Wednesday, 9 September 2026

 Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (14:40): I move:

That this house:

(1)   notes that:

(a) despite native forest logging ending, Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMV) continues to fell trees and remove timber from forests and national parks using the same contractors, machinery and methods previously used in the logging industry;

(b) unlike commercial logging, these works are not subject to a binding code of practice or oversight by the Office of the Conservation Regulator;

(c) large, old hollow-bearing trees providing irreplaceable habitats for endangered wildlife, including the greater glider and Leadbeater’s possum, are being felled based on desktop assessments, with no requirement to publicly record which trees are removed, why, or what wildlife may have been affected;

(d) community groups and scientists raising concerns have been met with non-engagement and forced to pursue costly court action as the only available accountability mechanism;

(e) Victoria is required to demonstrate these operations comply with the new National Environmental Standard for Matters of National Environmental Significance set by the Commonwealth government;

(2)   calls on the government to:

(a) commit to genuine transparency over FFMV tree-felling and timber removal operations on public land;

(b) extend mandatory on-the-ground threatened species surveys to all non-emergency tree-felling operations on public land;

(c) establish an independent mechanism for community concerns regarding forest management to be properly investigated;

(d) recognise and support the rights and aspirations of traditional owners over country, including through meaningful joint management of Victoria’s forests; and

(e) ensure that Victoria’s forests and the wildlife that depend on them are genuinely protected.

Victoria is home to some of the most unique and magnificent forests in the world, from the temperate rainforests in the lowlands of East Gippsland to the mountain ash forests of the Central Highlands. They are the lands which Victoria’s First Peoples have cared for and been custodians over for more than 65,000 years. It is exactly why many have fought for so long to end native forest logging in this state. Traditional owners, community groups, scientists, environmental lawyers and many of us here in this chamber today celebrated the official end of native forest logging in 2024. It has been 2½ years since we said goodbye and good riddance to VicForests. Now we have to reflect on what has changed and what has not.

When this place passed the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Repeal Bill 2024. I, alongside many others, warned that the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action was starting to look more and more like VicForests 2.0. At the time I said that it is difficult to envisage how native forest management can be improved substantially without corresponding reforms to DEECA’s fire management activities. I think it is important to be very clear and very specific about the operations I am referring to because, frankly, there seems to be very poor understanding of what is going on in our forests, even from some of those within the government. Forest Fire Management Victoria undertakes a range of operations that involve the felling of trees and the removal of timber. These include the treatment of what it calls hazardous trees, strategic fuel breaks and the so-called treatment of debris from weather events. They may all have different purposes, but these terms are used to cover up the reality that they all involve the felling of trees or removal of timber from forests – the destruction of habitat. For the local communities who fought so hard to end commercial native logging, witnessing these operations now being conducted by their own government is devastating. These destructive practices, commonly referred to in the community as loophole logging, are happening right now across the state.

David Attenborough once said:

No one will protect what they don’t care about; and no one will care about what they have never experienced.

This rings true for these people in my community who have lived, breathed and loved these natural spaces. You cannot expect someone to understand the value of a forest by simply looking at a map, reading a report or hearing about hectares of land being cleared. You have to experience it. You have to walk beneath the trees, see the sunlight filtering through the leaves and listen to the birdsong around you. I know for a fact many northern Victorians listening to this speech are tired of waking up to learn of the destruction of the natural spaces surrounding their homes. These are the places where people have grown up, explored, walked, camped, visited with families and made memories. They are places that people have come to know and love. When we destroy our natural space, we are not just losing it physically, we are also losing the opportunity for generations to experience it and therefore care about it and ultimately protect it.

I want to make another thing abundantly clear. The purpose of this motion is not to question the need for these operations or the quality of the assessments conducted by the department. What this motion principally calls for is for the government to require genuine transparency and oversight, because the current situation where the department is charged with delivering, assessing and assuring operations with really significant repercussions for wildlife and habitat is clearly unacceptable. What are these repercussions? Over 2000 plant and animal species are at risk of extinction across the country, with one of the leading causes of this decline being habitat destruction.

As report after report has shown us, the situation in Victoria, Australia’s most cleared state, is particularly dire. In April of this year the federal government officially listed alpine ash forests as an endangered ecosystem. Many are warning that mountain ash risks the same fate. Not only are these the world’s tallest flowering trees, but they are also some of the most carbon-dense in the world, storing up to 10,000 tonnes of carbon per hectare. Research from 2025 found half of remaining habitat for Australian species at risk of extinction is outside of protected areas. Native forest logging operations have a part to play in this. As forests and grasslands are bulldozed, vital ecosystems are lost and many species are left with nowhere to go.

Researchers from Griffith University and the University of Queensland found that the last remaining habitat for 305 of Australia’s critically endangered species could be cleared if nothing is done to protect it. What the department classifies as debris are homes. What it marks for removal as hazardous are, in many cases, the most irreplaceable structures in the entire forest ecosystem. Fallen and standing dead trees are important habitat in forests for animals to shelter and to breed in, and over 300 species of wildlife – gliders, possums, owls, bats, parrots and more – depend on tree hollows that can take centuries to form. As WWF conservation scientist Dr Kita Ashman said, a tree planted right now will not have a usable greater glider hollow in our lifetime. As well as being habitat for wildlife, forests are vital for our water security and for carbon storage, and they are of great cultural significance to First Nations people.

Decisions to fell these trees must face scrutiny. In May of 2024 a greater glider was found dead next to an area logged to create fuel breaks along the Yarra Ranges National Park. It should be obvious to everyone in this place that I would find the death of an endangered greater glider tragic, but the details surrounding the situation really exemplify my concerns with forest management. It is also the situation which prompted Warburton Environment to begin litigation against DEECA. FFMV, the DEECA secretary and federal and state ministers’ offices were all warned about sightings of greater gliders and Leadbeater’s possums in trees identified for removal, and yet they removed them anyway. This happened as part of FFMV’s large-scale hazardous tree removal operations in areas of high conservation value across 2024–25 in the Central Highlands. Field surveys and on-ground verification documented more than a thousand hollow-bearing trees that were either destroyed or marked for removal across a relatively small defined area of the Yarra forest. Again, detailed written warnings were provided to the Victorian government prior to and during the early stages of operations, documenting hollow-bearing trees occupied by greater gliders and records of Leadbeater’s possum within and adjacent to areas affected.

It is obviously up to the court to make its own judgement on whether the department’s actions breached the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, but what has been revealed raises significant concerns. FFMV’s chief fire officer acknowledged under cross-examination that decisions to remove habitat trees relied on desktop assessment, not ground survey, and that they frequently ignored advice from DEECA and the community.

In 2022 the Australian government promised zero new extinctions. On Monday it was National Threatened Species Day, but what we need are not awareness days or commitments on paper. Our forests and animals cannot wait for that. We need to understand what is happening in these places to ensure their survival. But right now felling operations conducted by the government are shrouded in secrecy, with no transparency requirements or independent oversight when it comes to their ecological impact. Commercial logging was subject to the binding Code of Practice for Timber Production 2014 and oversight by the Office of the Conservation Regulator. Although this regulatory framework was far from perfect, it at least existed.

