Pulford’s covert Heyfield visit offers no answers
0 comment

Pulford’s covert Heyfield visit offers no answers

Member for Gippsland East, Tim Bull, has said Jaala Pulford’s secret visit to Heyfield yesterday did not provide the news locals were hoping for.

“It’s just over a week until the end of a four-week reprieve for workers at Australian Sustainable Hardwoods’ Heyfield mill, but the Andrews Government still has no answers for local workers,” Mr Bull said.

“It’s taken three months for the Minister to visit Heyfield. She failed to turn up to a meeting of 1000 community members, instead sending a junior MP who has no influence around the Cabinet table and now Ms Pulford has avoided the community on her first visit to Heyfield.

“It’s hard to see this wasn’t a token visit from a Minister who needs to be able to say she has been to Heyfield, but is clearly yet to commit to putting hundreds of our forestry workers ahead of green preference deals in Melbourne.”

Mr Bull said just six per cent of Victoria’s forests were open to harvesting. Over the past two years the Andrews Government has locked up more and more of the state’s forests – without replacement.

“The timber is there, but Labor is so desperate to sure up green preferences in inner-city Melbourne that the jobs of 250 Heyfield workers and 7000 people in industries down the line are facing the axe,” he said.

“Our state needs a native timber industry – plantation timber doesn’t meet the same quality standards or quantity demands. Without a native timber industry, more pressure is placed on importing the resource from countries with far less oversight than we have in Australia.

“Daniel Andrews and Jaala Pulford must immediately put politics aside and secure these jobs and a future for East Gippsland’s forestry industry.”

Friday, February 17, 2017