Talking Point: A ban on native forestry in Victoria is a slap in the face for timber workers

Victorian Labor’s forestry ban a bad omen for Australian jobs, says CLAIRE CHANDLER.

Forest Conservation Victoria protests in native forests after Andrews Government announced a 2030 end-date for native timber logging.

THE ban on native forestry by Victoria’s Labor Government is a slap in the face for timber workers and regional communities, and a gift for cashed-up environmental groups and radical protesters.

Labor has rewarded the rude and disruptive Extinction Rebellion protesters by putting forestry workers out of work. It’s a bad time to be living in a Labor state and working in an industry the Greens don’t like, as Tasmania’s forest workers found in 2013.

Victorian Labor’s sellout of timber workers will have ramifications beyond Victoria for industries which are on the green movement’s expanding hit list. Environmental lobby groups emboldened by Victorian Labor’s capitulation will turn their attention and resources to push for bans on native forestry in Tasmania and other states, as well as ramping up attacks on mining, aquaculture, agriculture and tourism.

In the aftermath of the Labor-Green forest deal in Tasmania, groups like The Wilderness Society and the Bob Brown Foundation are now permanently at war with tourism proponents wanting to expand the state’s eco-tourism experiences. That’s despite one of the repeated claims by the environment movement being that tourism jobs could replace timber jobs.

They’re trying to trash the reputation of the aquaculture industry, they’re involved in the regular opposition to urban housing and tourist accommodation, and they’re campaigning against wind farms.

With the Victorian Labor Government giving in to demands from the Greens to ban native forestry, activists now have more resources to shut down industries that employ Tasmanians and Australians. Other than the pursuit of votes from Green-leaning inner-city electors, there is no justification for Labor’s continued willingness to side with the Greens.

If Australia loses the native forest industry, it’s not only thousands of jobs but the investment in communities which will be lost.

In their rush to paint forestry industries as bad, Labor and the Greens deliberately ignore the fact that in Australia we re-grow native forests after we harvest them, which is why much of the supposed old-growth forests targeted by conservationists are actually regrowth.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says sustainable forestry, which provides an annual yield of timber and wood fibre, produces a substantial carbon mitigation benefit.

Daniel Andrews’ forest lock-ups won’t be the last time Labor sells out regional communities to please green activists.

Claire Chandler is a Liberal Senator for Tasmania.

Liberal Senator for Tasmania Claire Chandler. Picture: MATT THOMPSON