Through section 62 of the Forests Act 1958 the department is given broad powers and requirements to carry out proper and sufficient work for both the immediate prevention and suppression of fire and the planned prevention of fire. There are no legislative requirements on these powers. Unlike the Code of Practice for Timber Production, which regulated the commercial industry, the Code of Practice for Bushfire Management on Public Land 2025 is yet another non-binding departmental guideline. This is despite FFMV using many of the same contractors, methods and machinery that VicForests once did. The recent introduction of the forest by-products framework, allowing FFMV to sell the so-called by-products extracted from our forests, has made the situation even more concerning.

This is particularly relevant for the storm clean-up operation that has recently concluded in the Wombat forest, in my own electorate, five years after the storm first hit. Wombat Forestcare was granted a 2023 injunction to stop logging by VicForests. The court found that the evidence did not support the state’s claim that logging was necessary to reduce fire hazard. VicForests was then disbanded and the responsibility handed over to FFMV, leaving Wombat Forestcare with no avenues to fight logging due to the department’s broad powers. More than 50,000 cubic metres of timber has been removed from Wombat State Forest from 2021 to June this year.

Putting it plainly, we have the same people doing many of the same things in the same ways to forests, which now includes selling the timber as well. The difference, as articulated by the government, is the scale and the purpose – that FFMV are not felling nearly as many trees as the commercial industry once did. It is difficult to accept this claim when they do not actually volunteer the information to prove it. As I have said, in this motion I am not contesting the purpose; there are plenty of other people who will do that. The department does need, though, to conduct works of some kind to address bushfire risk, but when the process and outcome do not change, the scrutiny should not either.

This is not an abstract discussion about governance and regulatory best practice. It is clear that the system is failing. It has forced the community to act, whether that be our small, hardworking local forest groups or our state’s environmental organisations. They are the closest thing we have to checks and balances on this system. There are far too many organisations and individuals to name them all, but there are some in particular that I want to recognise in this motion: Sue McKinnon and the Kinglake Friends of the Forest; Nic Fox and Warburton Environment; Matt, Ben and Jordy from the Victorian National Parks Association; the Wilderness Society; Wildlife of the Central Highlands; Sarah Rees; Kath Wilson; and so many others who are doing this work. They are some of the hardest working activists I have had the privilege of working alongside. On understanding this issue, which is incredibly hidden, incredibly deceptive – and I believe at times intentionally so, considering the very limited volunteer transparency the department engage in – they are truly the only reason we know as much as we know today, through freedom-of-information requests, litigation, or broader activism and advocacy. That is not accountability from the government; that is a community subsidising the oversight of a government agency with its own time and own money while that agency actively resists scrutiny. The inspector-general for emergency management provides independent oversight for bushfire response and prevention for people and our homes. That role is important. But why do we not have the same for animals and their homes?

I have tried to be very particular about the language that I am using here today. I have really tried to focus on what I and many others view as a governance and a regulatory failure, because this seems to be yet another issue that has somehow descended into a culture war, which is exactly what I expect to happen after I have spoken in this debate today. The government will tell us that FFMV follow a rigorous planning and approvals process with extensive reporting and that these operations are necessary to prevent and fight fires. The Nationals, perhaps, will tell us that forests need active management and that these measures would be unworkable and risk limiting the state’s ability to prevent fires. The system, as it stands, raises enormous questions no matter what side of the debate we are on. The fact is that Victorians have concerns, and many within the community attempting to raise those concerns have, frankly, been treated with contempt.

The tone of the debate and where I expect it to go today is not the debate I am seeking to have. It is a debate about transparency. It is a debate about regulation. It is a debate about oversight. No matter what side of the table we sit on when having this conversation, that is something we all support because if people believe these things are necessary and there is the evidence to back it up and to prove that, then why cannot the public see that? That would not only be a wonderful thing for the activists who care about our forests and the people who live in my community, who live among this destruction, it would be a good thing for the people who believe that this is required. Instead of having this constant argument about the destruction of our forests and whether or not it is required and the government and the department saying ‘Hey, it is. Why don’t you just trust us?’ all we are asking is to see that evidence. If what they say is true, and if what they are adamant about is correct, that evidence would already exist. They claim to conduct flora and fauna surveys, but they do not release them. They claim to undertake environmental impact assessments, but we have never seen them. When attempts are made to receive them, they have fought it every which way.

I believe that this is not an issue that people do not care about; it is just an issue that is very easy to be confused by. When the justification is community safety, it is really easy to accept it from there. I am not seeking to have a discussion about safety or whether or not measures are required for that. There are plenty of people who are already out there having that debate. I am just asking for some transparency, some regulation, some oversight and decision-making clarity about when these operations are undertaken, because our forests are far too precious and the wildlife who call them home cannot be brought back once they are sent to extinction. The Premier has said that he is taking our state in a new direction. He is on the record since becoming the Premier that he supports national parks and that under his leadership integrity is not optional. Well, if this government truly does want to reset its relationship with environmental advocates in this state – and let me tell you that is not going to be any easy task after the last four years – this at least is a pretty low ask and it is a pretty wonderful place to start. In saying that, I commend the motion to the house.

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (14:57): I am pleased to rise to speak on Ms Purcell’s motion regarding tree felling and timber removal by Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMVic) in various state forests. I think it is important to say at the outset in the context of the debate that we are having, whilst not expressly in the terms of Ms Purcell’s contribution, that there is a view expressed by some in the wider public debate that effectively there is still native timber harvesting, native timber logging in Victoria. I think that is a misleading claim to make. It is very clear on the facts and on the actions of both the government and the Parliament that commercial native timber harvesting ended in Victoria in 2024 and that that was a very significant moment for environmental protection, particularly the preservation of large swathes of the native forests here in the state of Victoria.

As a consequence of the government’s decision to end commercial native timber harvesting, we have abolished VicForests, who was responsible for timber harvesting on all public land; we have repealed the Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act 2004, which provided the legislative framework for timber harvesting on public land; and we have terminated Victoria’s regional forest agreements, which provided the authorisation for commercial timber harvesting on public land under federal law. The facts matter in this debate, and at the outset it is important to be very, very clear that commercial timber harvesting on public land does not happen in Victoria, under laws this Parliament passed two years ago. Of course different provisions apply on private land, and there are different guidelines and planning provisions that are in place there and other regulatory frameworks. But the purpose of this motion is to critique the actions on government land. That is the point of what the law says and what the regulatory framework is, which is important to be clear about because there may be some contributions in the broader public debate that seek to muddy that and certainly question that.

