What a fantastic day 95 trucks and 300 people come to Morwell and express how we are feeling as the downward pressure on our sustainable timber sector reaches breaking point.
The most powerful message was sent by young Indiana Lockett in a letter to Labor politician and Gippsland representative, Harriet Shing.
It was powerful because Indiana represented us – timber families.
But it wasn’t enough.
What Indiana showed was that it’s not just the people who do all the work in the bush and the mills, it’s their families whose message is the most important.
It’s the families who are worried about house and car repayments, school fees, this week’s groceries, the ever-increasing cost of electricity (the irony of that is not lost on the people in the Latrobe Valley), whether they can stay in the town they grew up in and what will happen to that town when jobs and ultimately shops and services are stripped from it.
These are the people who must be heard, who must make the effort to stand alongside those wearing hi-vis and show how they feel.
You may feel that taking a bit of time off work or away from the house to come to these meetings and rallies won’t do much, but that is hurting our timber communities. The more silent you are, the more government decisions will be made which favour the fringe groups who make all the noise.
We know who those people are. We know they are wrong or lying or just don’t seem to understand that timber is a renewable resource, and we need it – not just for the environmental benefits, but to sustain our timber communities. We know they don’t care what happens to us in their bloody-minded assault on our jobs and families.
But we say nothing or expect someone else to do the work. After all, what difference will it make? Right?
The difference it would make is enormous.
Indiana’s message was published in the Herald-Sun and The Weekly Times last week because it represented the timber families, and not just the people in hi-vis. It was powerful and heartfelt, and showed people in the cities who vote for Labor the toll Labor’s timber policy is having on regional Victorians.
It won’t tip Labor out of this election, but the deadline is 2030 – there is still time – and one young schoolgirl had the courage to stand up for your homes, your jobs, your towns.
Can you say you’ve done as much?
There are 5000 jobs in Victoria supported directly by the timber sector. Many of those 5000 people have families. Imagine if all the timber families stood up together as Indiana did. You don’t think that would send a powerful message?
We had 95 trucks and 300 people speak up for our timber communities on Friday, but if your husband or wife or partner or mum or dad or son or daughter was at that rally and you weren’t because you didn’t think it would make a difference, that’s at least another 300 people who could have made that message louder.
And when you’re moving out of your hometown or seeing your favourite shop close or supporting your partner who’s lost their job, can you say you did all you could?
Justin Law is the managing director of Forest & Wood Communities Australia
