Thursday, 19 February 2026

 Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (12:41): My question is for the Minister for Environment. Just as this Parliament legislated to create the Wombat–Lerderderg National Park in my electorate, residents felt a sense of deja vu. In October of last year, Forest Fire Management Victoria resumed their industrial-scale storm recovery timber removal program, better known as salvage logging, in the Wombat forest. This is not just removing a couple of fallen logs. FFMV uses the exact same contractors, same trucks and same heavy machinery as VicForests once did. Australia’s leading forest ecologist Professor David Lindenmayer has described salvage logging as having massive and long-lasting impacts on the biodiversity and ecological values of forests. There are also real concerns that these operations intensify rather than reduce the risk of bushfires through the production of fresh, drier fuels. These concerns were shared with the government in expert advice that they commissioned and have ignored. Is the government confident that these operations are actually reducing the overall bushfire risk?