING: Dr Ratnam, there are a number of rationales that underpin this bill, including the requirement and obligation to provide safe systems of work and for the management of safe operating environments that are constituted as workplaces under relevant legislation. If I take you to appendix 2, there are examples of activities that may well and indeed would reasonably have an adverse impact upon the occupational health and safety of workers within working coupes. I will not go through the entire context that is in the bill at appendix 2, but the examples include dangerous tree-sit activity within timber harvesting safety zones, physical interference with timber harvesting machinery, further dangerous activity within timber harvesting safety zones, psychological harm, property damage and reasons to believe that the risk is escalating. If I can again give you a couple of specific examples—I am trying to take you to things that will make a practical context to this a bit clearer.

Dangerous tree-sit activity—for example, within a timber harvesting safety zone in September 2020 there was a tree-sit erected approximately 20 metres high in a single messmate stringybark type tree, with several sheets of plastic netting erected on the branches of the tree, and that prevented Victoria Police search and rescue from using a device to safely launch a rope over a branch near the tree-sit to get their initial anchor line established to remove the tree-sitter.

Physical interference with the timber harvesting machinery—by way of example, in April 2020 an unauthorised individual within a timber harvesting safety zone locked themselves onto machinery and could have been killed or seriously injured had the hydraulics on the machine failed, which is known to occur. In June 2020 a protester threw themselves under a logging truck leaving a timber harvesting safety zone. In 2021 two unauthorised individuals within a timber harvesting safety zone chained themselves to an excavator during a sustained four-day protest while also engaging in verbally abusive behaviour towards contractors.

As far as dangerous activity goes, which again goes to the nature of the OH&S incidents as you have described them, in 2019 a 30-tonne tree was felled and narrowly missed four unauthorised individuals within a timber harvesting safety zone. The contractor was unaware that anyone was in the timber harvesting safety zone, and if the tree had fallen 10 degrees to the side, four deaths would likely have occurred. In 2019 a contractor suffered significant psychological harm after narrowly avoiding seriously injuring or killing several protesters who leapt in front of his moving vehicle within a timber harvesting safety zone. The contractor also saw images of himself on anti-logging social media posts, following a drone presence in the area.

Again, to continue with property damage, between 17 and 30 June 2020 a TAFE training coupe which was an active timber harvesting safety zone at the time was impacted by forest protest activity whereby surveillance cameras were damaged and camera chips were corrupted to remove visual evidence, and as it relates to reasons to believe that the risk is escalating, in December 2021 a new black wallaby group was established in Toolangi. Black wallaby-style protests are extremely dangerous because they involve protesters running in and out of active timber harvesting safety zones, often at night and with minimal visibility, which significantly increases the risk of accidental death or serious injury involving heavy machinery.

So I hope that gives you a sense of the sorts of matters that are contemplated by way of examples of dangerous and high-risk incidents, and they are serious matters. It also bears mentioning that all incidents that involved tree-sit activity, physical interference in timber harvesting machinery and further dangerous activities within the timber harvesting safety zones were responded to by Game Management Authority (GMA) authorised officers or members of Victoria Police and the unauthorised individuals within those zones were issued with infringement notices or charged with offences under the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act 2004.

Dr RATNAM: Thank you, Minister. I appreciate that level of detail. I want to capture some of what you said, just to make sure I have got some clarity. A number of the incidents you mentioned were talking about theoretical risk, so it did not sound like there had been material injury to the worker. There were concerns about the wellbeing of the protesters in some of those instances. There was perceived, projected or probable impact, should things have gone wrong. It sounds like some of those incidents were caught early, and it was the scenario being played out of, ‘What happens if that happened?’. A number of those activities you outlined were activities that were intended to disrupt the activity which was the source of the protest. You mentioned one which was psychological injury. Was that a documented case of psychological injury, or was that a potential psychological injury?

Ms SHING: Thank you, Dr Ratnam. Firstly, I would disagree with the characterisation of not having occasioned harm as a consequence of these sorts of incidents occurring. The occupational health and safety legislative framework makes it very, very clear that there is an obligation to establish and maintain, wherever practicable, safe systems of work. Safe systems of work involve creating and maintaining an environment within which safety is a priority whether or not such injury occurs, but in addition to that the sorts of examples that I have just read to you demonstrate very clearly the risk to safe systems of work where those activities occur in the timber harvesting safety zones. The example that you have referred to on psychological harm indicated that a contractor actually suffered that psychological harm after narrowly avoiding serious injury or killing protesters who had leapt in front of a moving vehicle within a timber harvesting safety zone. Analogously, this is not dissimilar to, in my view, the trauma or distress that is contemplated or experienced by somebody operating heavy machinery or large plant. Train drivers spring to mind as a group that is frequently devastated and traumatised because of unexpected activity that involves a risk to the life and or safety of others.

Dr RATNAM: Thank you, Minister. I appreciate that response. So just to confirm: there has been one case of documented psychological harm and the remaining instances that you listed are cases of potential harm.

