Michael O’Connor CFMEU
The Victorian Government’s announcement yesterday that it is seeking formal expressions of interest for investors and plantation developers to expand the state’s plantation timber supply has come under fire from both the Australian Forest Products Association and the unions. Source: Timberbiz
The CFMEU says a plantation estate in Eastern Victoria will provide no comfort to Victorian workers, families and communities which rely on the forestry industry.
The union says this latest instalment of the “Government’s shambolic Forestry Plan” falls well short of providing any certainty for the thousands of timber and pulp and paper workers whose jobs are on the block due to the Government’s mismanagement.
And it believes the details of the process outlined is an admission that the Government has no idea about how to sustainably restructure the industry.
The AFPA, while conceding that expansion of the State’s plantation timber supply is important, has again warned the State’s policy makers not to use an initiative as another defence of its decision to end sustainably managed native forestry by 2030.
The AFPA noted that the State Government statement included the sentence: “The Gippsland Plantations Investment Program is part of the Victorian Forestry Plan’s commitment to transition from native forest harvesting to a plantation-based sector by 2030.”
Acting AFPA CEO Gavin Matthew said that once again it was disappointing that the State Government had used an important announcement as a defence of its “short-sighted plan to close sustainably managed native forestry in Victoria”.
The State Government says the Gippsland Plantations Investment Program will significantly grow Victoria’s timber stocks by providing incentives for new industrial-scale plantings as part of the Government’s record $110 million investment in plantation timber.
It says five-out-of-six trees harvested in Victoria are already from plantations, with the state having the largest area dedicated to timber plantations in Australia. The program will result in more than 30 million trees being planted over the next decade – increasing Gippsland’s existing plantation estate by at least 35%.
“We’re making new timber plantations viable in Gippsland, creating jobs across the supply chain and securing investment in the sector for its long-term future,” Agriculture Minister Jaclyn Symes said.
“To ensure the best transition to a plantation-based industry, we are investing in new plantations and programs that support innovation, so that these growth markets turn into jobs and economic value for regional communities.”
Expressions of interest are being sought from experienced and capable plantation investors, developers and managers to invest in Victoria’s future plantations in a way that is sensitive to the environment and local communities and creates jobs.
Successful respondents will contribute to the design of the program ahead of a final competitive application process.
The program will operate alongside a farm forestry initiative led by VicForests, which will provide opportunities for Gippsland landholders to participate in smaller-scale plantation development. There will be ongoing engagement with interested Gippsland landholders and communities as the program develops.
The government says new plantations will support forestry and manufacturing jobs over coming decades by providing the scale needed to enable new investment in state-of-the-art wood processing and manufacturing, and the development of new products that use plantation fibre for growing markets, such as engineered wood products.
This launch also follows the recent announcement of the Victorian Forest Nursery in East Gippsland that will produce around five million seedlings each year, which could support plantings and reforestation of around 5,000 hectares annually and create up to 30 jobs.
“This is another half-baked re-announcement driven by an unviable ‘Trump like’ plan which is really no more than a mishmash of incoherent talking points,” CFMEU National Secretary Michael O’Connor said.
“We’ve been waiting three-and-a-half years since funding for plantation establishment was announced in the 2017-18 Budget to see a program and we get this joke process instead.
“The reality is, we are no closer to adding to the plantation estate today than we were a year ago when this shambolic Forestry Plan was dumped on us.”
Mr O’Connor said that anybody with any idea knows that the deadline to transition out of native forests by 2030 is unachievable without leaving workers and communities on the scrap heap.
The Government’s plan provided no opportunity for the solid hardwood industry to transition and put jobs at the largest private sector employer in Gippsland, Australian Paper at serious risk, a risk exacerbated by the 2019-20 summer bushfires.
Even if the process resulted in plantation trees swiftly being planted, there was no way that any of them would be ready for use by the industry in 2030 for pulping and certainly not for solid wood product manufacturing.
“Pretending this scheme will provide a future for workers and timber communities is nothing more than a cruel hoax,” Mr O’Connor said.
“Rather than stubbornly ploughing ahead with a dud plan the Government needs to swallow its pride and work in partnership with workers and communities to address the uncertainty they have helped create and come up with a viable alternative plan,” Mr O’Connor said.
Mr Matthew said plantation forestry was a vital part of our industry providing the softwood timber framing for homes, and woodchips for making paper and packaging.
“But sustainably managed native forestry is equally important,” he said.
“From these trees we get the appearance grade timbers we need for things like floors, doors, stairs and indeed the lining of the new State Parliament annex in Melbourne. We can and should do both sorts of forestry in Victoria,” he said.
The Expression of Interest process is open until 6 November 2020.
