Workers from the Heyfield sawmill in Gippsland gathered in Melbourne, arguing their industry is sustainable and urging the Victorian Government to increase the amount of timber supplied. Source: ABC News
The sawmill is facing closure as negotiations for timber supplies have stalled between the Government and the mill’s owner, Australian Sustainable Hardwoods (ASH).
More than 100 workers came together outside the offices of the Victorian Government to send a message to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews.
John Tyquin, who has been working at the sawmill for 30 years, said closing the mill would lead to a boom in imports at the cost of local jobs.
“Every house in Australia has got timber in it, where is it going to come from if we’re not producing it?” he said.
As workers held up placards in support of the industry’s “clean” and “green” credentials, Mr Tyquin insisted forestry was sustainable.
“For every tree that we harvest and we’re only doing regrowth forest, we replant,” he said. “It’s just like farming – we cut a tree down, we replace it with two more.
The timber is there, we want to keep working.”
The sawmill processes 150,000 cubic metres of timber a year, bought from the state-owned logging company VicForests, but its supply contract is about to expire.
VicForests is only offering half that amount of timber in a new contract, saying there is not enough forest to log.
However, chief executive of ASH Vince Hurley said the timber was there but the Government has locked it up by increasing the areas of protected forests.
“At the moment in public forests in Victoria, 94% of forest is not able to be touched,” he said.
“So 6% we’re in … and one eightieth of that 6% is harvested and regenerated per year.
“Progressively more and more reserves have been created, so that has eaten into that 6%.”
Mr Hurley said the mill needed a critical mass of at least 130,000 hectares to be financially viable, as well as the security of a long-term contract.
The Wilderness Society (TWS) in Victoria countered ASH’s claims saying it had spent two years in a taskforce process “pleading” with the mill to accept the deal on the table for the sake of its workers.
“Change is inevitable due to bushfire and decades over-logging, both of which are impacting forests and wood resource[s],” TWS Victoria tweeted.
The company is also seeking $40 million from the Victorian Government to refit the mill, so that it can process the smaller logs from newer regrowth forests. It said it planned to transition to plantation timber within 20 years.
The company set a four-week deadline for the Victorian Government to negotiate a deal, before it would begin to shut down the mill and lay off its 250 workers. That deadline was then extended for another 10 days, but expires this week.
Mill supervisor Anthony Wilkes said he had been asking Mr Andrews to visit the site and meet with workers, but had not had a reply to his requests.
“I’ve chased him down a couple of times, once at the Morwell police station and also at the Morwell Bowls Club the Friday once gone to hopefully get him to give us some answers,” he said.
Mr Andrews was asked about the Heyfield mill at another media event on Tuesday morning.
“I met with a couple of Heyfield workers just over the course of the weekend, actually,” he said. “We’ve been doing more than talking though, we’ve been working very closely with the company. I’m hopeful that we can work towards saving as many of those jobs as possible.”