Ms SHING: No. Just for avoidance of any doubt, the example that I have given you of psychological harm is one example. There are many, many more, including a number of other matters. I am happy to go through them specifically now if you would like. But the point of psychological harm is that where the harm is sustained it is immaterial as to whether or not it was contemplated—if it is in existence—so this is where again the safe system of work, if it is not operating as intended, will mean that psychological harm as it occurs does not then require the investigation of a contemplated psychological harm. So the instances whereby psychological harm has been sustained relate as much to the safe systems of work and to the way in which they operate whereby, as far as practicable, workplaces have not been secured to contemplate and prevent that harm from occurring. In the black wallaby situation that I referred to earlier, it is that surprise element that leads by extension to a sense of shock, a sense of distress and often a sense of trauma as a consequence of either hitting or narrowly missing somebody in that context. So we need to actually understand and address the general risk that is identified, that is a general risk, and where that general risk has by extension an element of psychological harm to it, then it very clearly falls within the obligations that are established to create and maintain safe work practices.

Dr RATNAM: Thank you, Minister. One of the reasons I am asking about the actual examples and the quantity—some sort of quantification for what has occurred—is that consistently since this bill was introduced in the lower house and through the public commentary, particularly that which has occurred and the debate that happened in the lower house prior to this date, the government has continually said that the rationale for introducing this bill is because of a workplace health and safety risk. It is our duty to understand the nature of that risk and the quantity of that risk to warrant this level of intervention, because I am so concerned and a number of us are so concerned about this extreme level of response to what has not yet been a quantified risk that has been communicated. It might exist. All we are asking for is the detail to justify this level of extremity of response. Hence why I am asking for the actual detail. I understand that the assessment of general risk occurs when you are looking at matters of workplace health and safety. What I am asking for, beyond what you mentioned—you said this was one example but there are many more—is can you give us the figure of how many more and how that assessment of general risk was compiled to reassure the community, particularly sections of the community who are rightly concerned about what level of risk we are talking about and whether it justifies the draconian response that we see in this bill.

Ms SHING: There are a number of things in that question which I think are important to counter in the context of what loss or injury is acceptable. A proactive approach is taken in all other elements of our occupational health and safety legislative framework because the law contemplates that in order to have a successful framework for deterrence and for enforcement rules need to be put in place to prevent activity occasioning loss or injury before that occurs. This is not a unique circumstance.

Where those examples have been documented, which they have, to my mind the quantum of instances does not help with a conclusion that this bill is not warranted. If we were to fail to act where there was an appreciable risk of physical or psychological harm or damage in a workplace, then there would be not just a legal culpability but a moral culpability in terms of knowing the possibility of injury occurring and failing to do something about it. This is also where employers, as members would know from the occupational health and safety framework, face enormous penalties for reckless endangerment whether that has not been contemplated as a risk or whether action has not been taken because of wilful blindness. What I would say in this context is if we were to continue not to appreciate the risk of what might occur in the sorts of circumstances that I have outlined today, then we would be failing to acquit our obligation to provide safe systems of work to the people who are operating in working coupes. There have been a range of instances. Again, I would just perhaps invite the member to consider what is enough in order to warrant these changes contemplated by the bill.

Dr RATNAM: Thank you, Minister. Is there any analysis or data that the government has relied upon; for example, a workplace health and safety assessment report that documents the number of actual incidents and the number of near misses? I used to be a councillor at Moreland council, and one of my domains was to oversee governance around occupational health and safety—that was something that we were liable for as well. We would get regular reports about occupational health and safety issues, what matters were on the radar, what risks had emerged, what incidents had occurred and how many near misses there were, and that would give us cause to think about what types of interventions we needed to think about. Is there analysis to that effect in this circumstance? You have referred to examples. There are a number of examples. You have talked about one case of psychological harm. Is there any report that backs this up in terms of looking at near misses, the number of threats and the number of perceived risks that have been used to justify this bill?

Ms SHING: Again, thank you, Dr Ratnam, for that question. It would appear that we are covering ground that has already been covered, but the example that you have talked about in terms of your work at Moreland City Council—it is quite a distance away from Toolangi—looks at the way in which breaches might occur within an existing system of workplace health and safety regulation, where there might be provisional notices issued, where there might be an assessment as to the safety of a workplace. This bill contemplates unlawful activity which occurs in a way that sustains loss, damage or harm to people on that particular site, namely, a working coupe.

So I have given you an example of psychological harm. That is not the only example of psychological harm. The GMA logs all of those examples, but we did not make a decision based on the quantum of matters that had occurred in the circumstances that I have described. VicForests does keep an OH&S register, but the fact of the matter is these are matters in which, but for intervention as described and contemplated by this bill, workers in these working coupes would be exposed, based on what has already occurred, to significant and avoidable levels of risk of injury, whether physically or psychologically. So we are acting to in fact prevent psychological and physical harm. We have identified the risk of that harm as it may arise in a range of circumstances that have been discussed in the course of the second-reading debate, and the role of legislation like this is to prevent, through proactive amendment of the statute book, the sorts of risks that may lead to serious injury, whether physically or psychologically, or indeed even loss of life.

