Wednesday,31 July 2024
Production of documents
Timber industry
Production of documents
Timber industry
That this house:
(1) notes that the Victorian government has committed more than $900 million to Victoria’s transition out of commercial native forest logging;
(2) requires the Leader of the Government, in accordance with standing order 10.01, to table in the Council, within three weeks of the house agreeing to this resolution, any:
(a) contracts, materials or submissions provided by the Minister for Agriculture, the Minister for Environment or the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) regarding this funding;
(b) materials, including assessments and briefs, provided by DEECA to the Minister for Environment and the Minister for Agriculture concerning how this funding was spent; and
(c) consultancies or work by contractors used to inform how this funding was spent.
This is a really important transparency motion to make sure that almost $1 billion of taxpayer funds is being used for the purpose the government stated, which was to assist timber workers and contractors in transitioning out of native timber harvesting. The Greens support transitioning former native forest workers to sustainable jobs, whether that be in plantations, reforestation, seed collection, forest regeneration or natural disaster management. When the Labor government made the announcement that native forest logging would end in Victoria, they provided a sum of over $900 million, almost a billion dollars in total, to those affected workers, contractors and organisations. They stated this money was to be used to assist workers to move out of native forest logging and into plantations.
But since then, we have had very little transparency about how this funding was used and whether it was actually used for its stated purpose. In fact we have been alarmed to hear reports that payments may have been used by local companies that, rather than creating long-term sustainable jobs here, have simply moved their operations to Tasmania to continue native forest logging in some of the highest conservation value forests in the world – forests filled with threatened and endangered species – including by importing timber from Tasmania to Victorian timber mills via the Spirit of Tasmania and Searoad Mersey.
Even those who do not necessarily agree with the Greens on the issue of logging have concerns about the transparency, accountability and integrity of this Victorian public money being used to essentially subsidise logging in Tasmania. For example, independent member for Lyons John Tucker said in July last year:
These companies, bolstered by close to one billion dollars paid to them by the Victorian government to stop logging their own forests, are wreaking havoc on Tasmanian contractors. Fuelled by the funds they have already secured, thanks to Dan Andrews and Victorian taxpayers, they are engaging in predatory pricing, undercutting Tasmanian businesses, and forcing them out of operation …
We in this Parliament have a duty to investigate whether there is any truth in those assertions, and it is the duty and role of this chamber to provide some checks and balances over how our government spends the public’s money and whether it follows through on the promises it makes to the Victorian people. We hope that all parties can support this motion, because at its heart this is about transparency and accountability over taxpayer funds. Specifically, were there any guidelines, exclusions or rules placed around the use or acceptance of transition payments? Victorians expect that their money is used how the government says it will be used, and they have the right to ask questions about whether nearly $1 billion of their money was given to companies to essentially just move their business elsewhere when the money was supposed to be used to develop a long-term sustainable business in plantations in Victoria and in forest regeneration and protection.
Following the end of native forest logging in Victoria there are many roles here in Victoria that forest contractors are well placed to do and which Victoria needs. Responsible fire management, helping to deal with other natural disasters and extreme weather events, remote firefighting work, forest regeneration and of course plantations – these are all jobs that need the skills and experience of our forest industry workforce. But we will not benefit from those skills if loggers are simply moving their operations to Tasmania to destroy old-growth forest over there. Victorians deserve some transparency over where these funds were spent, and that is why we hope all parties will support this simple motion today to release some of this information to the Victorian public.
Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (10:26): It is interesting rising to this short-form documents motion. Here we have the Greens and the Nationals seeming to be in the same position – the Nationals and the Liberals are not opposing this motion. We know that the government has supported the forestry industry, forestry workers and forestry communities in recent years with $1.5 billion of financial assistance. Supreme Court injunctions saw businesses stopped and workers stopped from going to work, and the government stepped in and made sure that they had financial assistance so they could get on with living their lives when they were not able to go to work.
For decades the Nationals and the Liberals, much like what they have done with coal and much like what they have done with gas, buried their heads in the sand and refused to lean in to the conversation, and still they do the same. They would make out that there has been no financial support to businesses, to communities and to workers. They do not want to acknowledge what has been delivered. Yet when the Greens stand here today asking those businesses, those communities and those workers to go through – and I can go through it right here if I have time; it is a short-form documents motion, and these motions allow very limited time to debate issues – the $1.5 billion, the Nationals and the Liberals do not oppose it.
