Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I stand to inform the House that, yesterday, 200 workers at the Australian Maryvale mill lost their jobs. They didn't lose their jobs because they weren't good at them, they didn't lose their jobs because their product wasn't good enough, and they didn't lose their jobs because their product wasn't in demand in Australia. They lost their jobs because the Andrews Labor government refuses to stand up for timber workers in our state.

I heard a member opposite say 'rubbish'. Pick up the phone and talk to your Premier and talk to some of your ministerial colleagues in Victoria and explain to them why you don't support a sustainable native hardwood timber industry in Victoria, because Victorians do believe in the future of their native hardwood timber industry. What we saw yesterday in Victoria, where we lost our last manufacturer of white copy paper, was a direct result of Victorian Labor's refusal to stand up for Victorian blue-collar workers, a refusal to stand up for blue-collar workers at the Maryvale mill, because your government, the Victorian Labor government, wants to shut down all timber harvesting in that state.

I know that, on the other side, there are some very reasonable people, some very reasonable Victorian men and women, who understand the value of a hard day's work, earning your pay and being supported by your government, not being run out of business. It is an absolute corruption of good public policy to do what Dan Andrews is doing to the Victorian people. You know it. Pick up the phone and talk to him. Stand up for blue-collar workers like old Labor members used to.

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