Tuesday, 20 September 2022

 Mr RICH-PHILLIPS (South Eastern Metropolitan) (10:41): The growing practice of green lawfare is having a corrosive and debilitating impact on legitimate commercial activities in Victoria, particularly in the timber industry. Green lawfare involves the launching of vexatious legal actions with a view to stopping or frustrating legitimate commercial activity or forcing businesses to waste vast amounts of money defending their legal and legitimate activity.

MyEnvironment has unsuccessfully brought litigation against VicForests in an effort to frustrate its activity and has repeatedly had judgements made against it. MyEnvironment has been ordered to pay costs and interest to VicForests now totalling $2 million. The then Minister for Agriculture instructed VicForests not to recover these costs. This is a completely unacceptable position for the government, to effectively forfeit $2 million of taxpayers funds, and sends a tacit signal to MyEnvironment to continue its green lawfare. More recently the Wilderness Society has undertaken a fundraising campaign based on misleading claims, deceptive claims, about the Victorian timber industry, demonising that industry. This potentially breaches the Fundraising Act 1998, which prohibits false statements during fundraising appeals.

The government has shown its willingness to look the other way with MyEnvironment. It must ensure that it upholds the law for all groups, including its mates MyEnvironment and the Wilderness Society, it must ensure that the Wilderness Society is acting consistently with the Fundraising Act and it must recover the $2 million owed to taxpayers by MyEnvironment.