Hon Jacinta Allan MP Victorian Premier
Four weeks. That’s all the native timber industry in Victoria and Western Australia has left.
In WA, mills have been closing with alarming regularity. In Victoria it’s no better.
Italia d’Antonio from North East Logging in Acheron, not far from Alexandra, about 130km northeast of Melbourne, has penned a cry from the heart that the State Government in Victoria has left the timber industry in the lurch.
She writes the decision to end native timber logging in Victoria has left 2000 people in limbo, still waiting on compensation.
She says expensive machinery sits idle and “our futures are left in peril from the lack of credible financial assistance”.
The bills, she says, are still piling up and contractors are being forced to sell equipment to put food on the table.
She says the Liberals and Nationals are working together regarding a better deal.
It is compelling reading in today’s Daily Timber News.
Gippsland East Nationals MP Tim Bull has been one of those politicians fighting their heart out for those left in the dark by the Victorian Government’s decision.
Let’s not forget that the end of hardwood logging was planned for 2030 but was brought forward earlier this year with little or no consultation.
Mr Bull echoes what Italia wrote.
He says that the State Government has not provided even the most basic information, and the Premier and Minister for Agriculture are now backtracking on their commitment to meet with industry representatives, attempting to push it off to lower-level bureaucrats.
He lists the main issues where the industry is suffering, and the State Government is sitting on its hands.
The result he says will be hardwood coming in from countries with less oversight, and from old growth which is not replanted.
And he says that, from his own experience, the Greens just don’t get it.
Tim Bull, and those MPs have fought and continue to fight, get it.
And so does Italia d’Antonio.