Then we can also look at the scale of activity, and Ms Purcell in her motion said she wanted some transparency and wanted there to be some facts on the table. From commercial native timber harvesting on public land in Victoria over the last 10 years, so the last decade, up to the cessation of the activity, VicForests sold an average of 1.2 million tonnes of timber per year to sawmills. VicForests, when commercial timber harvesting was allowed on public land, sold 1.2 million tonnes of timber per year to sawmills. The issue that Ms Purcell’s motion is dealing with is what Forest Fire Management Victoria does by way of by-product removal on public land. In 2022–23 Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) by-products totalled around 13,000 tonnes. In the 10 years prior to the cessation of native timber harvesting on public land VicForests sold 1.2 million tonnes of timber a year. The by-product in 2022–23 was 13,000 tonnes. 1.2 million tonnes to 13,000 tonnes: that is the scale of change that we are talking about in a short period of time. In 2024–‍25 there were no by-products sold. The mover of the motion wanted facts inserted into the debate, so we have done that by looking at what the law says and by looking at what is actually happening in terms of the amount of by-products that are being sold.

We understand that, yes, even in the activities that DEECA does, when we remove the by-products of fire protection work or remove trees that were felled by storms, there is activity that goes on. Another one of the critiques is that it is the same people doing the same things with the same machines. I think in response to that you can clearly say that there is obviously some of the same machinery or similar machinery that is used to do work on the removal of trees, but it is done for a fundamentally different purpose at a fundamentally different scale. To not acknowledge that important distinction I think discredits the validity of the rest of the arguments that are trying to be made.

The purpose of the activity that DEECA is undertaking in these forests and that Forest Fire Management is doing is to ensure that, for example, there are adequate firebreaks in place across large swathes of public land. We know that we have had instances as recently as January when we have had some of the largest forest fires on public land burning in the state of Victoria ever. Hundreds of thousands of hectares in the Walwa fire in January were burning on public land. There is an absolute need to do fire management on public land, and that is what DEECA is doing. We heard evidence at the Environment and Planning Committee’s inquiry into the 2026 summer fires from the chief fire officer of DEECA, who said that they did not think they were going to hold the Walwa fire and that the Walwa fire had the potential, given the scale and intensity of the burning it was doing, to go from where it started up in Walwa all the way through the Great Dividing Range and down into Gippsland, and that would have been one of the most significant and catastrophic fires that Victoria has seen in those circumstances. But they managed to hold it through the really significant firefighting efforts of the forest fire management crews in January.

I want to put on the record the outstanding job that those FFMVic firefighters did in containing that blaze. It still burnt over hundreds of thousands of hectares across the north-east of the state, but it could have been a lot worse. The work and the efforts that the FFMVic crews do to maintain access roads into forests and to ensure that the firefighting that can be done there is done safely are really important to contain what is a constant and significant threat to the state of Victoria, and that is from bushfires. We are one of the most bushfire-prone areas in the world. I will leave the storm recovery stuff to one side; I do not have time to go through it now.

I think in the context of this debate I will come back to where I started. The regulatory framework is very clear: there is no commercial timber harvesting – that is, timber harvesting on public land – and the scale of the by-product that is removed is so vastly different to that which was occurring when commercial timber harvesting did occur. With 1.2 million tonnes harvested when native timber harvesting existed versus 13,000 tonnes today, you can see the scale of difference from the numbers themselves.

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (15:07): In the early days of January 2020 I took a load of kangaroo fodder up that was donated by volunteers. I took it up on the back of a trailer. I got through a checkpoint, and I took it up to a wildlife volunteer who was living up past Bruthen. We stopped and we swapped over the fodder pellets and the like, and she told me, because she had been right on the edge of the fire, about the Black Summer fire. She explained how kangaroos had hopped burnt out of the bush and how in and around homes that there were shrivelled up and fried animals – possums and the like. She told me how she witnessed birds flying over the smoke and the like and just falling out of the sky due to the intense heat of the bushfires.

The Arthur Rylah Institute assessed that fire event. They assessed that roughly 1.5 million hectares were burnt in that bushfire and that 444 species lost 50 per cent of their habitat. We are not talking about one possum. We are not talking about one sad koala. We are talking about thousands upon thousands of our native animals, birds, insects and the like – 444 species lost 50 per cent of their habitat. When we look at this debate – and I thank the member for bringing it – at first glance it appears to be about transparency. It appears to be about the betterment and survival of native species and about accountability, and these are objects and discussions that everyone in this house would support and could support. But I can only go on what the motion says in front of me. This motion makes a series of assumptions that I as a Nationals member for Eastern Victoria do not accept, and I am assuming I have the support of my Liberal and National colleagues. It is about active forest management being inherently suspect.

Looking at this motion, the first part makes the point that despite the end of native logging the same contractors, machinery and methods used in logging are now used by Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMVic). Well, I do not accept the premise or the imputation that we should be fearful of that – that it is a bad thing, that these people are not good people or do not conduct themselves in a lawful manner. I know and I could list a whole lot of names of people down in East Gippsland. When the fires were coming to Cann River, Bruthen, Buchan, Wingan River and the like, there were people who jumped on their machines and tried to save homes and communities and forests and put containment lines and dirt lines in to help not only people but communities and the bush survive. They did not ask whether the person in Orbost happened to be a greenie or a non-greenie; they just went to the home and did it. I respect them enormously and am forever indebted for the work that they have done in this space. So I reject the premise that because you worked for VicForests, somehow you are a lesser person. That is not acceptable in any regime.

Let me go on and have a look into this motion. In relation to stewardship, I will not step away from the fact that we do need active management of our forest systems. They are living systems. They are often under threat from out-of-control catastrophic bushfires – there is no doubt about it, 1.5 million hectares – and also drought and storms and diseases. If we had time, I could talk for an hour on invasive species and pests. They are real threats to our native species. Hazardous trees must be removed. They should be removed; they need to be removed. They needed to be removed back in that period of time due to the fact that we had to get people and machinery into Mallacoota to save lives.

Again, I will only go on what I am reading here. Let us look at part (2) of what the motion calls for. The motion calls on the government to extend mandatory on-the-ground threatened species surveys to all significant tree-felling operations on public land. That is about our Forest Fire Management people, who I again extend my thanks to. Some of the VicForests contractors have moved over, but there have been for many, many years civil contractors that have answered the call and put their name down with the department and done, again, exemplary work to protect people, communities and the forest. The motion states:

extend mandatory on-the-ground threatened species surveys…

What this is in fact asking is for – and I will use the term – ‘very well-meaning citizens’ to go out and do these mandatory on-the-ground threatened species surveys. That is how I read this. It does not say for the department to do it. It does not say ‘someone in Forest Fire Management’. It says ‘mandatory on-the-ground’ for all significant tree-felling operations. I read that this could mean mandatory for every significant tree. Well, depending on who you are, every single tree could be significant. That means they are asking the government department to go and have ‘citizen science’ go out there and assess every single tree. Do you know how dangerous this could be, not only to the citizens but to those people who are employed through FFMV?

