November 3, 2010
Jobs in the Gippsland timber industry would be threatened by a Labor-Greens Government in Victoria, according to The Nationals.
Federal MP Darren Chester toured Gunns Timber Products in Heyfield with Senator Barnaby Joyce and Tim Bull and witnessed the continued investment in value adding at the mill.
“The timber industry is vital to Gippsland and there have been major investments in Heyfield to achieve maximum value from each log that passes through the mill.”
Mr Chester recently spoke on the importance of the timber industry during a debate in Federal Parliament.
He highlighted the vast system of reserves in Victoria which meant that only a small percentage of forests were actually logged each year.
“I do support the sustainable harvesting of native timber in Victoria because I recognise the important role that the industry plays in regional communities…I also recognise the complete impracticality of the alternatives which are often shouted by the Greens and whispered by Labor MPs,” Mr Chester told Parliament.
“They call for an end to logging of native timber but remain strangely silent on the importation of timber products from poor nations with a poor track record of illegal harvesting and unsustainable forest management practices.
“Labor and the Greens have talked a lot in the past and made a lot of promises about jobs we might have in the future in Gippsland, but I am fighting for the jobs we already have today, and that includes fighting for the future of the native hardwood timber industry in my community.
“Towns like Heyfield, Orbost, Bairnsdale, Swifts Creek, Nowa Nowa and Cann River have a strong dependence on the timber industry, from the people who work directly in the harvest and haulage section to those in the mills and those who service the industry.
“Every time the Labor Party and the Greens lock up another section of forest in Gippsland more jobs are lost and more families are forced to seek alternative employment in the region, or they simply move away and small country towns suffer the consequences.”