Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Senator Paterson. Our government knows how important the forestry industry is to Australia. It employs over 52,000 people directly and many more thousands indirectly, and it contributes nearly $24 billion to the national economy in places like Huonville, Maryborough, Tumut and Marysville, where I grew up. Rather than blue collars, the men and probably women that work in the forestry industry wear blue singlets, like my dad did. That's why the Victorian government's decision to cease all native forest harvesting in state forests is disappointing, because it is selling out these people; it is selling out these regional communities; and it is selling them out not so they can grow and prosper on a sustainable resource, but to buy votes for Senator Di Natale and Senator Rice in inner urban seats of Melbourne.

It's not just the Australian government that condemns this decision by the Andrews Labor government. It's actually one of the Labor Party's largest donors. Mr Michael O'Connor, no less, has labelled this decision to end the native hardwood timber forestry industry in Victoria by 2030 as 'heartless and stupid'. They, like all of us, should be disgusted at how quickly Labor has forgotten the workers, just like in the last federal election they forgot the miners in Central Queensland and Western Australia. They are now turning their back on the forestry workers. We will see upwards of 5,000 jobs lost right throughout regional communities in timber towns in our home state of Victoria, Senator Paterson. I know you, like I, want to see more people employed in our home state in primary production, rather than fewer.