Here is just one document, which happens to be the Code of Practice for Bushfire Management on Public Land 2025. It is an updated version because they closed the timber industry. We know that the Nationals opposed the closure of the timber industry, and I will leave that there for the moment; my record stands on that particular topic. But what this motion is saying could put a halt to basically every tree being removed. Every single tree would have to be assessed by somebody. These are dynamic situations. We can be in a fire situation on a fireground, and this motion asks people to go in and make an extended mandatory assessment. Otherwise, are they asking to outsource it? If they are outsourcing it, that is what the department already does – that is what FFMV does. Trained professionals go in and assess if those trees are dangerous. Sometimes out there they call them killer trees, because if they are on the side of the road, they could be burning from inside. They might look all right from outside to the untrained eye, but they could fall over the road and kill somebody – a family with kids in the car. So I do not think we should take these things lightly.

The other point I would put on the record is that this code of conduct is not, as this motion states, binding. The word ‘binding’ is very interesting, but this particular code looks at and adheres to the Forests Act 1958 and the Conservation, Forests and Lands Act 1987. There is a part in the motion about traditional owner obligations. I will just pick up the point – and I am speaking about people I have spoken to – that not every traditional owner out there in Wombat forest was happy to leave that timber on the ground for five years. Many of them wanted to take it and use it. It was the greenie element that said, ‘No, no. We want you to do what you feel you need to do, unless it’s opposed to our ideology.’ Well, that just does not make sense. This also gives rise to the traditional owner obligations, the environmental obligations, the emergency management obligations, the fire prevention and suppression obligations and occupational health and safety. I do not want to stand up here and endorse actions that will either see good citizens, who may be misguided, standing under a tree as it falls or put the life of people employed to do this work at risk.

The other thing in the motion is: at the end of the day, is this just code for ‘We want to be enabled to litigate, to stop this work as a whole’? The mover might come back and say she is not saying that, but this is what the motion actually adheres to. We know that the greatest threat to species is out-of-control, catastrophic bushfires. We need active management. We need people who know it on the ground, and we need to respect those people working on the ground, just like we respect all sorts of conservationists who plant trees. I wonder how many Wilderness Society people actually have a program to plant trees. I oppose this motion entirely.

 Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (15:18): I rise to speak on this important motion, and the Greens will be strongly supporting it and thank Ms Purcell for moving it. I really just want to put on the record that we agree with everything she has raised regarding the ecological and oversight issues we are seeing right now, because what we are talking about at Forest Fire Management Victoria, or FFMV – the destruction of ancient trees, the reliance on desktop assessments, the lack of any proper oversight or transparency with these operations – all threatens Victoria’s precious collapsing ecosystems. What is more, it threatens the safety of Victorians. I appreciate there have been different views expressed here, but bad science, wanton destruction of forests and lack of accountability do not make Victorians safer; they actually put us at risk.

There is one very simple but obvious example I want to use to illustrate this point. Some giant trees in rainforests have evolved to withstand fires. They create a natural buffer that can at least slow down roaring bushfires. If you destroy that part of a rainforest, those giant trees can be replaced by grasses and shrubs and other low-lying vegetation. That kind of low-level vegetation is much, much more flammable typically than the tree you have just destroyed. When that happens, you are not only destroying irreplaceable natural wonders in and of themselves, releasing tonnes of trapped carbon dioxide into the air and risking endangered species like the greater glider and Leadbeater’s possum; you are actually increasing the risk of bushfires.

These are not just hypotheticals. Right now the government is planning strategic firebreaks across the Central Highlands which will total 225 kilometres in length. Parts of those firebreaks – 21 kilometres – will cut through protected parts of the Maroondah water catchment in the Yarra Ranges National Park. That means FFMV is set to destroy rainforests as well as old-growth habitat for greater gliders and Leadbeater’s possums. We saw them do this in 2024, and we saw the results: a dead greater glider. This shows that FFMV is not surveying properly and not listening to warnings from independent scientists and lacks effective oversight, because it was not FFMV that reported the death of that greater glider. It was left to citizen scientists, including members of Wildlife of the Central Highlands, or WOTCH, and Victorian National Parks Association, or VNPA. And it was up to lawyers from Environmental Justice Australia to send the allegations to the federal and state environment ministers that FFMV’s operations contravened the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, or EPBC act, which requires referral, assessment and approval of all operations likely to have significant impacts on listed threatened species. Critically, the dead greater glider was discovered after WOTCH and VNPA had already sent warnings to everyone they could – FFMV, state and federal environment ministers, all regulators – that the destruction of old hollow-bearing trees along 250 kilometres for fuel breaks within the Yarra Ranges National Park in 2024 was destroying critical habitat for threatened wildlife like gliders, Leadbeater’s possums, gang-gang cockatoos and swift parrots.

Now we are seeing the exact same kind of warnings as FFMV prepares for even more fuel breaks within the Yarra Ranges National Park. Looking at the next round of firebreaks, I want to read from a new report into those firebreaks by Chris Taylor and Professor David Lindenmayer from the Fenner School of Environment and Society at ANU. Mr Taylor and Professor Lindenmayer call for the government to abandon plans to establish a strategic firebreak in the Maroondah catchment as well as other forests in the Central Highlands on environmental grounds, because once again FFMV is set to destroy large old hollow-bearing trees that provide critical greater glider habitat. It is set to destroy endangered old-growth alpine ash forests. Victoria has already lost 77 per cent of its old growth in the last 25 years, and now these works will threaten the remaining estimated 0.47 per cent of alpine ash forests left in the Central Highlands region. The strategic firebreak is even set to destroy cool temperate rainforests between Mount Donna Buang and Mount Boobyalla, a rare Gondwana relic ecosystem in Victoria. These are the kinds of forests that specifically protect Victorians from bushfires and are replaced with the kinds of shrubs and grasses that increase the risk of bushfires. To quote directly Taylor and Lindenmayer:

To the best of our collective knowledge, there is currently no credible evidence that strategic firebreaks are effective in limiting the spread of wildfires in tall, wet eucalypt forests or Gondwanic rainforests. Conversely, wet, shaded environments like Gondwanic rainforests are likely to act as an ecological control … on spatial contagion in wildfire. The likely limited effectiveness of strategic firebreaks – typically 40 m wide – is consistent with the much longer mean spotting distance of wildfires in south-eastern Australia ... If the aim of strategic firebreaks is to conduct backburns, the risks associated with such activities are considerable, given the levels of biomass in tall, wet eucalypt forests and the probability of them instigating crown fires. The efficacy of establishing firebreaks through tall wet forests and Gondwanic rainforests appears questionable, and unlikely to be either ecologically effective or cost-effective.

We have no confidence FFMV is incorporating any of this new science or even that they are getting these warnings at all, because, as the motion notes, these activities are often knocked up on a desktop in a concrete jungle far from the forest, and results and modelling are not actively published so they are not subject to any kind of oversight, regulation or even fact-checking, unless you count the valiant citizen scientists who are checking for dead gliders.

I should add that none of this is to suggest that FFMV staff are acting maliciously or that we need a wholesale ban on fire management operations, but there are serious structural problems at FFMV – and I think that is what Ms Purcell has highlighted clearly – which threaten both our communities and shrinking natural ecosystems. Even VicForests answered to the Office of the Conservation Regulator. But right now no-one is regulating FFMV or checking if the trees destroyed by their fuel breaks are not just going straight to timber mills. Instead of fixing this loophole, Labor seem more interested in expanding or even formalising it with their state forest by-product framework this year.

