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Up to 200 jobs under threat aft fter t closure decision. Photo: File
Opal’s proud history, expert analysis, council responds PAGES 18-19
PAPER CALAMITY FEDERAL and state Nationals politicians and the manufacturing union have blamed the Premier, Daniel Andrews, for Opal Australia’s decision to stop producing white pulp and copy paper at the Maryvale mill. The decision, which throws up to 200 workers out of work and ends 85 years of white paper production at the mill, also threatens suppliers and contractors. Opal, with about 850 employees, is the Latrobe Valley’s single biggest employer. Up to one quarter of mill jobs are likely to be affected, as Opal now plans to concentrate on manufacturing cardboard fibre packaging. The federal Member for Gippsland, Darren Chester, said Mr Andrews must accept 100 per cent of the blame for up to 200 job losses at Maryvale. Mr Chester told Federal Parliament that the main culprit was the state government and its plan
Darren Chester Member for Gippsland pp
to abolish the native timber industry in Victoria. “Victorian Premier Dan Andrews’ plan to shut down the native timber industry is a plan to kill country towns, to kill wildlife and to kill Australian jobs. People and wildlife die in poorly managed forests,” Mr Chester told Parliament. “The combined impact of judicial activism, environmental protests, green lawfare and the abject failure of the Victorian Labor government to support our world-class and environmentally sustainable timber industry is devastating regional communities across Gippsland. “Every worker who loses their job, every family facing financial stress - and the difficult decision to leave the community they love - has just one man to blame, and that man is Premier Dan Andrews and a Labor Party in Victoria that doesn’t care about blue-collar workers anymore.” CFMEU Manufacturing said the end of white paper production was disastrous, not inevitable,
and was the tragic result of the state government’s mismanagement of the native forest sector and a bumbling approach by Opal. National secretary, Michael O’Connor, said the union had warned both the government and company about mass job losses for more than three years. The union campaigned for years for the government to make changes to prevent wood supply being blocked by third-party litigation, but was ignored. “The union will fight to ensure the maximum support for our members, their families and community,” he said. Gippsland state Nationals MPs said the state government’s failure to supply timber to the mill was the direct result of Labor policy and inaction to close legal loopholes. The Nationals Member for Morwell, Martin Cameron, said the reason he ran for Parliament was to support workers.
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“I am just so devastated that we have lost these jobs here in the Valley,” he said. “While it’s disappointing that Opal Australian Paper has made this decision, it has clearly come about because of Labor’s policy failures on the forestry industry.” The Nationals Member for Eastern Victoria Region, Melina Bath, said the writing had been on the wall for some time and the state government had failed to act. “We have warned Labor time and again that it needed to close legal loopholes that have allowed ongoing green law-fare against the timber industry and ultimately locked out timber workers from the forest,” she said. “This has had a devastating effect on our local harvest and haulage sector, as well as local timber mills and now the Latrobe Valley’s largest private employer.” Continued Pages 18-19
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