Symes logjam: $500,000 to release native timber phase-out documents

Victoria’s Attorney General Jaclyn Symes says it would take two-and-a-half years to retrieve documents underpinning the decision to phase out native forest logging.

Victoria’s Attorney General Jaclyn Symes and Premier Daniel Andrews have repeatedly blocked the release of documents on why they are phasing out native forest logging by 2030.

The Andrews Government says it will cost $500,000 and two-and-a-half years to comply with Parliament’s Upper House order to supply all documents underpinning its decision to phase out native forest logging in Victoria by 2030.

In October last year the Upper House passed a motion ordering the Andrews Government to supply “all documents relating to the arrangements to close the Victorian Native Timber Industry”.

Attorney General Jaclyn Symes wrote back to the Upper House earlier this month stating: “the Government’s initial estimate is that there are approximately 45,000 pages that may fall within the scope of the order, and that it would take up to 2.5 years to collate, consider and obtain advice in relation to the documents.

“The Government estimates that it would cost approximately $500,000 to prepare the documents for a final response to the Legislative Council.”

Premier Daniel Andrews announced the timber industry was not sustainable in on November 7, 2019 and all native forest logging would come to an end by 2030, stunning the timber industry’s 2500 workers in Corryong, Orbost, Warburton, Noojee, Violet Town, Powelltown, Benalla and Heyfield.

Since then Mr Andrews has told the media and parliament that native forest logging is “not sustainable into the medium and long term”, but refused to release the science and rationale behind the claim.

Not long after Wellington and East Gippsland Shires lodged freedom of information requests for the documents with both the Premier and then-Agriculture Minister Jaclyn Symes office requesting the data and scientific basis for the 2030 phase-out decision.

But all FoI requests were rejected.

Ms Symes has now advised the Upper House to revise its order, restricting its call to documents from January 2018 to November 2019, which she stated would “take approximately 7 months for the Government to provide its final response at an exceedingly lower cost”.

It so happens that a delay of seven months risks the documents not being delivered to the Upper House until after the November 26 State Election.

Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party MP Jeff Bourman lodged a revised motion for documents from January 2016 to November 2019 sin the Upper House today, which has been adjourned.

Liberal assistant forestry spokesman and former harvest and haulage contractor Gary Blackwood said the refusal to release the documents was “an insult to every Victorian timber worker and their families”.