Dr RATNAM: Thank you, Minister. Thank you for that response. I still think it would have been helpful if the government had furnished all of us members of this chamber and the public with more information about how that level of risk was assessed—the quantum, the type of thinking that has gone behind the types of responses that we see that are going to be legislated through this bill. I think that would have been really helpful to reassure the public that there is not a smokescreen occurring here, because there are a lot of people rightly very concerned about why significant—

Ms Symes interjected.

Dr RATNAM: Can I please continue my contribution in silence?

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: We will just have a bit of silence for Dr Ratnam.

Dr RATNAM: I think it would have been helpful to reassure people, particularly people who are really concerned, about what is driving this bill, because it is not very clear cut. It feels like there are a number of agendas occurring here. It would have been really helpful to have that information, and this is not—

Ms Symes interjected.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Dr Ratnam is to be heard in silence.

Dr RATNAM: It would have been really helpful to have that information to reassure those who have been very concerned about what is really driving some of these changes, because there has rightly been very significant conjecture about what is actually going on here when we have had bill after bill now over the last few months cracking down on the right to lawful protest. Minister, in terms of following up—

Ms Symes interjected.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: It is late on a Thursday, and we are trying to get through this, so if we can have Dr Ratnam in silence, that would be great.

Dr RATNAM: Minister, you talked about, throughout the OH&S framework, assessing general risk, and that has been used to rationalise the measures that have been introduced in this bill. Was any consideration given to how the risk could be minimised without punitive measures on protesters? So what other interventions were contemplated, as does happen when you are developing workplace safety programs to minimise risks that are identified in a workplace? What other actions, levers and measures were contemplated to minimise the risk to workers, apart from increasing fines and introducing jail terms for protesters?

Ms SHING: Thanks, Dr Ratnam. Again, just to pick up on the first part of your contribution—which may well have been more of a statement, but I will take an opportunity here if I may—this is about managing risk, and it is a risk management framework which informs the way in which this legislation, the way in which occupational health and safety legislation and the way in which some parts of our criminal code operate around obligations that exist for safe management of worksites. But to in fact talk about the management of risk without penalty is to, I think, ignore the nature of illegal protest. This bill does not affect lawful protest occurring. What it does do is sanction unlawful protest, namely activities which occur to impact upon working coupes in a way that falls within circumstances contemplated and relating to physical or psychological harm.

To go back to the example that I talked about before, which was a contractor who narrowly avoided killing or seriously injuring protesters, I am not quite sure how it is that you would imagine there to be a situation whereby that protest in and of itself, either intended to harm or reckless as to the risk of harm to the person operating a vehicle, could have taken place where the intention of that activity may well have been to disrupt the operation of that vehicle and to do so with an element of surprise. There are a range of things here that I find somewhat confusing as to how you are wanting to preserve the right to act in a way which is intended to disrupt or surprise or engage in conduct that may well present a risk to contractors or to people on a site but you also want a means by which that can continue to occur without sanction. I am just asking for some clarity.

Dr RATNAM: For the sake of clarity, my question was: what other levers, actions, workplace safety improvements were contemplated other than the imposition of really significant and increased fines and jail terms for protesters?

Ms SHING: Thanks, Dr Ratnam, for that clarification. The risks were sufficient to justify the action that has been incorporated into this bill by way of sanctions and fines. There was a lot of internal consultation that took place. That was consultation which included Victoria Police, agencies and departments and a comparison with comparable frameworks in other jurisdictions—Queensland, for example. This is, again, work which has been geared towards better health and safety protections for workers in working coupes, and it has been deemed necessary to proscribe certain conduct and to do so with penalties where necessary to prevent or to deter that sort of conduct from happening because of the dangerous nature of that activity and the risk of injury where it occurs.

Dr RATNAM: Just in response to my question, I still do not believe you have answered my question. I was asking about what other types of workplace safety improvements were considered in considering the package of this legislation prior to arriving at penalties and jail terms as the only response to improve workplace health and safety. Are you saying that there were no other initiatives contemplated or that you are not going to reveal what those initiatives were that were ruled out before jail terms and exorbitant fines?

Ms SHING: Dr Ratnam, there are already frameworks that exist within OH&S legislation. The fact of the matter is that this legislation does not limit lawful activity. What it does do is seek to actually provide a framework for sanction of unlawful activity within those timber harvesting safety zones and in fact to make sure that illegal protests, which are outside the control of VicForests, are able to be eliminated or otherwise prevented through that system of fines and of penalties that will operate. There is not actually any alternative for VicForests to enforce the law itself, which is why as a complement to the OH&S framework this bill is a reasonable and proportionate response to the sorts of practical issues and risks that are being experienced or indeed have been experienced by workers in the timber harvesting safety zones.