We heard a short contribution from the Greens asking where this $1.5 billion of investment is. I was in Orbost 2½ weeks ago talking with businesses around Orbost. I was at a steel and truss frame manufacturer that has been set up with $500,000 of support from the state government. These investments are setting up sustainable businesses to be here going forward into the next generation. Our investment in plantations – we just announced yesterday that a million trees have gone into the ground during July to ensure that we have plantations that can be harvested and that can supply our mills in Yarram, in Heyfield and in Bairnsdale, the same mills that we are supporting with grants and with funds to bring in the technology so that they can continue to operate and so they can thrive into the future. But the Greens and the Nationals want to question. I talked about the green and the green – the populist elements of politics in this place. The Nationals want to say everything is doom and gloom and never look to the future. They talk down any positive plan or action going forward, and of course the Greens just want to shut down everything they possibly can.
There is $200 million to support community workers and their families; $151.9 million for the Victorian Forestry Plan; $120 million to establish the Gippsland plantation investment program – as I just said before, a million trees went in during July; $193 million for targeted timber industry and worker transition support services; $11 million to facilitate extending timber clean-up operations following the 2019–20 bushfires, which we know had a massive impact on stocks and supply – and again the Nationals and Liberals are not willing to acknowledge this; $362 million for future forest and fire management works for forest contractors; $156.8 million to finalise the wind-up of native timber harvesting operations, including the cessation of VicForests on 30 June 2024; and $115.7 million for the future forests program, including the management of over 1.8 million hectares of state forest where timber harvesting will no longer occur.
Of course the Liberals are already out scaremongering in communities, whipping up fear where there need not be, as we try to engage communities and talk about the future of these forests. As this is a short-form documents motion, I have run out of time, but I appreciate that I have been able to make this contribution.
Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (10:31): The Liberals and Nationals will not oppose this motion, as is the practice on short-form documents motions, because members of this place and the community – Victorians – deserve transparency and accountability from a government that is mired in mud and a lack of transparency. It is for different reasons that the Nationals and the Liberals want to see what is going on and how this money has been spent – this $875 million that the government has allegedly spent. We want to just understand where it has gone. We want to understand the categories. We want to understand if it has gone to where they have purported it should or if it has gone to government bureaucracies and people who seem to be lining their pockets in conversation rather than outcomes.
However, I have a caveat and a caution for the government and rebuttal for the Greens. The Greens and their friends who grow lentils and alfalfa sprouts on hardwood Victorian windowsills in Fitzroy are rejoicing in the demise of many people and communities in my region and across Victoria. They have now come into this house insinuating that there are unlawful activities by Victorian manufacturers that are going against the laws of this state and this land, and I rebut that entirely. This government brought this forward six years early and announced the closure of the native timber industry on 23 May last year – a shutdown that was six years early – but it had been hounding the people of Gippsland, the people of northern Victoria and all the associated manufacturers for years and years. The initial announcement was in 2019, and it created havoc and distress across these regions. We want to understand what is happening to the workers, the contractors and the associated workers. We want to understand that the money is going to the right place. Indeed the Premier said back in May of 2023:
We’re being upfront with the industry – and continuing to deliver a managed transition to support every worker and every business. Because we’ll never leave them to go it alone.
Well, they absolutely have. I have people coming into my office on a regular basis absolutely frustrated that this government, through ForestWorks, has made a commitment and has actually even put a pathway for money of 20 cents into their account and is now saying, ‘No deal.’ A particular husband and wife want to use that money to create tourism. They want that money, yet the government is thwarting it and saying, ‘Sorry, no go.’ That is not doing what the former Premier stood up for and said. He said to Peter Walsh, ‘You do your politics, we’ll do ours, and we’ll make sure that people will continue to get paid.’ We need to understand what is happening here. But a caution to the government: we need to also ensure that the privacy of Victorians is upheld and that all personal details are redacted in this information. We do not want to see information which could be commercial in confidence. We do not want to see individuals targeted by the Greens, because this is what they like to do – to not only hound people who are now out of work but to continue to push them to the limit. We want to ensure that there is privacy and safety in that information coming forward. We do not want a new form of the black wallaby tactics that we have seen the friends of the Greens operate under.
Insofar as things like the plantation industry go, what a joke that is. In 2019 there was $120,000. If you go and look at the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, if you go and look at the facts, you know that there is less plantation timber in the ground now than there was when Labor came to government.
