Thursday, 19 October 2023

 Peter WALSH (Murray Plains) (17:15): (391) My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Environment, and the issue that I wish the minister to resolve is making sure that through Parks Victoria and through the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) there are firewood collection coupes made available in northern Victoria. At the moment if you live anywhere further north than Bendigo in northern Victoria you have effectively no access to firewood to go and collect for your own use. If you live in Swan Hill, and I have had constituents from Swan Hill raise this issue, you have to drive to south of Bendigo to actually collect firewood. It is just unacceptable that someone, particularly a pensioner, who uses firewood for their heating and sometimes for their cooking, would have to drive over 2 hours to collect a trailer-load of firewood.

I have had a lady from Kerang who has contacted me again about this – Helen Mckay – same issue. Someone from Kerang has to drive for an hour and a half to south of Bendigo to get firewood. She normally used to get wood from the Gunbower state forest, but there are no coupes available in Gunbower state forest at the moment. Not only has she got effectively a 4-hour trip to get a trailer-load of wood, she has also raised the issue that because there is no-one collecting firewood the fuel load in those forests is increasing and the fire risk is even greater. So it would serve two purposes: to allow people to collect firewood but also to reduce the fuel load in the forest.

I also had letters from people closer to Barmah Forest who are very concerned that they can no longer go into Barmah Forest to get firewood, and again the fuel load is increasing. So I would ask the Minister for Environment: please, look at the maps, look where the firewood collection sites are currently and work out where there can be sites along that Murray River corridor to collect firewood. There is a lot of timber there. There are a lot of forest areas there. Surely it is not that hard that Parks Victoria or DEECA cannot actually find sites for people to collect firewood across the north of Victoria rather than having to drive a 4- or 5-hour round trip to get a trail-load of wood.