Dr RATNAM: Thanks, Minister. I still do not believe you have responded to my question, and I think there has been a conflation of now moving into talking about legality and illegality of certain actions with workplace health and safety issues. The government repeatedly has justified the introduction of this bill and these draconian fines and jail terms because of what they claim are workplace health and safety issues, and why these fines are needed to deter protesters and improve workers health and safety. So I have been asking about the arrival of that framework and the responses that are legislated and codified in this bill which are seemingly actions that would improve workers health and safety, which is why I have been asking about what assessment of the threat has occurred.

In the arrival of the general risk assessment, what other levers of improving workers health and safety were contemplated to ensure that they were appropriately considered? So if the government is saying, ‘This was the last resort; we tried everything else and nothing else worked’, I would like to know that. But if you are saying to us that nothing else was contemplated, that this has just been talked about in terms of legality and illegality of actions, essentially the government in this case is deciding what is legal and illegal, and it does that through new laws. Those things move. Things that were once considered lawful protests have been made unlawful by successive governments who want to crack down on activities they do not like that are interrupting activities that they do not want to be held to account for, so it is really important that we question what is actually occurring here.

Why is this being brought before us? This is unprecedented and dangerous. It cannot be overstated how dangerous this is, which is why it is important we interrogate what has gone behind this. What justification is there? What other work occurred prior to this intervention being justified and proposed through this legislation? So my question is: were other measures to improve workers health and safety—if that indeed is the issue driving this bill—contemplated, considered, ruled out for various reasons? Is there any way the public could get hold of that information so they can be more assured that this is happening for genuine reasons and not for other motives that we are not aware of?

Ms SHING: Thank you, Dr Ratnam. There are a range of activities that have been undertaken which themselves go beyond the reach of protocols that are there to manage unauthorised persons. In eliminating or indeed reducing so far as possible inherent risk it has been necessary, for example, to go beyond processes such as locking down and turning off machinery when there is a protester identified in a timber harvesting safety zone. But we still come up against the example that I referred to before, the black wallaby tactic, which involves that camouflaged masked protester activity running in and out of timber harvesting safety zones, and that disruption has included reported instances of protesters shining torches on timber harvesting workers and using radios to obtain the names of harvesting workers. The very nature of intentional camouflage creates a risk which itself is beyond the scope of VicForests to manage where it involves deliberate concealment of the human form in a way that presents a surprise and therefore distress, if not serious injury of a physical nature or even the risk of a fatality.

Beyond that, what I would say is that tree-sitting along with chaining by protesters to active timber harvesting machinery and physical interference with machinery have been part of the range of factors that have been in play. Again, use of a range of other tactics has included psychological stress on timber harvesting contractors, who are actually scared that when they go to work they are going to accidentally injure or kill somebody while they are there. So WorkSafe has reviewed these incidents and was satisfied that the VicForests safety system was doing all that it possibly could within those protocols, but it is now up to the government to step in to actually introduce and implement those sanctions that tackle the further harm that is beyond the reach of VicForests to manage within what it can do as far as eliminating inherent risk goes.

Dr RATNAM: Minister, in a letter to the Premier today the three unions who penned that letter argue that the bill makes a mockery of psychosocial safety in the workplace. These are three unions whose coverage of workers across the Victorian economy is significant and whose understanding of workplace safety should be listened to. What is the government’s response to that critique?

Ms SHING: As I understand it, we are waiting on some information and detail from Dr Ratnam given that I am just not across the context of the quote that Dr Ratnam has just placed on the record. So I will wait for that, and then perhaps we can provide a response. Thanks.

Dr RATNAM: Thank you, Minister. Minister, our offices have been contacted by citizen scientists concerned that these new laws will prevent citizen scientists surveying for threatened species in public forests. We share the concerns that these laws could be used against members of the public simply looking for endangered greater gliders, powerful owls or other threatened species, putting them at risk of $21 000 fines and time in jail. What guarantees can the government give to citizen scientists that their work will continue?

Ms SHING: Citizen science can in fact occur in other places around the state. There are 7 million-plus hectares of forest. There may well be other rules or restrictions in place for a range of other reasons, particularly if there are unsafe physical environments due to rockfall or land movement—subsidence et cetera. But the bottom line is: citizen science can take place across the state forest in places other than working coupes where other rules are not in place to prevent that from happening.

Dr RATNAM: Just to clarify, Minister, within the coupes that this bill does cover, the government cannot guarantee that the citizen scientists will not be hit with the same really significant penalties and jail terms. Is that the response?

