PARK WATCH Article September 2026 |

A recent ABC TV expose is just part of the story of Victoria’s logging ‘ban’ says Jordan Crook, Parks & Nature Campaigner

When ABC’s Four Corners aired ‘Timber Turmoil’, its investigation into Australia’s native forest logging industry in June, it followed the money. Coinciding with the release of the Environmental Justice Australia (EJA) report Following the Money: The unfinished transition away from native forest logging, the report confirmed what we’ve been documenting on the ground for years. But it only scratched the surface of a much bigger problem.

The show traced how, more than two years after Victoria’s official end to native forest logging on public land, trees are still being cut down and turned into timber and paper. The program filmed logging trucks carrying native trees out of Tasmanian forests, across Bass Strait, and into Victorian mills at Heyfield and Powelltown. Some of these mills had received millions of dollars in state government funding explicitly intended to help them transition away from native forest logging. What the show didn’t cover is the trees still being cut down in Victoria.

Following the money

We’ve spent decades campaigning to end native forest logging in Victoria, and welcomed the state’s January 2024 commitment to end it on public land. It was a decision the government described as one of the largest forest protection measures in Victoria’s history. But these investigations show that despite roughly $1.5 billion in public money earmarked for the transition, native forest landscapes are still being smashed.

The Heyfield mill at the centre of the report is 49 per cent owned by the Victorian Government, fuelling criticism that taxpayer funds meant to end logging are instead being used to keep it going. Former Premier Jacinta Allan rejected suggestions that Victoria has effectively exported its logging problem to Tasmania, telling media the government’s priority is backing timber workers and regional communities through the transition.

Our concern goes well beyond interstate log imports, however. Thorough though it was, ‘Timber Turmoil’ didn’t have time to cover a series of loopholes that are allowing logging to continue inside Victoria, including within national parks.

Logging by stealth

Not one hectare of the roughly 1.8 million hectares of forest where logging was supposed to have ended has received permanent legal protection. That’s despite government promises of what would amount to the largest expansion of the state’s public forest reserve system in its history. The new State Forest By-Products Framework, introduced quietly by the Allan Government in April, allows trees to be cut down on public land and sold to sawmills and firewood companies with no independent oversight, no enforceable standards and no public consultation.

Several older laws never repealed after the 2024 announcement are keeping the door open for logging to continue. These include provisions in the Forests Act 1958 that still allow permits for removing native trees from public land, state planning provisions that continue to allow logging on private land, and the Forests (Wood Pulp Agreement) Act 1996, which underpinned decades-old supply contracts giving industry long-term access to forests in the Central Highlands.

Most strikingly, these gaps are already causing damage inside protected areas. We’ve witnessed logging trucks loaded with eucalypts leaving Yarra Ranges National Park, the Silvan water catchment, and the new Wombat-Lerderderg National Park. Greater Gliders and ancient hollow-bearing trees are among the casualties.

Troubled transition

A recent Victorian Auditor-General review, requested by Victorian Greens leader Ellen Sandell, identified significant oversight and monitoring problems with the government’s $320 million Forestry Transition Program. Victorians were told native forest logging had ended, while millions of dollars in transition funding have effectively supported logging in Tasmania.

The Victorian Greens plan to introduce legislation aimed at closing the loopholes, including a bill that would make it illegal for Victorian mills to process native timber sourced from anywhere in Australia. They would repeal laws that leave the door open for a future government to reinstate commercial logging on public land.

Sawn hardwood timber consumption in Australia has fallen by close to 80 per cent since the early 2000s, while imports of dressed and rough hardwood have dropped by nearly 70 per cent over roughly the same period. But Australia has, in fact, been a net exporter of sawn hardwood timber in most recent years. Industry representatives interviewed for Four Corners argued that ending native forest logging in Victoria and Western Australia has simply pushed demand elsewhere, and that Australia risks becoming more reliant on imported hardwood if local supply dries up. But this analysis of government forestry data shows that isn’t the case.

The takeaway from the ABC and EJA investigations is that Victoria’s logging ban remains dangerously incomplete. We encourage Victorians to press their local elected representatives to close loophole logging across the state. Without permanent legal protection for our forests, and the repeal of outdated laws still on the books, the promised end of native forest logging risks becoming a rebrand rather than a real end.

‘Timber Turmoil’ is available on ABC iview.

Read EJA’s Following the Money report at envirojustice.org.au/publication/following-the-money