Hansard debates

Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (11:32): It is with an exceptionally heavy heart that I rise to speak on this bill before us, which is going to see the demise of the sustainable timber industry in Victoria as we have known it after a very long period of time. I want to thank very much those from VicForests that have done the very hard yards, plus all of those in downstream operations. In my electorate there are so many who were involved in harvest and haulage, in sawmilling, and the businesses that go alongside those that support them, whether that be machinery operators and repairers or fuel providers. It is with a very heavy heart that we are here today.

We know that in Victoria timber harvesting was sustainable. Three trees in every 10,000 were harvested. If people want to think about how quickly forests regrow, they only need to come out to my electorate. In 2009 the Black Saturday fires absolutely decimated the areas around Kinglake, Marysville and Buxton. You go there now and you look at those forests, and you would not know, the bush is so dense – so quickly have they regrown. VicForests have had a very dedicated program to replant and reforest every coupe that they have done, and many of those have been exceptionally successful. Have a look at coupes that were harvested 20 or 30 years ago and you will see how large those trees have grown in that time, because you can reforest. Deforestation is not reforestation, and we certainly have reforestation here.

I want to mention the IPCC’s position on forestry – that is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN body. Their Special Report on Climate Change and Land, chapter 6, outlines very clearly that sustainable forestry has benefits for the environment in terms of carbon capture as young trees absorb more carbon than older trees. As I have said, reforestation is not deforestation, which sees forests chopped down and cleared for good. That is not happening; that did not happen. Carbon lives in our products. Wood construction can store carbon for up to a century.

I want to mention the workers from the industry and what is lost – the expertise and the specialist positions that are lost. There are a range of fields: environmental and forest scientists, ecologists, policy compliance officers, researchers, modellers and analysts. Downstream there are seed collectors; harvest and haulage heavy machinery operators; sawmillers and sharpeners. So many industries, so much expertise, is lost. And for government members to say they will all be there to support bushfire activity in the future – well, if they have sold off their gear, they are not there to do that sort of work. They have been on the ground. As soon as there are fires, they swing into action because they want to protect their local communities. They have been subject – the workers, whether they are at VicForests or other workers – to some vile actions. They have had on-the-ground activism where people have chained themselves to their gear. The risks to harvesters and haulage are just extraordinary. We had 75 per cent of the coupes on the timber release plan being subject to court action. This was about slowing the industry down, bringing the industry to its knees and putting the pressure on the government for the Greens votes. It was extraordinary to watch this and then to see how the VicForests workers were treated not just by the government but by activists and some departments and organisations, including mainstream media.

They suffered work-related violence – they were abused and threatened, they were vilified and they were battered and bruised – and it has taken its toll. Social media is one of the worst – the dreadful, dreadful slurs and the threats – but they were not allowed to speak out and say ‘This is what the story is.’ They are public servants, and they had to put up with this. They had a directive not to respond. How absolutely heartbreaking and traumatic for these people. I have spoken to very many of them, and they felt very much hamstrung. They have borne the brunt of unfair activity, and to those people I say I am very, very sorry, on behalf of the coalition here, that they had to experience that. That was not fair. And for the Labor government to let it happen and be silent on it I think was extraordinary. They would not do that in any other circumstance. If they had public servants subject to what they were subjected to, the government would have called it out. Well, they did not call it out, and that is just an absolute failure with the heartlessness of this government.

Timber forestry can be done very sustainably, and that was being done. The constant court actions have undermined confidence, and really the work of the environmentalists has not been for good by any means. We see now that they want to extend and close those forests and turn them into national parks, which will have devastating consequences for regional Victoria. This is a very sad day for Victoria.