Ms SHING: Thank you, Dr Ratnam. Working coupes are working coupes, which means that it is not an option for anyone to enter a working coupe unless they are authorised to do so. Citizen scientists present the same risk in a range of circumstances—not all, because presumably there is not a black wallaby component to citizen science activities. But where those circumstances involve, for example, contractors not knowing that there are people on the working coupes and therefore narrowly missing them with trees, which was one of the examples that I read out earlier because a contractor was unaware that there was anybody there, that is a matter that is captured by the nature of this legislation, whether somebody is a citizen scientist or a protester dressed in camouflage gear springing out in front of a piece of machinery at night.

Dr RATNAM: Thank you, Minister. We have had instances previously where citizen science that has occurred within coupes has been so important that it has led to court challenges and contests about the legality of the logging and whether the logging should continue in that coupe because of new data that has emerged about threatened species, for example. We are talking here about species on the brink of extinction, right? So finding a few of them in a logging coupe is really, really significant if you do not want to drive that species to extinction. Has the government contemplated how it is going to manage the value of that citizen science in stopping a number of species from being pushed to the brink of extinction? A number of those species are actively the subject of what is happening in coupes, and it is the reason why there are so many protests. Logging companies have been given the go-ahead to log areas where there are known to be threatened species, so here lies the tension. How is the government going to manage that tension when citizen scientists have been at the forefront of revealing really significant evidence which has at times led to logging being ceased in those areas to protect those threatened species? How is it going to manage that valuable information that citizen science brings, even to working logging coupe areas?

Ms SHING: Thank you, Dr Ratnam. This bill does not actually change the places where citizen science can take place. The bill itself is about addressing safety risks. So the intention of the bill is to actually manage the risk of physical or psychological harm in working coupes where there are activities taking place, including unlawful protest, that compromise the safety of people on that site. It is not dissimilar, by way of example, to somebody walking across a forklift track, an identified track where heavy machinery can operate inside a factory. The bottom line is that whether somebody is gathering information about a particular matter or indeed seeking to disrupt the movement of machinery, it presents a risk that requires management because of its inherently dangerous nature and the possibility of physical or psychological injury or even death.

Dr RATNAM: Thank you, Minister, for that response. I find it deeply concerning that consideration has not been given to how you preserve that citizen science and do not deter it, like the protesters you are attempting to deter through this bill, because we will lose so much valuable knowledge. We sat through a parliamentary inquiry into extinction for months on end, the largest of its kind and the largest this Parliament has undertaken this term, which highlighted how precarious the situation is and how important citizen scientists have been to uncovering really significant information about where species are and where logging needs to be halted because a species has been found, for example, where it has not been found before through previous surveys. That has been really valuable, and if this government values protecting our biodiversity and stopping these species from being pushed to extinction, I would have thought it would have given every consideration to how it can make sure that citizen scientists are not inadvertently captured through these really draconian measures that deter them from doing their really important work, because we are going to lose species when these kinds of laws are just slapped across huge areas. It is going to have a really significant impact, so I am really concerned about that. Minister, given the intended chilling impact of these laws on citizen scientists, being threatened with fines and jail, what additional resources will be provided to make up for the work they will no longer be able to do as a result of these laws?

Ms SHING: There is a measure of biosecurity work being done on the protection of species, and to that end we note recent reports from the commonwealth which indicate the list of threatened or extinct species and the vulnerability that is increasing in area across Australia, particularly when we compare our performance here as far as species protection goes in Australia and more broadly. It is one of those areas, though, where we need to make sure that citizen science does not take place at the expense of the health and safety of either those citizen scientists or of people who are working on coupes as contemplated within the timber harvesting safety zones. So we need to again be very clear about the importance of making sure that people are not being seriously injured or being killed in working coupes because of activity that places them at risk, and again that goes back to a number of the comments that I have made in earlier answers to your questions.

Clause agreed to; clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 (19:37)

Mr MEDDICK: Minister, clause 3 expands the definition of ‘prohibited thing’, and I note that in your answers to Ms Bath you gave some descriptions there and some further descriptions about other things that were prohibited things as well. I note that there is another example in clause 3, which speaks about specialised climbing equipment, for instance, and chains and locks. Can the minister describe what the practical limits are on the new definition of ‘any other prescribed prohibited thing’? Are there any further things that we are not seeing here in the bill that might be included later on, for instance, or should they be in the bill now?

Ms SHING: Thanks, Mr Meddick, for that question. One of the things that this list does is provide an inclusive range of things which are prohibited, and that contemplates the sorts of articles that have been referred to in a number of contributions in the second-reading debate. In not confining that to just that list the intention is that where there are other objects that present a risk of harm, they would then be able to be included by way of regulation as prohibited things within the meaning of clause 3 and the definitions in subclause (2).

Mr MEDDICK: Thank you, Minister, for that answer. My other question would be then, in that instance: if they are prescribed in the regulation at a later date, for instance, in a practical sense out on the ground at a logging coupe on the day when an incident is occurring what would be the process of ascribing the term ‘prohibited thing’ to something? Is it an arbitrary decision of the authorised officer that they consider that something that a person is carrying is a prohibited thing and that that thing represents a danger? Or will they be limited to what is strictly within the regulations as they are prescribed?