What would the required structural reform actually look like? Back in 2024, when the government formally repealed VicForests, the Greens created a sensible road map to prevent the exact issues we are seeing right now under FFMV. Our amendments to that repeal act would have, one, mandated ecological reporting ahead of fire prevention and recovery works, including specific reference to the action statements for threatened and endangered species, and empowered both the Office of the Conservation Regulator and the EPA to investigate ecological impacts from FFMV’s fire management works. We also sought to ban the commercial sale of timber collected under fire prevention and recovery works. Sadly, Labor voted down those amendments from the Greens. Since then we have seen FFMV destroy irreplaceable native forests, the death of a greater glider from a fuel break, as I have mentioned, and research suggesting that some of these operations are actually more likely to increase bushfires, as I have stated.

There is no time like the present, and if the government wants to create a smarter, safer fire management system, then we have got a road map. We have got a Greens private members bill to close the logging loopholes. Our bill, the Forest Legislation Amendment (Closing Logging Loopholes) Bill 2026, would tackle the four key loopholes that we are seeing in Victoria, reforming forest fire management processes and preventing them from being exploited by logging companies, making it illegal for mills in Victoria to process native forest timber from anywhere in Australia, including those old forests that are now being destroyed in Tasmania, banning the logging of native forests on private land and futureproofing Victoria’s ban on commercial logging by repealing those laws that would enable future governments to bring back native logging on public land.

The sad fact is all of those logging loopholes still exist right now in Victoria. We are seeing precious old-growth forests destroyed and harvested in the name of fire management, we are seeing the logging of native forests on private land – a responsibility that the state government passes on to local councils – and we have seen logging companies exploit taxpayer funding which, instead of transitioning workers into sustainable jobs like they were supposed to, has gone on to prop up native forest logging in states like Tasmania and ship that timber back to be processed at Victorian mills. For some reason Labor refuse to cement their ban on commercial-scale native logging, and there are still two laws in place that mean future governments could bring it back with the stroke of a pen: the Forests (Wood Pulp Agreement) Act 1996 and parts of the Forests Act 1958, which allow the kinds of forest produce licences enabling logging and selling native timber. Labor say native forest logging is over, but clearly they have left loopholes everywhere. Victorians deserve genuine protections for their precious, dwindling native forests. It is time we reformed FFMV, created some genuine oversight and finally closed the native logging loopholes. Labor say native forest logging is over, but they have left loopholes everywhere.

 Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (15:28): I am just going to be really honest from the front here: I have been trying to get my head around all of this for about four years now, and I do not have all the answers. I am going to say that straight up. What I do know is we have got a warming climate. We are probably going to hit 1.6 degrees above pre-industrial levels this year. We are probably going to hit 2, and we are going into the twos in coming decades. Things are going to get drier and we are going to get more severe weather events, and somehow we have all got to figure out a way to get on and get some sustainable solutions to how we manage our public assets and our public land. We have got communities to think about that have had severe firestorm events, and there is a lot of trauma within them. We have got people who are really passionate about looking after our spaces, our bush, our various rainforest types at different altitudes and temperatures and different animals right across Victoria.

The one thing we can be sure of is that this challenge is not going away and this challenge is not going to get easier. We have had a massive change, with 1.8 million hectares in the public estate where native forestry has ended, and that has been really difficult for communities that have historically worked in that space. It is a piece of work that is still ongoing to support other industries and other activity in their local economies and make sure that those towns survive. I think we can all agree that right across Victoria we need towns – smaller towns and further-out towns – to be strong and to survive for the good of our state. I think we all agree on that and that is really important. We want to make sure that we are not having threatened species become extinct. There is one group I have been really proud of. Across the chamber we got the Parliamentary Friends of Landcare established this term. All parties are involved. It is 40 years since Landcare was first established. It was first established here in Victoria. We celebrate that here. Whether it is ‘friends of’ groups in metro areas, whether it is farmers or whether it is country towns, everyone is working together to improve their local environments.

The other really important part of that is educating our kids. I remember when I was growing up we were doing so much work around the salinity of creeks and all that sort of thing that had happened through trees being taken out on farms. That education piece is really important, but I think we need to somehow get to a point where we can acknowledge that we do need to manage our forests, particularly around towns. We need to acknowledge that we have got to use the best evolving science and the best science that meets the challenges with the temperatures and the climate that we have. I think we have to accept that no-one is going to find purity in their policy. No-one is going to find absolute perfection from one end of the state to the other. But we have got to try to get the best sustainable outcome we can.

For me personally I look at Mirboo North after the windstorm came through. I was actually there three days before. I went back in about 36 hours afterwards and the town was like a war zone. There were trees absolutely everywhere. I am sure no-one is saying this, but to think that we cannot get in and get that timber up and off the ground – and that took a long, long time because of the trauma for that town to get around what it needed to do. To think that we cannot get on and get a town back on its feet – I would hope that no-one’s saying that. Out of that work that went on there there was mulch that was donated to community, there was firewood donated to community, there were logs for community projects and there were 70 root-ball trees that were used by the East Gippsland Catchment Management Authority. I was with the CMA just out of Bairnsdale looking at the work they are doing on getting the willows out and getting the biodiversity happening for about 30 or 40 k on the river up north of Bairnsdale, as has been done on the Snowy and as has been done on other rivers. There was also commercial sale of sawlog, which was donated back to the Mirboo North and District Community Foundation, which is a deeply respected and loved foundation.

Whether you are looking at an event like that, whether you are looking at a roadside where fires are going to come through or whether you are looking at putting in lines of protection for towns like Mallacoota, where it is a long, long way between them and the next firebreak or the next town, I think you need to be realistic about what needs to happen. My colleague Mr Batchelor talked about 1.2 million tonnes of timberper year going to sawmills, and now we are down to 13,000 tonnes in 2023–24 and nothing in 2024–25. I think we have got to keep all that in mind and really just keep in mind the communities that are still finding their way through all those changes.

I also want to talk about plantations. I think plantations play a really important role. We need timber for our building industry. We need timber for so much of everything we depend on, and we do need to find sustainable options. We should be sourcing materials here within our own state. We heard contributions from others talking about the problems of bringing in material from other states. So let us do it here. Let us have the jobs here, let us have the material here and let us make it sustainable. Let us make sure it is in a system that we are happy is environmentally sustainable and economically sustainable. Because I always come back to the point that you cannot find economic sustainability without environmental sustainability. That is why I am so passionate on climate, because if we do not get our climate right and we do not get our local environments right, we cannot get the economics right, and we all depend on the economics to ensure that our communities can be sustainable.

