Timber, dairy and power jobs collapse as Labor battles to win green votes

Gippsland is facing a crippling jobs crisis as timber harvesting grinds to a halt, dairy plants close and power stations prepare to switch off their generators.

Logging protesters have won their battle to stop native forest harvesting.

Gippsland is facing a crippling jobs crisis as timber harvesting grinds to a halt, dairy plants close and power stations prepare to switch off their generators.

One of the Latrobe Valley’s biggest employers, Maryvale Paper Mill with 850 workers, has a week’s worth of hardwood pulp logs on hand, while Gippsland’s nine timber mills deal with a sawlog shortage that has just got far worse.

VicForests last Thursday ordered its harvest and haulage contractors, who supply Maryvale and Gippsland’s nine sawmills, to halt work in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that forces it to resurvey most of its coupes and slashes the viability of harvesting others to protect greater glider possums.

Up until now contractors were able cut down 60 per cent of the trees across an entire coupe, but Justice Richards has ordered VicForests to cut just 40 per cent of the available timber, after buffer and protection zones had been excluded.

MWM Logging operator Andy Westaway said most coupes would no longer be viable if only 40 per cent of trees could be cut. “Two crews are down with no work,” he said.

East Gippsland harvest and haulage contractor Rob Brunt said the ruling marked “the end of the industry. It will make most coupes impossible to harvest.”

The blow came as Canadian dairy giant Saputo announced it would close its Maffra processing plant and shut down milk powder production at Leongatha by March next year to “enhance its operating efficiency”, offering 75 workers “severance and outplacement support”.

Gippsland’s coal-fired power industry is also struggling, with AGL announcing in September it would close its Loy Yang A power station, employing 575 Gippslanders — a decade earlier than planned.

Locking up regional resources – timber, water and coal — for the environment has become a major issue ahead of next week’s state election, as the Labor government battles the Greens in affluent inner-Melbourne electorates of Albert Park, Melbourne, Prahran, Richmond, Northcote and Brunswick. The Liberal-Nationals Coalition has arguably boosted the Greens chances of winning those seats, by calling on its voters to put Labor last on their ballot papers.

Victorian Nationals leader Peter Walsh defended the move, saying there was no preference deal with the Greens, just a message to voters that they needed to “rid this state of the worst government in living memory”.

“It sends a clear message – Labor has to be got rid of,” Mr Walsh said. “To get rid of Daniel Andrews you have to put Labor last.”

As for concerns the Coalition’s call may lead to even more Greens in Parliament’s Upper and Lower House, Mr Walsh said there wasn’t any difference between Labor and the Greens, when it came their impact on regional Victoria.

“They have destroyed the timber industry, made life more difficult for families, strangled businesses in green tape and allowed our roads to fall into disrepair, while spending $30 billion in cost blowouts on major infrastructure projects in Melbourne.”

Victorian Farmers Federation president Emma Germano said that “despite having concerns over some of the Greens policies what we’ve seen of this (Labor) government over the last term is a lack of consultation, genuine debate and importantly balance on issues that matter to Victorian farmers”.

“How the Coalition strategises to win the election is their business and I assume they’ve thought it through. More balance in the parliament can only be a good thing.”

But more Greens in parliament could push the next government to adopt policies that clawback even more regional resources and restrict farmers fishers and hunters.

Greens policies include:

ESTABLISH the Great Forest National Park, adding to the 355,000ha of protected forests to an existing 170,000ha of parks and protected areas in Victoria’s central highlands.

REDUCE current levels of meat production in Victoria, which are unsustainable.

END animal and fish farming practices that are inconsistent with animals’ natural behavioural needs, and a phasing out of all intensive animal farming practices.

BAN the unsustainable commercial killing of kangaroos and other native wildlife.

BAN leg-hold traps and poison baits such as 1080.

END of recreational hunting on public land.

BAN recreational shooting of native water birds, except by First Nations people within the context of cultural practices.

BUY irrigators’ water to deliver 450 gigalitres to the environment under the Murray Darling Basin Plan.

Premier Daniel Andrews this week told media “no deal will be offered and no deal will be done” with minor parties or independents in the event of a hung parliament.