Wednesday, 7 February 2024

Eastern Victoria Region

Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (12:49): (638) My question is to the Treasurer. Based in Latrobe Valley, Trevor Hodge is the director of Hodge Forestry Services and, due to Labor’s shutdown of the timber industry, has lost his sole source of income – field and systems third-party OH&S audit contracts. Having been in the industry for 20 years and being a valuable contributor to this industry, he does not qualify for any of the government’s so-called compensation scheme payouts. Trevor wrote to me stating:

As you know the Government’s decision to end native timber harvesting from the state’s forests six years ahead of schedule has inflicted untold damage on the people involved in this industry, their families and their communities.

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Contracting businesses like ours are suffering particularly severely.

There are a number of VicForests contractors who will not be able to continue on. Will the Treasurer extend forestry compensation packages to service-based industries like Hodge Forestry Services?