The other side of this, which I am really passionate about, is tourism. I am really passionate about environmental tourism. It was7 hours to get up to Errinundra National Park. That was fantastic. There are trees that are 400 years old. Out of Orbost, we went up a couple of hours on the bus, and we saw businesses who would previously have been connected to the timber industry. We had all the emerging small businesses that are starting to really thrive in the tourism space, and they all want the same thing. They all want to look at the bush tracks that have been up in the bush from the native timber industry and how we make sure we keep those open, not only from a fire perspective and making sure we are ready in those sorts of scenarios, but also for getting tourists up to see some of the incredible natural assets that we have.

If we are asking Victorians to pay taxes and to have that money go into supporting parks and rangers and go into various things that ensure that our natural environments are staying intact and species are not going extinct, then people need to have the opportunity to explore them. As Melbourne becomes a bigger and bigger city, it is such a great opportunity for people to get 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 hours out of out of Melbourne. My preference is in an EV. We will get the EV charging, and you have all heard me talk about that, particularly those that were on the inquiry. But let us get that really sustainable tourism industry in our state. Let us keep our money in our state. Let us make sure our environments are sustainable. I think there are ways that together we can find a way through. When we are using the best science but when we are being respectful of each other and when we are being respectful of people’s different points of view, we can find something that can last decades and hopefully see so much of our precious bush get back to a state that is sustainable and goes into the next century.

 Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (15:38): The reality is that in 2024 Labor blindsided communities in my electorate by bringing forward and fast-tracking the closure of the native timber industry by six years. Now, 2½ years on, we have seen that the talk of a transition for the native timber industry has proved to be as empty as it was for the Latrobe Valley power industry. That is how people in my communities feel. That is how I feel. The motion here, I believe, speaks to one side of the story. I really appreciated Mr McIntosh’s contribution. It really did in so many ways sum up what I believe is the truth here. It cannot be all or nothing; it cannot be one or the other. There has to be a pathway through the middle where we acknowledge the science and we realise that things can be done better. The demonisation of the native timber industry is not okay. And I know: I championed this industry for two years before it was shut in this place and before that. But the reality is it was an industry that needed to improve, not an industry that needed to end. There has got to be an acknowledgement that we can improve, but there does need to be balance.

I will go through some facts about what the native timber industry was. I worked during the 2020–21 bushfires in Gippsland, and I believe that we need to acknowledge that there is not this view up in the country that people hate the forest, that they are there destroying it – no. When there are fires there, these are the same people that have cared for the forests, that have opened up tracks for fire trucks to get in, that have rescued animals. The linear and binary view of these issues is, quite frankly, wrong. There is a way that we can balance love and care of wildlife, local economies, local communities, human life, animal life, the management of forests and fire protection.

The mover of the motion spoke about facts, and there are some regarding what was the native timber industry that I want to go through right now. One is that 94 per cent of public native forest estate was locked up in parks, reserves and water catchments prior to the closure. There was no widespread destruction of forests; there was not this environmental vandalism. Of that, 6 per cent was available for timber production, and around 0.03 per cent of that area was harvested each year. That is the truth; it is a fact. Our native resource is renewable. All areas harvested were replanted, and this replanting had huge environmental benefits. Do you know why? Because as timber grows and is renewed, it captures carbon. That is the reality of it. Once it is grown it stops doing that. It is when it is replanted, and that is extremely important for our atmosphere. It is an important piece of the puzzle. Our native forest industry was environmentally and ecologically sustainable. Prior to harvesting there would be intense surveys taking place, and these preharvesting surveys would identify the presence or otherwise of threatened species, flora and fauna, and this is important, because it is not something that we are getting with the narratives. The facts tell something different. There was not one species of animal that had become extinct because of the native timber industry, so to claim otherwise is quite frankly false. Old growth was set aside from harvesting for many years, and in 2021, five years ago, it was the regrowth from the 1939 bushfires that was being harvested. Did you know that? You do not get these facts when you hear this emotional narrative.

I probably do not have time for all this. I will not go through the other facts, but I will say that there is a continued use of native hardwood, yet now we do not have a readily available supply from sustainable and ethical sources. I do not understand why the people that champion this narrative have not gone on about the connections to modern slavery with some of the hardwood timber harvesting. I do not understand why they have not gone on and spoken about the connection to terrorism in these countries that have got native timber harvesting that have become a source since we have shut ours down. That is important.

It is no secret that the closure of the native timber industry has been felt most by regional communities that are already struggling to provide employment in the area, especially in Gippsland, which is still recovering from the closure of Hazelwood and Carter Holt. And there is going to be the transition away from coal. There has not been a proper transition. The closure of the Victorian native timber industry has been absolutely devastating for regional communities. In this place – I said it so many times in the lead-up, because there were stories and people reaching out to me before this – I kept urging the government to recognise that when you destroy an industry, you destroy the community that relies upon that industry, and that is exactly what we have seen. The industries that powered this state, built this state, have been demonised, and those who work in them have been treated like environmental vandals, and it is wrong. The reality is, if you have succeeded in the state of Victoria, it is because of them. The reason that Victoria used to be the jewel in the crown was because of our cheap and accessible power. That is the reality. Every single one of us is benefiting because of them, and I hate the demonisation of these good people.

Not only that, the workers of the native timber industry would take their machinery and would clear tracks for fire trucks and would get rid of the undergrowth so we would not have these huge burning fires. That is the reality. Is it all or nothing? No. Should we do better? Yes. That is the reality of it, and I hate the fact that these good people that care for and rescue animals, that care for and rescue human life and that care for the native environment are demonised and just pigeonholed into this one little, narrow trope. It is wrong. These are the people that have kept the undergrowth managed, that have turned out and that have fought the fires. A member of the government spoke about the intense fires in January. It was those same people that turned out and helped in those situations. I remember being at the rescue centre. What is it called?

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

Renee HEATH: Thank you, Mr Batchelor. I was at the relief centre in Sale during probably about February or March in 2021. Everyone was there giving what they could. I and many others would clear rooms in our house and set up bunk beds for people we had never met – people escaping from these fires who worked in the native timber industry and who looked after this land. Then we had a rescue centre. I was doing chiropractic. There were other people there helping animals. It is not the narrow view that there are either environmental villains or warriors. It is wrong. I just want to acknowledge that. For years workers have been shamed and demonised and the facts about the sustainability of the environment and about the industry and about ethical management have been overlooked.

Victoria’s native timber industry was subject to the most rigorous and strictest regulations. I mentioned before about 94 per cent of it being locked up. To explain this and to put it into context, of the remaining 6 per cent for timber production, 0.03 per cent of the area was harvested. Do you want to know how many trees that was per 10,000 trees? Have a guess, just in your minds. It was four trees per 10,000. The consequences of this ban have been devastating. I have run out of time, but I will say that there has to be a better way forward, and I will not be voting for this motion.

 Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:48): I rise to make a contribution on behalf of Legalise Cannabis Victoria about the ongoing destruction of Victoria’s native forests and the serious gaps that remain in our laws. At the outset I would like to thank Ms Purcell for bringing this motion before the house, acknowledge the work that she has done in this space and say that we will be supporting this motion. Victoria ended commercial native forest logging on 1 January 2024, and it was meant to be a landmark moment in Victoria. However, we must recognise that regulations are only as effective as their enforcement, and the reality is that there are significant gaps that remain.

