Latrobe Valley Express, 17 August 2022

The turmoil in the native forest industry is deepening, with Australian Paper turning to recycle more paper as its hardwood timber supply dwindles, while a sawmill in the state’s far east is due to close because it has no timber.

Recent developments have underlined the crisis facing the Gippsland industry:

• The Supreme Court has partially wound back court orders that stopped timber harvesting in central Gippsland, but 90 per cent of Victorian Ash harvest areas remain locked-up.
• The Mectec sawmill at Newmerella, which has operated for 80 years, said it will close and lay off nine employees because it does not receive enough logs to keep operating.
• The CFMEU manufacturing union urged the state government to support timber workers who have been laid off due to the lack of hardwood and government policy failures, with a plan modelled on Jobkeeper.

Narracan MP Gary Blackwood, the Opposition spokesman on Forestry, said Opal Australian Paper at Maryvale had only 15,000 tonnes of pulpwood in storage that would be soon exhausted.

“I understand Opal has been compelled to sign a confidentiality agreement with the Andrews Government and the impact it will have on their business,” he said.

“While the Latrobe Valley is still reeling from the closure of Hazelwood and the Carter Holt sawmill and facing the uncertainty that will come with the closure of Yallourn power station in 2028, the Andrews Government is reneging on its part of the confidentiality agreement to maintain supply until 2030.

“They are also ignoring their promise to maintain the industry at 2019 levels until 2025.”

An Opal spokesperson said the Maryvale mill continued to closely monitor incoming wood volumes. “We expect to maintain a full five-shift operation on Machine 5 (M5), which is our main copy paper machine,” the spokesperson said.

“Given wood supply challenges, our Maryvale mill has been investigating the transition of Machine 3 (M3) to 100 per cent recycled packaging paper. Trials of 100 per cent recycled products on M3 have been successful and we began implementing the transition from July.

“We expect M3 to become a key supplier to Opal’s Packaging Division. Opal is committed to continuing to partner with our team members and other stakeholders to work towards a successful long-term transition to M3 to recycled packaging.”

The Supreme Court injunctions, which Justice Melinda Richards last December imposed on any coupe with 240 metres of a Greater Glider sighting, are intended to protect the gliders from a possible threat.

Protections under the government’s 2019 Greater Glider Action Statement require that, where five or more gliders are found per kilometre, VicForests must retain at least 40 per cent of eucalypts in each coupe, prioritising hollow-bearing trees.

VicForests maintains that over the past four years, it has kept 40 per cent of coupes intact where three or more gliders are seen per kilometre.

In her ruling last December, Justice Richards dismissed the action statement, saying it was not a legislative instrument. In her ruling last week, Justice Richards allowed three coupes to be harvested because they did not contain Greater Gliders. The three sites constitute 50 hectares in the Central Highlands – about 2 per cent of VicForests’ annual harvest area.

The chief executive of the Victorian Forest Products Association, Deb Kerr, welcomed the decision, but said it was only a “Band-aid” for the bigger problem facing mills and contractors.

Mr Blackwood and Ms Kerr both said if the Minister for the Environment, Lily D’Ambrosio, gazetted the 40 per cent rule into the Code of Timber Practice, it would gain the legislative power that the court had to recognise.

“For the cost of $100 (the cost of gazetting the management plan for the glider into the timber code) they could stop the third-party litigation and let the native forest industry return to the coupes approved for harvesting in VicForests’ timber release plan,” he said.

“There is no science in any of this debacle. The Andrews Government do not care about regional employment or communities. All they care about is shoring up their preference deals with the Greens to stay in government.”

CFMEU Manufacturing national secretary, Michael O’Connor, said the government had a “moral obligation” to support the workers stood down. “Victorian government inaction on the injunctions that closed down operations has led to this situation,” he said. “The closure of the Mectec sawmill in East Gippsland is the tip of the iceberg.”

Ms D’Ambrosio’s office has said the protection of Greater Gliders was complex and “any changes require proper assessment”.

Related story: Gliders back in court: Kinglake Friends of the Forest