Tuesday, 17 October 2023

Western Victoria Region

Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (15:34): (456) My question is for the Minister for Agriculture and concerns the Labor government’s decision to accelerate its environmentally, economically and socially catastrophic decision to ban native timber harvesting. Minister, after the initial announcement, I questioned in Parliament the effect on low-impact selective sustainable and value-added timber operations. Your predecessor replied that the plan:

… does not include the cessation of the supply of specialty timber from our state forests –

which –

… is managed through a forest produce license system which supports smaller scale, selective utilisation of forest produce.

No announcement has subsequently been made to contradict this, yet recently the department publicly referred to compensation for licence-holders, which includes many in Western Victoria. Is this omission just announcing a ban by the back door when existing licences expire? So, Minister, will these licences be extended, or are you banning by stealth all forms of community forestry too?