Melina Bath and Rob Brunt
The Andrews government has axed harvest and haulage contractor Rob Brunt and his 15 workers’ jobs, along with those of another 550 Victorian timber workers. Source: Weekly Times
“My contract (with VicForests) runs out at the end of June, and I’ll have to make them (workers) redundant,” Mr Brunt said.
“What are they going to do? Wait around for compensation?
“All these people are going to leave. How are they going to sell their houses when there’s no jobs? It’s a disaster.”
Similar to most contractors, Mr Brunt has a yard full of specialist native hardwood harvesting machinery.
“What do I do with all this machinery, sell it into a market that’s going to be flooded?”
He said the Andrews government hadn’t thought the process through, given it had originally promised not to phase out native forest harvesting until 2030.
But this week Treasurer Tim Pallas washed his hands of the issue, stating “the courts have taken the decision out of our hands”, in the wake of legal action to lock up the forests by environment groups.
Mr Brunt and other native timber workers rejected the Treasurer’s argument, saying the government could have easily stopped green group legal tie-ups of the forests.
“Why haven’t they legislated so these groups couldn’t do it,” Mr Brunt said.
Heyfield Australian Sustainable Hardwoods CEO Vince Hurley said the government’s argument was plain wrong.
I’ll tell you the government can make laws to deal with regulatory failure at any time – that’s what they’re there for,” Mr Hurley said. “We’ve been completely blindsided by this decision.”
The Andrews government originally promised to set up plantations that would allow timber workers and sawmills to move out of native forests, as part of its 2030 phase-out.
But Mr Brunt said “it was a shambles before they even got started, with all the bungling that went on”.
Like most of the state harvest and haulage crews Mr Brunt used his arsenal of heavy machinery to fight major bushfires, building fire breaks around communities and water storages.
“God help the joint when the next fire comes,” Mr Brunt said.
