Darren Chester
The $53 million St Kilda Pier redevelopment has been labelled as “hypocrisy on the grandest scale” by the Federal Member for Gippsland Darren Chester. Source: Timberbiz
“Melburnians don’t have to travel to the bush to see the consequences of the illogical decision to shut down the entire Victorian native hardwood timber industry,” Mr Chester said in a Facebook posting.
“Just head down to the multi-million dollar redevelopment of the St Kilda Pier and check out the new timber decking which is a centrepiece of the project.”
Mr Chester said that Parks Victoria proudly boasted on its website: “the timber decking being used throughout the project is emerging as a standout feature as the distinctive curved and tiered seating area nears completion”.
“Sadly, the decking timber is Darwin Stringybark from Queensland,” Mr Chester said.
“How can it be a better environmental outcome to transport timber 2000 kilometres for a Melbourne project rather than source the timber locally?
“Terrified by the Greens in the suburbs, the Andrews-Allan Government has banned the harvesting of native timber on public land in Victoria at an enormous social, economic and environmental cost.
We are now seeing more timber shipped to Victoria from interstate and overseas while Victorian taxpayers are providing compensation to people who would rather have just kept their jobs in a world-class and environmentally sustainable timber industry. The waste of public money is obscene.”
Australia’s import of timber and timber products has increased from $4.12 billion to $6.87 billion over the decade to 2022–23 and Victoria’s dependence on imported products is predicted to grow exponentially.
“In the middle of a housing affordability and timber supply chain crisis, there’s two choices with timber products,” Mr Chester said.
“You either grow and use your own in an environmentally sustainable way, or you buy it from somewhere else.
“The ‘somewhere else’ is often a country with poorer environmental protocols and work practices which would be illegal in Australia.”
He said that the Teals, Greens and some inner-city Labor MPs were now working to extend Victoria’s ban to cover all States by asking colleagues to sign a pledge in Federal Parliament.
It was a pledge based in ignorance and conceit which might play well in their wealthy suburbs but will threaten lives, and livelihoods, in timber towns across the nation.
“It’s a bit rich for some of the most privileged MPs who represent the electorates with the highest income households in Australia, calling for people to be sacked from their jobs in timber towns with the lowest incomes,” Mr Chester said.
He said that the Australian Bureau of Statistics average income for Orbost, the town most directly impacted by the Victorian ban, was just $785 per week.
“In the leafy suburb of Glen Iris, that data is $2491 per week, and the seat is held by the Teal’s first-term Member for Kooyong Monique Ryan, who is spearheading the campaign to ban the entire native hardwood industry in Australia.
“Greens Leader Adam Bandt has Docklands in his seat where the average weekly income in $1957 and in Caulfield, held by Labor’s Josh Burns, the average is $2143.”
Mr Chester said that all three MPs were openly hostile to the Australian native hardwood timber industry but had no plans on how to meet the national supply chain shortfall in timber products, or how to protect regional communities which will face bushfires without the support of skilled forest machinery operators in the future.
“Forest contractors are irreplaceable in an emergency situation, but they will be forced to leave country towns as a result of the Victorian timber ban,” Mr Chester said.
“And before you say ‘what about plantations’, there is simply not enough trees in the ground to meet Victoria’s needs from a plantations-only approach.
“The obsession with creating plantation monocultures on productive farming land, rather than selectively harvesting timber from multi-species native forests, also guarantees poorer biodiversity outcomes for our native animals.
“By law, harvested areas were required to be re-planted under the system which used to exist in Victoria, and we already had a highly developed system of reserves and national parks which could never be touched,” he said.
“Trees are the ultimate renewable resource and a sustainable native hardwood timber industry is part of the answer to reducing Australia’s carbon emissions as timber products sequester carbon in our floorboards, furniture and other timber products.
“The ideological madness of the Labor Party in Victoria driven by environmental extremists in its own ranks has made our state more dependent on the rest of the country and foreign nations, just to build the homes and community infrastructure we need.
“But that’s ok, the St Kilda Pier will look terrific with Queensland timber,” Mr Chester said.
