Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (10:31): The Liberals are Nationals will not oppose this motion, as is the practice on short-form documents motions, because members of this place and the community – Victorians – deserve transparency and accountability from a government that is mired in mud and a lack of transparency. It is for different reasons that the Nationals and the Liberals want to see what is going on and how this money has been spent – this $875 million that the government has allegedly spent. We want to just understand where it has gone. We want to understand the categories. We want to understand if it has gone to where they have purported it should or if it has gone to government bureaucracies and people who seem to be lining their pockets in conversation rather than outcomes.
However, I have a caveat and a caution for the government and rebuttal for the Greens. The Greens and their friends who grow lentils and alfalfa sprouts on hardwood Victorian window sills in Fitzroy are rejoicing in the demise of many people and communities in my region and across Victoria. They have now come into this house insinuating that there are unlawful activities by Victorian manufacturers that are going against the laws of this state and this land, and I rebut that entirely. This government brought this forward six years early and announced the closure of the native timber industry on 23 May last year – a shutdown that was six years early – but it had been hounding the people of Gippsland, the people of northern Victoria and all the associated manufacturers for years and years. The initial announcement was in 2019, and it created havoc and distress across these regions. We want to understand what is happening to the workers, the contractors and the associated workers. We want to understand that the money is going to the right place. Indeed the Premier said back in May of 2023:
We’re being upfront with the industry – and continuing to deliver a managed transition to support every worker and every business. Because we’ll never leave them to go it alone.
Well, they absolutely have. I have people coming into my office on a regular basis absolutely frustrated that this government, through ForestWorks, has made a commitment and has actually even put a pathway for money of 20 cents into their account and is now saying, ‘No deal.’ A particular husband and wife want to use that money to create tourism. They want that money, yet the government is thwarting it and saying, ‘Sorry, no go.’
That is not doing what the former Premier stood up for and said. He said to Peter Walsh, ‘You do your politics, we’ll do ours, and we’ll make sure that people will continue to get paid.’ We need to understand what is happening here. But a caution to the government: we need to also ensure that the privacy of Victorians is upheld and that all personal details are redacted in this information. We do not want to see information which could be commercial in confidence. We do not want to see individuals targeted by the Greens, because this is what they like to do – to not only hound people who are now out of work but to continue to push them to the limit. We want to ensure that there is privacy and safety in that information coming forward. We do not want a new form of the black wallabying that we have seen the friends of the Greens operate under.
In so far as things like the plantation industry go, what a joke that is. In 2019 there was $120,000. If you go and look at the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, if you go and look at the facts, you know that there is less plantation timber in the ground now than there was when Labor came to government.
We want to understand more about forest fire management. We know that they were scrambling, and it still is not organised. Why? Because 60 per cent of the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action sits in metropolitan Melbourne. There are not the people who understand the regions and forest management working on this. We want to see this. We want to protect workers. We want the facts, and we do not want a further cover-up by the Allan Labor government.
