Tuesday, 30 May 2023

 Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Water, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Commonwealth Games Legacy, Minister for Equality) (12:30): The 1939 Black Friday bushfires led to a regrowth of mountain ash throughout northern and eastern Victoria that enabled the native timber harvesting industry to continue for generations. We know that there are timber towns, communities, businesses and workers for whom native timber harvesting is part of their DNA and their everyday. It was with a profound sense of grief that I joined the Minister for Agriculture Minister Tierney and my colleague Tom McIntosh last week to announce that the timber industry from state forests will end from 1 January next year.

This is a decision that has arisen for a range of reasons. Firstly, prolonged droughts and bushfires and the loss of 1.5 million hectares in Black Summer have had a profound effect on the availability of wood in our timberyards. Secondly, the impact of ongoing litigation has meant that there is inherent uncertainty in the availability of supply. We have seen that over the last six months workers have been at home without certainty. I have seen the impact of these decisions on workers from mills, from businesses, from operations and from haulage contractors. It has been a devastating period of uncertainty for so many people across the sector and indeed across rural and regional Victoria.

We owe these workers more, and that is why more than $875 million will be directed toward making sure that transition is conducted within, with and for communities. The Latrobe Valley Authority, Regional Development Victoria, departments, agencies and multiple ministerial portfolios will be geared toward making sure that people can make the decisions that are right for them in their own time and with the resources that they need and deserve.