Hansard debates

Ms SETTLE (Buninyong) (18:28): I am pleased to rise to speak on the Sustainable Forests Timber Amendment (Timber Harvesting Safety Zones) Bill 2022. I think many people in this house know that I am a very, very proud regional MP. I am also a very proud member of a century-long farming family, and those things are very clear in the house. But perhaps less known in the house is that I am also a very, very proud environmentalist. My mother has an Order of Australia for her commitment and work in the environment space, so this has been something that I have grown up with all of my life. One of the things that she has talked about is how environmental awareness has really changed—and we have watched it change over the years—but first and foremost my mother is also a Labor Party stalwart. Both she and my father have their lifelong memberships. And why I bring up those things is I think that this sense of a binary opposition between environmentalists and workers is just nonsensical. I am very glad that the opposition support us on this bill, but look, I was a bit distressed to hear from the member for Ripon, who seemed to seek to make this an absolutely adversarial bill. The idea that we have got to pit the community against the worker—that is not what we are trying to achieve here with this bill.

The Labor government and all Labor Party members have always supported peaceful protest. We always will. You know, my first protest was on my mother’s hip when I was about six months old, and it was an antinuclear protest, a peaceful protest in Melbourne. So protest is in our blood, and we would never, ever seek to quell that peaceful process. I find it disingenuous of the Greens to continue to suggest that we are in some ways trying to gag any sort of protest. On that note, I would like to acknowledge one of my local constituents, who is a lovely woman by the name of Linda Zibell. Linda is a Green, and Linda wrote to me about this bill. I will say she is the only person that has contacted me regarding this bill, but nonetheless I read her email and will be replying to her in due course. She talks about herself as a 70-year-old peaceful protester and that this bill is after the likes of her, and plainly that is just not true. I think the most important thing around this bill is really to understand that it relates to these zones, the very particular zones, and they are workspaces. The timber harvesting zones are just not suitable places for protests. They are fairly small, they are restricted areas where forestry activities are undertaken, and of course there is a lot of use of heavy machinery. So I do not think it is true to say that we are in any way stopping peaceful protest. What we are trying to do here is walk that sensible centre, which is to protect protesters but also to absolutely protect working people and also with an eye to the environment.

This government’s commitment to the environment is absolutely on record, and I think many of us on this side of the chamber do still baulk a little when we get lectured to by the Greens about the environment. It certainly sticks in my mind that we are 10 years down the road, and the federal space around protecting the environment is hopefully about to change under a new Labor federal government, but certainly we have suffered 10 years of climate wars. I lay that at the feet of the Greens because they chose not to support the Gillard government when we were trying to make real change. So it does grate a little to hear them suggest that perhaps we are not protecting the environment.

In this instance the Andrews government in 2019 announced the Victorian Forestry Plan, and our plan is to phase out native forest harvesting by 2030. This included the immediate ban on harvesting old-growth forest in Victoria, protecting 90 000 hectares of native forest, and established an additional 96 000 hectares of immediate protection areas. We have walked this line and we are trying to protect the environment, but we are also really conscious of working people. The clue is in the name—we are, after all, the Australian Labor Party. I think many on this side joined to protect working people. I know from talking to my mother—she lives in Anglesea—for example, about when Alcoa closed down, there were lots of people that were sort of jumping up and down and saying shut it immediately. But of course they were working people. They were people whose families relied on that income. In the same way I think what this government has done has been an extraordinary effort to make sure that we are protecting the environment into the long term but also to make sure that we transition very carefully.

It is incredibly important to us that that transition is done well. I will never forget what the Liberal federal government did to the car industry in this country; it is heartbreaking. We need to transition, and that is what is so wonderful about the forestry bill in general—it is transitioning over a period so that we can take the community along with it. The transition package is a $200 million package, and we really do need to transition. We do have to move forward, but likewise we cannot just shut it all down today.

This bill is really about protecting workers. Quite a few people have talked about the Wombat State Forest recently. The Wombat State Forest is not in my electorate, but it does border my electorate, and I believe Lerderderg and Wombat will come together as state parks. Certainly I have driven through those areas after the storms and seen the storm damage, and it makes a lot of sense that we should be clearing those logs, but the protesters there were acting in a fairly dangerous way. Mr Greenwood, who was the fellow responsible for doing the clearing, talked about people walking around after dark in grey and black clothing—you could barely see them. I mean, we all wear hi-vis jackets on building sites and so forth for a reason, and it is important that people can be seen in such a heavy machinery area. To quote him:

“It’s about making sure no one gets hurt,” he said.

“If I am lifting and moving a log that weighs 10 to 12 tonnes, I cannot just stop.

“They don’t realise the danger they are in. It’s crazy.”

So it is about trying to protect the safety of the workers and the protesters.

With all due respect, when I get lectured from someone who lives in Brunswick about what life is like on a farm or what life is like for regional workers and people in the regions, it is pretty galling. It is something that has always struck me about the Greens. There is not much diversity of ethnicity or anything like that. They all seem to live in the inner suburbs and really, I mean, there is a reason people refer to them as ‘teals’, because really they are wealthy people that are interested in the environment—which is lovely, but we on this side are both interested in the environment and of course very, very interested in working people. So I am very proud of this bill.

The member for Brunswick talked about checking what had gone on, and look, one of my colleagues quoted it earlier but I would like to quote Michael O’Connor, who today said:

People have a right to peacefully protest but they should not target … workers …

but more importantly:

The flawed logic that we should wait for a death or serious injury of a worker or protestor before we take action to better deter misconduct should hold no weight …

And he is absolutely right. The Greens might be citing this idea that we have had no deaths, but I do not think that we should be waiting for a death to change the legislation, and indeed we are not. I would like to acknowledge the Minister for Agriculture at the desk, who is taking action. I know some contributions from the other side have talked about how this has been a long time coming. Well, let us just say that this minister at the desk has got on and done it, and we should all stand behind her and support her in this, because this is a really important piece of legislation. It protects workers. It protects protesters. It is not stopping peaceful protest. I commend the bill to the house.