We want to understand more about forest fire management. We know that they were scrambling, and it still is not organised. Why? Because 60 per cent of the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action sits in metropolitan Melbourne. There are not the people who understand the regions and forest management working on this. We want to see this. We want to protect workers. We want the facts, and we do not want a further cover-up by the Allan Labor government.
Jeff BOURMAN (Eastern Victoria) (10:36): I wish I had a lot more time for this, but sadly I have only got 5 minutes. I have been in this place since 2014, and from then the Greens have been mercilessly attacking the logging industry. From 2014 to 2018 I recall Sam Dunn, who I have a lot of time for, took no prisoners when it came to the timber industry. We moved along and eventually – I am not going to recap what Ms Bath said – there was a date set, then the date got pulled forward. The Greens have been merciless about this. They have never stopped attacking the native timber industry. It feels like it is only 10 minutes later, but it is probably a year or so, and they are asking about the workers. What about the workers in the beginning? What about the workers when the timber industry, which was quite sustainable, was still operating? They had protesters everywhere, getting in the way, creating havoc and making it harder. But 6 per cent or 1 per cent of the amount available for logging was being logged, so it was not having a negative effect.
I think it is quite shameful that the government helps the Greens electorally every election. It is quite shameful that they end up doing this, because I expected them to be the government of the workers. What does not help also is I remember during the last election the opposition putting the Greens before Labor in all sorts of places.
Melina Bath: Who did you preference in Morwell?
Jeff BOURMAN: What has that got to do with it? Honestly, virtually all over the state the Greens were –
Melina Bath: You preferenced Labor. You’re shutting down the government. You preferenced Labor in Morwell.
Jeff BOURMAN: That is the pot calling the kettle black.
Members interjecting.
Jeff BOURMAN: Let me get a bit closer to the microphone: you guys put the Greens in front of Labor nearly everywhere. It was disgraceful. I know you are standing up for your communities, but then to just say that this is the government’s fault – it is everybody’s fault. The Greens obviously have been pushing it, the government did it and you guys got a great big push towards them.
I am not opposing this either, for the same reason as Ms Bath. We need to find out what is happening with the money. But this is a poo sandwich of monumental proportions. It has been served up to a whole lot of people that had sustainable jobs, and we now have the problem of what has happened to the money. You can only have so many baristas in this place. There is not much call for many baristas in Heyfield; I think it is pretty awash with them as it is. We cannot just retrain people that have been doing this for ever, but we really need to look at a way forward for Gippsland. We have got all the help we need short of actual assistance.
I will sign off on another thing: part of the way that the native timber industry was going to be killed off was the great forest national park. That should have died a very unnatural death when they killed the industry, and yet now we see it has popped its head up again. There is no need for this national park. There is no need because it was to end native logging. It will cut people out of the places they want to be; it will not open them up. So shame on the Greens, shame on Labor, shame on the Liberals and Nationals, and let us just get this done.
Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (10:40): I am very pleased to rise to speak on this motion to require the production of certain documents in relation to the transition of the timber industry. Obviously there has been a lot of interest and a lot of passion in the matters presented in today’s debate. We have had quite an interchange. Mr McIntosh had the opportunity to put some matters on the public record on behalf of the government in the context of this debate, but yet again we see that the nature and structure of the sessional orders that were agreed upon with respect to short-form documents motions has the effect of limiting our ability to debate these issues, because it limits members’ ability to speak on motions with set timeframes, particularly motions where there is a lot of interest and there is a lot of passion and there are matters of deep substance. We would hope that it is not a pattern that this chamber seeks to do to prevent those who have an interest in these topics from speaking on them.
Obviously the end of the native timber industry here in Victoria was a very significant decision that the government took. It is one that clearly has had a significant impact on a number of communities, and the government has put a lot of effort and investment into supporting those workers and businesses that formerly relied upon native timber harvesting. The opportunity also presents to ensure that things in our natural environment have protections, and there are opportunities now to take into account the benefits that we see from the conservation value of some of these parts of Victoria.
The question before us today, though, is: should the time and effort of people who are charged with ensuring that timber workers are supported during the transition have their focus moved from supporting the workers to delving into material to see how much of it is commercial-in-confidence, how much of it is suitable to be in the public domain and how much of it is going to reveal the private financial details of individuals and businesses – rather than these people being focused on supporting workers during this transition, which is exactly what those running these programs should be doing right now?
Motion agreed to.