Ms SHING: I will take you to clause 1 of the bill, Mr Meddick, which refers to expanding the definition of ‘prohibited thing’ in a timber harvesting safety zone to include the items that I referred to earlier or another item used in the commission of an offence. So in all of the circumstances it would depend upon whether that item was used in the commission of an offence. That necessarily requires a consideration of the circumstances in play in each individual situation. There may well be prohibited things which are in play in certain circumstances which in and of themselves might otherwise not be prohibited things. But that would be informed by the way in which that commission of an offence has occurred such as to bring them under the scope of the new and amended clause 3.

Mr MEDDICK: Thank you, Minister, for that clarification because that is an important clarification to make, I believe, because it speaks to an offence being committed rather than something pre-emptive in terms of a search. That officer, for instance, might look at that thing and go, ‘Well, I believe that you are about to use that thing in the commission of an offence’ rather than an offence having already occurred. So that is a really important definition.

I thought I would let you know that Dr Ratnam did not have your number to forward to you what she was looking for before, and I have sent that to you on your phone.

Ms SHING: Thank you, Mr Meddick, for this collective approach to the use of technology here this evening. It has been a long week, and I am grateful for your real-time assistance in this matter. If you would like to perhaps tag team with Dr Ratnam on asking that question now, I would be happy to go to it should that be something that you wanted to deal with now. Alternatively, we can come back to it later. But please be aware that I have got the letter from a range of people, including you, Mr Meddick, and I am now in a position to provide some further information in the context of that particular quote which I had not actually seen before. So thanks, Mr Meddick. Thank you, Dr Ratnam.

Clause agreed to; clauses 4 and 5 agreed to.

Clause 6 (19:42)

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I invite Ms Bath to move her amendments 1 and 2, which are a test for her amendments 3 and 4.

Ms BATH: I move:

1. Clause 6, line 22, omit “In the” and insert “(1) In the”.

2. Clause 6, after line 24, insert—

‘(2) After section 77F(2) of the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act 2004 insert—

“(3) Subsection (1) does not apply to a dog owned by an authorised person engaged in timber harvesting operations in a timber harvesting safety zone.”.’.

I went through this in a fairly substantial way in my second-reading speech, but in the end both these amendments relate to dogs owned by authorised timber workers being allowed to be on the coupe. I have cited an example, as there are occasions where timber harvesters are in remote areas for a long period of time. On the worksite there is a landing, and on that landing there is some form of accommodation. It can be a caravan, and they would live there for a period of time because coupes can take up to six to eight weeks. And this would just enable a dog to be on that site under the responsibility of the harvester and all that entails: (1) for companionship and (2), say, if it is tied up in the evening, it could actually act as some security because if it hears something that should not be there, as in a person or a protester, it could alert the owner.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, Ms Bath. Just before I ask someone to respond, I remind the crossbench that they like to be heard in silence and they should extend the same courtesy to other speakers in the chamber. Does anybody have any questions of Ms Bath or wish to make a statement?

Ms SHING: Thank you, Ms Bath, for that question and also for the way in which you have advocated for the position of dogs being able to provide companionship to people who are working on those coupes in the timber safety harvest zones.

I am not going to quibble with you about the importance of dogs to people’s psychological health and wellbeing. My views on the importance of our canine friends are very well known in this place and indeed the world over, to the point where I suspect people would quite like me to stop talking about them. But one of the things I also know as a dog owner is that I would hate to expose any of my animals, as I am sure other pet owners would hate to expose their animals, to risk of injury or death. When you are on a worksite that involves heavy machinery, tree fall and indeed many other risks it is not reasonable to accommodate that risk by allowing a dog to be in a working coupe. Tying the dog up during the day is not a way to manage risk where in fact there is a possibility that that dog may be untethered, may get away and may run in front of machinery, thus causing the same sort of risk or injury as other circumstances referred to earlier.

Dr RATNAM: Just responding to Ms Bath’s amendments—and there are two sets of amendments that the opposition are moving, so this speaks to both sets of those amendments—the Greens will be opposing both these sets of amendments.

It is incredible that the opposition can still manage to try and make this bill even worse. How out of touch they are with the majority of Victorians who want to end native forest logging and for our precious forest to be protected for the future. It is very easy to see why they are becoming very irrelevant when they bring before us things that will make—and I am talking to the whole set of amendments, the subsequent amendments as well, which I will not make a later contribution on. It is really obvious that they do not contemplate and recognise the threat of climate change, the biodiversity loss and the habitat loss that we have spent months in a parliamentary inquiry researching in great depth. Particularly this next set of amendments undermine a bad bill even further. We will not be supporting either set of amendments.

