LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
ROBERT Lonnee tells us that Labor is punishing Gippsland for voting Nationals by closing the ASH mill in Heyfield.
Maybe to best understand politics, we should start with a passage from the Bible, Matthew 7:2-5 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye, when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?”.
Think of a world largely populated with people blind on one eye and politics the art of manipulating them.
The best figures I can get on the availability of timber for the ASH mill come from this link:
“VicForests was created in 2004.
“At that time, and again in 2007, the maximum harvestable area for the Central FMA’s ash forests for the present period (2014 to 2019) was set by the state government at approximately 2000ha, or an average of 400ha per annum.
“But 758ha was clearfelled in 2014-15, 778ha in 2015-16, with a similar amount estimated to be under way in the current season.
“Alarmingly, this accelerated logging has occurred despite 13,500ha being lost in the 2009 fires.”
First we should be questioning how much of what is being harvested, predominately 1939 regrowth, is being chipped, as young mountain ash would be expected to produce few low grade logs.
There are reports of large quantities being exported as chips from Geelong and whole logs being exported to China.
Let us think of those who are being manipulated by a fear of the Greens to prevent them seeing that the logs simply aren’t there because the forests have been over-harvested for chips and an absence of proper management in relation to fire as having a plank in their left eye.
Let’s then think of our Green friends who can’t see the economic suffering of alienating areas for possums and parks as well as the environmental devastation of their fire exclusion policies as having a plank in their right eye.
We live in a democracy where the majority live in cities and seem to have a plank in their right eye.
Our friends in the Nationals can further their own political ends by creating a divide between the city and country, but the minority in the country will suffer if they allow it.
The problem seems to be that whichever party has been in government in the past has created a situation where Maryvale has a guaranteed supply of logs which are meant to be low grade, and young mountain ash wouldn’t be expected to produce the quantities of low grade logs.
Now it is apparent that Green pressure, overlogging and fire will prevent the ASH mill from utilising what should be sawlogs, because too many people have planks in their eyes.