One of the gaps that still exists is how logging by Forest Fire Management Victoria is not subject to the Code of Practice for Timber Production 2014. They are not subject to the legal requirements that are intended to protect threatened species, and the state conservation regulator has no power to intervene. This creates inconsistency in the regulatory framework, as timber harvesting activities conducted by FFMVic may not be subjected to the same standards and oversight mechanisms. This gap also has serious implications for environmental management and consistency of sustainable forest management practices. The government must ensure that the end of commercial native forest logging is not undermined by regulatory gaps or loopholes that allow native timber to continue to enter commercial supply chains. It raises a really simple question: what is the point of banning native forest logging in state forests if loopholes allow similar destruction to continue elsewhere? Our native forests are not simply sources of timber; they provide habitat for threatened species, protect waterways, store carbon and support ecosystems that cannot simply be replaced by planting a few more trees.

The Carroll government has a responsibility to address and close these regulatory gaps, strengthen oversight and ensure that environmental protections apply on private land as well as public land. The Victorian government has increasingly moved away from using the clear and well understood term ‘commercial logging’, instead relying on vaguely descriptive terms such as ‘forest management’, ‘timber recovery’ and what communities are now calling ‘loophole logging’. This change in language matters. Ending an industry on paper does not mean the practice has disappeared.

Native timber can still be removed from forests under different regulatory pathways, including private land harvesting, limited forest produce licences and timber removal as part of fire safety or other fire management activities. The government continues to claim that forest and fire management works are not conducted for commercial purpose and therefore are not logging, but for communities who continue to see mature native forests being felled, removed and potentially entering commercial supply chains, changing the terminology does not change what is happening on the ground. Calling it something other than commercial logging does not answer the fundamental question of whether Victoria’s ban on native forest logging is being upheld. The community deserves more than this.

A ban is only meaningful if there are clear rules, strong oversight, transparency and effective enforcement behind it. Communities should not be left to decipher whether the removal of mature native trees is genuinely permitted, whether it is being carried out for a legitimate purpose or whether commercial interests are finding ways to continue practices that the ban was intended to end. They deserve clear, enforceable protections that prevent native timber from being harvested under a different label and then finding its way into the commercial markets.

Where threatened species, mature native forests and sensitive ecosystems are at stake we cannot rely on a system where the regulator is effectively marking its own homework. There must be independent scrutiny, transparent reporting and enforceable environmental protections, otherwise we risk replacing one form of regulated logging with a system where environmental destruction can occur under a different label without the same level of accountability. Without effective oversight, traceability and enforcement, a ban is only as strong as the loopholes that remain around it. Victorians were promised an end to native logging in Victoria. They should not now have to navigate a maze of new terminology to determine whether that commitment is being honoured in practice. The government must demonstrate that the ban is more than a change in policy language and that it is a genuine, enforceable protection for Victoria’s remaining native forests.

We know the government spends billions supporting the transition away from native forest logging. Victorians were entitled to expect that this transition would deliver a genuine end to commercial native forest logging, not a system where the same forests can continue to be exploited through alternative pathways. If the government is serious about ending native forest logging, it should not be playing a game of semantics.

I have raised in this chamber on several occasions the opportunities for Victoria to really support its hemp industry. Hemp is a viable alternative to timber when it comes to paper milling, when it comes to building materials and the like. It grows quickly, and we have a real opportunity here to build on that industry. A tree does not know whether it is felled under a heading of commercial logging or forest management or by-product removal or salvage. The government should be transparent about the scale of timber being removed, the legal basis for its removal, the environmental assessments undertaken and whether any of that timber is entering the commercial markets. It is a very simple question of accountability.

There was a time when commercial native forest logging operated under a regulatory framework that included prescribed standards, environmental requirements, reporting obligations and external oversight. Whatever criticisms may have been levelled at that system, there were at least mechanisms through which the public could understand what was being authorised, what environmental assessments had been undertaken and what obligations operators must operate under. Victorians were promised an end to commercial native forest logging, and they deserve confidence that this commitment is being upheld in practice with enforceable protections, transparency and, obviously, accountability.

 Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:55): I am pleased to rise to speak on this motion today. I often find myself speaking on motions that are put forward in this place by Ms Purcell, and I often find myself agreeing with them. Today is not one of those days, although I do applaud once again her sublime sartorial sense in the outfit that she has to visually represent the issue.

I do want to acknowledge the contributions of both previous speakers on these benches, Mr Batchelor and Mr McIntosh, for the perspectives that they provided. I do think it is important to go back to the simple, basic facts of what we are talking about here. Under this government we did abolish native forest logging in public areas. That was a very significant change and a significant change that I know many colleagues, including Mr McIntosh and others, were involved in with support for communities such as, in particular, those in eastern Victoria, to make sure that the transition was as fair as possible on the people and the communities whose livelihoods relied on that particular part of the industry.

But we have come a long way. As Mr Batchelor highlighted towards the end of his remarks, it is simply not effective enough to come into this argument and gloss over the fact that over the preceding 10 years before that legislative change we had an average of 1.2 million tonnes of firewood being sold on a commercial basis from the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) and then went in the following year to have just 13,000 tonnes. That is a remarkable change. I think Mr Batchelor used the word ‘fundamental’. It is an extraordinary variance – 13,000 compared to 1.2 million – all the more pronounced of course when you consider that in the following year, in 2024–‍25, that figure dropped to zero and has remained at low levels ever since. It is in fact a factor of 92 times difference, and it also reflects a fundamental change. This is not proactive commercial logging. It is reactive, and it is reactive under the state’s forest fire products framework. It goes to some very, very important issues, such as fire preparedness.

We are, as other speakers have said, one of the most bushfire-prone regions of the world. It is something that is only continuing to accelerate as we see the effects of climate change. This government has done a great many things in addressing climate change, including the transition out of native timber harvesting, an expansive rollout of renewable energy, the SEC and other initiatives so that we are now seeing well over a third of our energy production come on a consistent basis from renewable sources, a feat once unimaginable in a state that was notorious for being the black coal capital of the nation. We are making these investments and changes, but we know that the effects of climate change are continuing unabated. There are causes of this of course that go far beyond our state boundaries and far beyond our national boundaries that we are not in a position to control at a state legislative level. We must do everything that we can to prevent climate change and to address emissions, but we must also do everything that we can to address resilience.

Indeed the Environment and Planning Committee has done a number of reports that are pertinent to this subject over the past parliamentary term, including a very expansive report on climate resilience and the need to adapt and prepare ourselves and our communities better for the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters that befall our state. There is perhaps no better recent example of those disasters than the fires of 2026, on 26 January this year. I did have the privilege of being a member of the EPC for the latter part of that inquiry, and I note the comments of Mr Batchelor earlier in relation to the evidence given to the inquiry, which I had the benefit not of being in the room for but of reading later on – transcripts from Forest Fire Management Victoria (FFMVic) and DEECA about the sheer scale of what they were faced with in Walwa.

