Tuesday 4 September 2018
The Andrews Labor Government still refuses to rule out a secret plan to destroy Victoria’s timber industry at the cost of tens of thousands of local jobs in Gippsland and north-east Victoria.
Asked by The Nationals in Parliament today to explain media reports Labor would end Victoria’s native timber industry Agriculture Minister Jaala Pulford would only say Cabinet hadn’t considered a plan.
Ms Pulford also confessed Labor’s move to expand plantation timber estates has stalled admitting they hadn’t planted a single tree in the 18 months since committing $110 million to establish new plantations in the Latrobe Valley.
Our timber workers contractors and businesses have been in limbo for four years under Labor.
Mill workers truck drivers and harvesters in north east Victoria and Gippsland are still waiting for Labor to release details of timber availability in its Timber Release Plan which is months overdue as they enter the harvest season
Comment attributable to Shadow Minister for Agriculture Peter Walsh
Labor has shown time and time again it won’t support Victoria’s timber industry.
Jaala Pulford’s failure to completely rule out a move to end our native timber industry leaves the jobs of tens of thousands of Victorians hanging by a thread.
Workers and their families rely on the timber industry to pay the bills and put food on the table but under Labor they don’t know if their jobs are safe.
Daniel Andrews is desperate to hold onto his own job even if that means making a deal with the Greens that destroys the livelihoods of Victorian timber workers and their families.
Daniel Andrews has abandoned regional Victorians at every turn in the past four years.
It’s only a matter of time before Labor caves completely to its Greens coalition partners and seals the death of Victoria’s $7 billion timber industry.