Thursday, 11 September 2025
Adjournment
Timber industry
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Timber industry
Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (17:16:556:): (1958) My adjournment matter is to the Premier. Victoria’s native timber industry was callously shut down seven years earlier than planned. It was an ideological decision that devastated communities, crippled local sawmills and left many timber workers uncompensated while leaving us to depend on inferior imported timber.
Since the closure, hardwood imports into Victoria have absolutely surged. We now rely on many countries like Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia. Eighty-six per cent of these countries have significantly worse environmental standards than Australia. These imports are also often linked to criminal networks. They also carry a massive carbon footprint as they are shipped thousands and thousands of kilometres. We are enriching foreign interests while impoverishing our own, all the while increasing the total pollution. In 2023, it was revealed that the Victorian government was importing up to 40 truckloads of logs from Tasmania per week, and my constituents tell me this is continuing.
Former Premier Daniel Andrews repeatedly claimed material shortages were the biggest driver of Victoria’s housing crisis. In response the Labor government decided to remove a critical part of the supply chain – our own locally sourced, sustainable timber. This government shut down its own world-leading sustainable forestry industry. Now, with already stretched global demands set to outstrip by 2050, Victoria is faced with more scarcity, rising costs and greater environmental harms. Contrast this with France, which rebuilt the Notre Dame using native timbers from forests sustainably managed for centuries. France understands that foreign capability and environmental stewardship can work together, but this Allan Labor government does not.
The action that I seek is for the Premier to explain when the timber workers who lost their contracts with the government – unexpectedly cut short by seven years – will receive the reimbursement they were promised years ago.