Eastern Victoria Region
Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (13:05): (1059) My question is to the Minister for Agriculture. Established in 2012, Hodge Forestry has provided occupational health and safety audit services as a direct contractor to VicForests since 2014. Trevor Hodge has not received a single cent of compensation. In his own words, he has jumped through every hoop, run around and jumped through it again, only to face additional delays and no tangible results. Able to transition to plantation, Trevor, at the advice of the forestry transition team, applied for round 3 of the Vic transition innovation fund. With significant overheads and no income, he has a provisional contract in the plantation space but must retool in order to meet those contracts. He is in limbo. Minister, will you expedite the round 3 application process so that Trevor can transition into plantations, or is he just another example of collateral damage in your flawed forestry shutdown?