Mr MEDDICK: I just want to thank Ms Bath for contacting me and running through these particular amendments that she has. I also just want to sort of echo the statements of Minister Shing. I share those concerns about dogs being in that particular zone, regardless of whether they are with a protester or a timber worker. I am also concerned about the fact that should a dog become loose the danger to native animals is also still there in equal measure, whether it is a protester’s dog that is loose in that coupe or whether it is a timber worker’s dog, and I want to protect the safety of both of those classes of animals.

Committee divided on amendments:

Amendments negatived.

Clause agreed to; clauses 7 to 10 agreed to.

Clause 11 (19:55)

Mr MEDDICK: In the previous minister’s second-reading speech she asserted that all offences are only applicable in an exclusion zone—in a timber harvesting zone. In regard to the hindering offence, if a lawful picket line is then established outside the timber harvesting zone and prevents entry to that zone, would that be considered a hindrance offence under this legislation?

Ms SHING: If it is lawful, it remains lawful under the bill. I know that sounds like I am speaking in riddles, but the way in which the question has been asked invites me to just put that answer to you, if that assists, Mr Meddick.

Clause agreed to; clause 12 agreed to.

Clause 13 (19:56)

Mr MEDDICK: Minister, clause 13 introduces new section 88A and expands the search and seizure powers in a timber harvesting safety zone. Can you confirm that the extended search and seizure powers issued to authorised officers will allow those officers to search someone’s personal property on the mere suspicion that the person could possibly have something and possibly use that thing to try and stop the process of cutting down native forests?

Ms SHING: Mr Meddick, vehicle and personal property searches will be allowed to be undertaken if a vehicle or personal property, such as bags, are within a timber harvesting safety zone and the authorised officer or police officer believes on reasonable grounds that they may contain a prohibited thing or an item being used or about to be used in the commission of an offence. Sorry, I am happy to add, if this might assist you, Mr Meddick, that the circumstances of what constitutes ‘on reasonable grounds’—again, to come back to what I said to you earlier—will depend upon the circumstances in play in any given situation.

Mr MEDDICK: Thank you, Minister, for your answer. Will the reasonable belief or reasonable grounds, as you have said, have the opportunity to be tested in a court of law?

Ms SHING: Thanks, Mr Meddick. The answer is yes.

Mr MEDDICK: Thank you, Minister. My next question has already been answered by something else that you have already answered, so I will move on to the next one. What burden of evidence will be placed upon the authorities at the moment the officer claims a reasonable belief a crime will be committed?

Ms SHING: Thank you, Mr Meddick. The authorised officer or indeed police officer must have a reasonable belief, which involves that consideration of the relevant circumstances in play. Again, it is not an unusual circumstance in the exercise of judgement as to whether a crime or an offence has been committed or may be about to be committed.

Mr MEDDICK: Thank you, Minister, for that. The next two run to that thing that you have already answered as well about the powers only being used in a timber harvesting safety zone and that they will not be enacted outside of a timber harvesting safety zone. So my next question then will be: can you confirm that if the extended search and seizure powers do occur outside of a timber harvesting safety zone all the subsequent charges and fines will be determined to be invalid?

Ms SHING: Thank you, Mr Meddick. Again these are circumstances which would be subject to judicial review and therefore could be interpreted and determined by the courts, so that burden of evidence would be on the prosecution to establish compliance within the terms of the bill as it relates to conduct that interferes with, obstructs or hinders timber harvesting operations, including through use of a prohibited thing or anticipation that the commission of an offence might occur by reference to that prohibited thing.

Ms BATH: I went through this in great detail in my substantive contribution to the second-reading debate. I move:

5. Clause 13, line 26, omit “in timber harvesting safety zones”.

6. Clause 13, lines 27 to 31, omit all words and expressions on these lines.

7. Clause 13, page 6, line 6, omit “Act.” and insert ‘Act.”.’.

8. Clause 13, page 6, lines 7 to 9, omit all words and expressions on these lines.

Ms SHING: Thank you, Ms Bath, for your very pithy contribution and summary. Given the late hour, I am sure we are all grateful. The government will not be supporting your amendments, Ms Bath.

Mr LIMBRICK: The Liberal Democrats will not be supporting these amendments, and I am glad to say that Mr Quilty and I are united on this once again. The concept of property rights outside of the coupe does not apply; therefore we are united in our opposition to expanding these search powers outside of the coupe.

Committee divided on amendments:

Amendments negatived.

Clause agreed to; clauses 14 to 21 agreed to.

Clause 22 (20:09)

Mr MEDDICK: Minister, new division 2 allows authorised officers to issue banning notices. These banning notices appear to be a form of arrest, charge, conviction and penalty in one fell swoop. Can you confirm that the penalty will not be determined by a court of law but rather by an officer acting under the auspices of the regulations?

Ms SHING: Thank you, Mr Meddick, for that question around division 2. This division allows an authorised officer to issue banning notices, as you have indicated, and these penalties and any sentence for breaching a banning notice would in fact be determined by a court.

Mr MEDDICK: Thank you, Minister, for your answer. Can I ask, then: does the magistrate have any role in regard to banning people from entering timber harvesting zones in protest of logging native forests?

Ms SHING: Thanks, Mr Meddick. Part 9B of the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act already in fact gives the courts the power to make exclusion orders, which can exclude a person from entering a timber harvesting safety zone specified in the order. A court can make this order if they have found a person guilty of a specified offence and the court is satisfied that the order may be an effective but also reasonable means of preventing the offender from committing a further specified offence. That is actually separate to the banning framework in the bill.

Mr MEDDICK: Thank you, Minister, for that answer, because it does take care of the next question that I had in that line, so I will go to the last question that I have on this clause. Can you confirm that these powers to issue banning notices will not be misused by pre-emptively banning potential protesters who are approaching a logging area?

Ms SHING: Thanks, Mr Meddick. The person has to have grounds to make the notice. It is a legal requirement. It is in fact a precondition of using the power at all that those grounds exist. That then includes having the reasonable belief that the person has committed or is committing a specified offence and that the banning notice may be effective in preventing that person from committing the specified offence, continuing to commit that offence or committing a further specified offence or that the continuation of the offence may give rise to a risk to the safety of a person or indeed hinder the work of a person within the timber harvesting safety zone.

Mr HAYES: Minister, just on that, on Mr Meddick’s line of questioning about the banning notices, can a court of law remove a banning notice that has been applied by an officer?

Ms SHING: Thank you, Mr Hayes, for that curveball at 12 minutes past 8 on a Thursday night. I can confirm that a court could technically address this matter in relation to a banning notice under the broader framework of judicial review but that there is also a capacity for another police officer or indeed the secretary of the department to remove that ban. Does that help?

Mr HAYES: Yes. Thank you, Minister.

Clause agreed to; clause 23 agreed to.

Clause 24 (20:14)

Mr MEDDICK: I note that the intent of the bill here is that protesters will now be subject to increased penalties when they refuse to comply with an exclusion order. How does that affect a person who is subject to other orders?

Ms SHING: Thanks, Mr Meddick. Increasing the penalty for breach of an exclusion order should not affect or impact upon any other orders that a person might be subject to.

Mr MEDDICK: Thank you, Minister, for that answer, and it does answer the next part of that question. I will move to my last question, if that is okay. Minister, can these people continue to protest—despite the fact that they are subject to an exclusion order inside the safety zone—outside of that exclusion zone?

Ms SHING: Thanks, Mr Meddick. Exclusion orders that are made by courts can potentially exclude a person from entering an area of state forest specified in the order, in addition to those timber harvesting safety zones. That is in fact Victoria’s current law. So that is not impacted by the changes that are set out in this bill.

Dr RATNAM: I wish to come back to my previous question that you were going to take on notice. We might as well acquit it in this last clause, given that it is open. So, Minister, by way of repetition, in their letter to the Premier today the three unions argued that the bill ‘makes a mockery of psychosocial safety in the workplace’. These are three unions whose coverage of workers across the Victorian economy is significant and whose understanding of workplace safety should be listened to. What is the government’s response to that critique?

Ms SHING: Thank you, Dr Ratnam, for coming back to this question, and to the 590 people who have since sent me this letter that appeared in the paper today. I am grateful for the opportunity to inform myself on the hop. In relation to the point that you have made by way of extracting the reference to ‘a mockery of psychosocial safety in the workplace’, I have taken you through, Dr Ratnam, a range of the examples of psychological harm and also the impact of certain actions, whether it relates to physical injury or serious injury or indeed death—so fatalities in the workplace—or in fact that psychological harm and distress. By reference to the practical application of this bill, I would just note that there has also been an endorsement of the bill by the wooden pulp fibre industry of Victoria and the Victorian Forest Products Association, including as it relates to the management of psychosocial health in the workplace and therefore of workplace systems that contemplate safety at their heart in risk management.

Clause agreed to; clauses 25 and 26 agreed to.

Reported to house without amendment.

Ms SHING (Eastern Victoria—Minister for Water, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Equality) (20:19): I am nothing if not nimble tonight, it would appear. I move:

That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Third reading

Ms SHING (Eastern Victoria—Minister for Water, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Equality) (20:19): I move:

That the bill be now read a third time.

In doing so I want to take a moment to thank Minister Tierney, who has put an awful lot of work into this bill, into the stakeholder engagement and the work that has led to this bill being brought before the house tonight. I also want to place on the record my thanks and gratitude to Veronica, to Zane and to Daniel, who have provided me with real-time assistance in the course of this quite impromptu process, and I also thank the house for the latitude afforded to me this evening in assisting with that.

The PRESIDENT: The question is:

That the bill be now read a third time and do pass.

House divided on question:

Question agreed to.

Read third time.

The PRESIDENT: Pursuant to standing order 14.27, the bill will be returned to the Assembly with a message informing them that the Council have agreed to the same without amendment.