I have said this a few times in the chamber since the tabling of the report, but I do think it bears repeating: when you look at the relatively remarkable success of having one life lost – of course one life is too many, and that does not take into account the extraordinary numbers of wildlife and livestock that were lost, let alone the emotional toll on countless communities across our state; none of that should be diminished – I think many people, especially in more metropolitan parts of our state, would consider that the 2026 summer fires were a relative success, certainly if you compare it to Black Saturday, when there were in the order of 180-odd. But that would be to omit a very important fact, and that is that the January 2026 fires burnt in more areas of this state’s land than Black Saturday. This had a staggering impact right across our state, be it the Walwa complex, the Longwood complex, in Harcourt, in Natimuk, in the Otways or indeed in many of the other smaller fire complexes – I believe there were around 25 total – right across the state in those horrid few weeks.

This is where this issue becomes really pertinent, because no-one – well, I hope no-one – is saying that DEECA is out continuing to commercially log and is trying to find ways around it or loopholes, because that would certainly be disingenuous. There is a very, very big difference in responding to fallen trees after storms, such as in 2024, as Mr McIntosh was talking about, that affected Gippsland South, that affected the Dandenong Ranges and that affected peri-urban parts of Melbourne, or indeed doing the essential fire prevention work that is about making sure that when these fires do happen we, as best we can, contain and control them to prevent catastrophic losses – obviously catastrophic losses to people and catastrophic losses to property, but catastrophic losses to wildlife as well. We will never know how much wildlife we lost in those fires of this year. Any estimate is simply eye-wateringly horrifying. So we must continue to support FFMVic to do what it needs to do to keep our state safe. That is so critical for regional communities and for some metropolitan communities too. When you consider the fact that more public land was burnt in these fires than in any other major fire in the state’s history, that really does hammer the point home about the need for those firebreaks and containment measures so that we can continue to respond in an effective way and see future fatalities from such fire events kept as low as possible.

I do want to acknowledge some of the remarks in this motion as they relate to transparency, and I do note that we have seen a very strong demonstration of transparency on the part of the Minister for Environment and this government, perhaps no better articulated than by the release of the report on the state’s abundant koala population earlier today.

Members interjecting.

Michael GALEA: It is not the same subject, I concede, but it is an important demonstration of the fact that the Minister for Environment is committed to that transparency, and whilst I do not have anything to commit on behalf of the minister today, I know that it is something that she is actively interested in, and it is perfectly appropriate, as with any government program or any other way of operating, that there be an appropriate social licence for it. Obviously disinformation and misinformation can be allowed to fester where there is that isolation of information, so I know that the minister is very invested in looking at ways in which we can be more transparent about this, and I know that she will continue to do that work. I am sure she will be eager to work with Ms Purcell on that point as well.

I do think it bears repeating too that there is a very big, stark difference between where we are now and where we were a few years ago. This is not DEECA or FFMVic going out and trying to find commercial opportunities. For example, I know it happened after the storm events up in Silvan Reservoir, not too far from my electorate and Dr Heath’s electorate, and there was some local concern. That wood was harvested, and as with all of these uses now, none of that is being shipped or commercially exported. It is being sold mostly at very discounted rates to local community members and older members of the community who cannot get their own firewood. It is being provided through pick-up points at DEECA depots. That is where the majority of this product is going. On the question of transparency, I think there is some confluence of opinions that we could come to, and more work will be done in that space. But it would be disingenuous to say that the proactive approach in the past of 1.2 million tonnes is anywhere in the same league as the reactive approach now, where we have seen 13,000 tonnes in a year.

 Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (16:05): That debate went exactly as I predicted: 90 minutes of justification, of saying this is required, of saying this is necessary, claims that we do not care about bushfires or wildlife burning unless we back this in. Whereas my request was to have a debate about transparency measures to prove that is true to us. I specifically said at the commencement of this that I know it will be the same conversation where the government will say, ‘Just trust us,’ and the opposition will say, ‘This is required,’ when the entire premise of this was to say we would just love to see some oversight, some transparency, some reporting. If the government backs this in so strongly and this is the right action for storm clean-up or fuel management or fire prevention, they must have the evidence to prove that that is the case. We have just been asking to see that evidence. If we want to stop disinformation or misinformation, as some members have claimed, then the way to do that is to back up your claims.

It is so deeply frustrating because it is clear that the government has been handed speaking notes directly from the very organisation doing this, and they are the ones we have been asking to be up-front about their activities. We specifically said we did not want to have a debate about whether or not this is required. That is not what this was about today. I am wearing a shirt that has a number of species on it made by a wonderful constituent of mine, and it is based on an article that is called ‘Policy decisions matter: Cessation of logging benefits 34 threatened species in Victoria, Australia’. This study assessed the spatial overlap between areas for approved logging and the habitats of nationally listed threatened species to estimate the potential impacts of continued logging and the likely benefits of its cessation. It found that 99 per cent of the areas approved for logging overlapped with the habitats of nationally threatened species. Now, it is a shame you cannot see the back of this shirt. In fact, this is the back. These animals will all disappear. It does not matter if the reasons their homes are being destroyed are community safety or public safety or bushfire prevention. The fact is that their homes are being destroyed. That is the conversation we wanted to have, because the government and the department say this is required and that they do impact assessments and surveys, but they have not only refused to share that with the public, they block every attempt at scrutiny or attempts to access this information.

We could have had a conversation today, not about whether or not it is required but about the fact that it is happening and that it is having impacts. That has implications for a number of different plants and animals and our biodiversity, which is in crisis whether we like it or not. We can do something about that: we can monitor it and we can assess it. But instead we have had the same conversation, which is the fox guarding the henhouse, accusations about workers in the industry, which nobody has said, particularly not me. There are no villains in this story. I am not claiming there are villains like some members have said. The story is that there is no transparency. If we wanted to actually stop this ongoing debate, this ongoing cycle, the people who believe this is required could front up and show us the evidence if it exists, like they claim it does, to back it up.

I want to thank the members that actually understand this for their contributions. I said in my first remarks that it is incredibly deceiving and it is incredibly confusing, and because this is no longer happening as part of a commercial industry, it is so much easier to justify. A lot of people let the conversation end there. Certainly most people in the chamber today did exactly that, instead of actually looking at the reality that we are in where it might not be commercial but logging continues to happen. It is not just for storm clean-ups, it is not just debris and it is not just fire management. There is also tree thinning. Again, we have no clarity on how that is determined. We are just simply asking for the evidence as to why.

As I have said, apparently all this information exists. The government and the department have just refused to make it public. There was an opportunity today to actually bring these communities together and have a conversation about that and put some oversight in place, just like there was when there was a commercial industry. I find it incredibly disappointing and incredibly disheartening that so many of the people in this place who celebrated the end of the commercial industry cannot see this for what it is – that we are not seeking to argue whether this is required, we are seeking transparency. Our forests deserve that. Soon they will be gone if we do not act quickly.

Council divided on motion: