Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote): This season large parts of our beautiful state were burning, and some parts still are. The television glared with scenes of colossal walls of flame, of brave emergency workers on the front lines, of communities facing a threat the scale of which is still hard to comprehend. In Melbourne smoke surrounded us and we all felt that eerie foreboding that came with it. I found myself unpacking a new air purifier in my 10-month-old daughter’s room and switching it on. I felt a sense of relief that she would breathe easy through the night, but back in my own room I was restless.

There may be some opposite who want to disagree, but make no mistake: the scale of the fires we saw this season were the result of hotter, drier and more sustained risk conditions. In my inaugural speech I spoke about our moral responsibility to act on climate change and transition to a clean energy economy, and I am proud that in the short time since I was elected and in the previous term I have seen our government continue to act strongly and decisively to lead us in that transition. Last year the Andrews government announced the biggest environmental protection policy in Victoria’s history: an immediate end to old-growth harvesting and a transition for the native timber industry to end native forest logging by 2030. More than 186 000 hectares of forest across Victoria became immediately exempt from logging, with more than $120 million set aside to ensure the industry is fully supported, with long-term sustainable jobs that give regional communities a genuine pathway for the future. This means a great deal to me and my community, and I take this opportunity to read an email from one of my constituents, who wrote:

Hello Kat,

Before the last election I emailed you asking the Labor government to stop logging our old growth and native forests. The recent announcement to end this practice is great news. Thank you. Obviously, this displaces a number of people in the industry, which is devastating. As a taxpayer I am more than happy to help fund transition projects to help these people into another field of employment. In the long term, economically ceasing this practice will lead to more prosperity for the state.

My community understands that transition is hard. They understand that we have a responsibility to support the livelihoods of families in timber towns, that to do anything less would be a complete betrayal of our duty to these communities and to these workers, many of whom put their lives and their equipment at risk to assist our emergency services in the bushfire crisis. My community gets it, but disturbingly the Greens political party do not. When the forestry announcement was made last year we saw an email bulletin go out from the member for Melbourne. It reads:

You’ll be hearing a lot of bluster from the logging industry … about jobs. But the fact is, there are many more jobs in plantations, tourism and conservation, than there are in native forest logging.

I will leave aside the work of the Australian Young Greens who were forced to backtrack, shamefaced, after making absurd comments about baristas outnumbering miners recently, but it shows just how fast and loose these guys are with the truth and how much disdain they have for workers who do not fit their virtue bubble.

The forestry industry is at the heart of many small towns in the state’s east, but when it comes to the livelihoods of families in timber towns, when it comes to the viability of small towns and the need to help these communities secure their long-term future, the Greens political party could not be more insulting. But, hey, it makes for a great email campaign, doesn’t it.

‘Bluster’ about jobs! I can only imagine how insulting that is to the workers and their families who are living this transition. But it is also insulting to the vast majority of my community, because I know from having many conversations with constituents that they get it. They see that governments make tough decisions, and that is the burden of government. We are criticised and we are praised for these decisions, but core to governing is finding balance and fairness in decision-making, not being victims of circumstance, not lying inert and definitely not letting fear govern the day.

When broken down to the level of the effects that the transition has on individuals and their families, my community understands that you cannot just dumb these things down to a glib line in a bulk email. They know exactly what redundancy can do to families, and they know that industry transition is not just the provision of barista courses. They know that the truck drivers and bulldozer operators—many of whom, as I said, volunteer their time, their safety and their private equipment to create firebreaks for catastrophic fire seasons such as this year, such as 2013, such as 2009 and such as 2006—deserve to be talked about as people, not denigrated with words like ‘bluster’. These workers are not going to suddenly become baristas in tourist cafes. They must be supported to move out of native timber harvesting, because jobs in these towns mean the towns stay alive.

The transformation in these timber towns is no different to the huge transformation that suburbs that I represent have undergone. Communities in Northcote, Thornbury and Preston that used to be powerhouses in the textile, tannery and auto components industries have undergone change—change that has been difficult and that has been necessary. Different names may be on the front gate and different businesses may occupy the factories and warehouses, but jobs have remained and skills have been retained. I have said before and I will say it again, the interests of the environment and our working communities are not mutually exclusive. With the right policy mix we can put sustainability at the very heart of thriving economies.

But of course, when it comes to doing the hard work of nutting that out, the Greens do not show up. The Legislative Assembly has an Environment and Planning Committee—they do not show up. In fact for every single parliamentary committee in the lower house they do not show up. They have not bothered to join a single one. For the Gender Equality Bill 2019 they do not show up. Why would they bother when it is easier to mount email campaigns and slick slogans? Forget the actual work, forget the tough decisions, forget the impact on people’s lives, on their job prospects, on where they grew up or on where their kids go to school; let us just make sweeping demands and let others do the hard work. But they will take credit for it; they are good at that.

Indeed the member for Melbourne has taken that to a whole other level. Her own web page takes credit for ceasing cattle grazing in national parks, and I have to say that this piece of news was a surprise to me. No doubt it would also be to the former Deputy Premier and former minister for environment, Mr Thwaites. Cattle grazing was banned in 2005 by the Bracks Labor government, and not only was the current member for Melbourne not in this place in 2005 but there were no Greens political party members in the Parliament until 2006.

But I digress. For my own part—

Mr D O’Brien: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, while I do not wish to stop the member for Northcote having a good whack at the Greens, because I am in full agreement, she has got 2½ minutes to go and has not yet even mentioned the bill or gone to any of the topics related to the bill. If she is going to belt the Greens about their lack of care for forestry workers, she probably should be reflecting on the government’s position of shutting down the timber industry as well. So please ask—

The ACTING SPEAKER (Ms Suleyman): Order! Thank you. I will ask the member to continue.

Ms THEOPHANOUS: So I am very happy to stand up and support this bill. It is a bill that achieves even more protection for our forests. There you go.

Victoria has around 6.4 million hectares of forests on public land, vital ecosystems that support biodiversity and air quality but also jobs and recreation for Victorians. Our forests must be properly managed and regulated, which is why we introduced the Office of the Conservation Regulator. Recently we have encountered limitations in the regulatory framework, and there is a need to improve oversight and accountability measures to increase penalties and create stronger deterrents for illegal timber harvesting and give more powers to the regulator.

This bill delivers vital reforms to increase accountability of VicForests and its contractors. To ensure the offence will be more effective in deterring unauthorised timber harvesting and to ensure the punishment is commensurate with the potential environmental harm, the penalties for illegal timber harvesting are doubling.

At the end of the day we can sit around and talk about climate action, or we can do something about it. We can sit around bashing and undermining Labor, or we can act. I choose action, and I think that we must bring people with us, fairly, inclusively and logically. That does not mean virtue-signalling rhetoric or disrupting and alienating communities, because to galvanise the support needed to achieve real action we cannot afford to alienate sections of our community.

The Labor Party has always fought to make things fairer, not with symbolism but with real reform and genuine transition. Change never is easy, but only Labor can prevent that pendulum swinging between conservative inertia and heavy-handed idealism. It is in that nexus that change does happen, and change must happen. For that reason I commend the bill to the house.