Regulatory action timelines

Last updated: 13 Sept 2020

Introduction

The purpose of this page is to track the interacting streams of regulatory action through which native forest logging is governed, focusing in particular on RFPG engagement .

This page is a work in progress.

If you know of key events / documents which we should have cited please advise info[at]rubiconforest.org.

Weakening the allocation order

5 May 2010: Following the devastating 2009 fires, a Revised Allocation Order was issued deleting the partitioning of available area by FMA and collapsing multiple forest types into only three (ash, mixed species, durable species), greatly increasing the flexibility of VF in choosing where to log. This was followed in September with a further reduction only two forest types (ash and mixed species). These two changes set in train an acceleration of harvesting in the Central FMA and East Gippsland.

1 October 2013: New Allocation Order issued lifting allowable 5-year harvest limit for ash forests from 2020 onwards from 12,400 ha to 14,200 ha.

24 April 2019: Revised Allocation Order issued slightly reducing allowable ash forest 5-yeasr harvesting limit from 14,200 ha to 13,700 ha, still well above the limit set in 2010 after the megafires of the previous decade

Games with the Code; Do we dare gut the Code?

28 Oct 2014: Code remade, including deletion of citation of TRP as an example of planning tools applicable to LT planning provisions Code Cls 2.1.1.1. Superseded version of Code (2007) here.

18 May 2018: VF officially denies it is obliged to comply with Code Cls 2.1.1.1. VF’s detailed arguments in support of its position were later presented to the Federal Court in the Possums Case

7 Oct 2018: RFPG Submission to Independent Review of Code

31 May 2019: Lily announces Stage 1 Review of the Code to commence soon

29 Aug 2019: Draft Code Review proposals released which involved deletion of Clause 2.1.1.1. See also MSP amendments and RIS.

8 Sep 2019: Conservation groups protest about Stage 1 Code Review

9 Sep 2019: RFPG protest about Stage 1 Code Review

24 Sept 2019: see RFPG comment Minister abandons Stage 1 Code review

29 July 2020: see comment by Nick Legge on Speed of Code Changes

27 Jul 2020: Review of Code recommences inside Govt, led by DPC

31 July RFPG: RFPG writes to Lily with concerns about proposed review. Copy with covering letter also sent to Premier

14 Aug 2020: Lily answers a Parlt QoN from Ellen Sandell on Code Review

23 Aug 2020: RFPG again writes to Lily on Code breaches reiterating concerns about proposed review

7 Sep 2020: DPC to Ken responding to RFPG letter of 31 July to Premier

Forestry plan: by 2030 we will cease logging in NFs

7 Nov 2019: Forestry Plan foreshadows wind down from 2024 and cessation 2030 and declares moratorium on OGF (but what is OGF?)

The Forest Plan declares Immediate Protection Areas (IPAs) being areas that are already largely protected as SPZs or outside the Allocation Order (RVHA). In the RSF only a single unlogged TRP coupe (Dry Spell 288-508-0001) is affected, although another part encompasses the area of four coupes between the Mt Bullfight Reserve and Panorama Lookout on Lake Mountain that had earlier been removed from the TRP.

20 Jan 2020: See RFPG comment on OGFs: RFPG urges important corrections to draft guide for identification of old growth forests. These comments are ignored.

Timber Release Plans

December 2019 TRP Revision

22 November 2019: Draft TRP revision announced in an advert in Triangle News on 29 November no direct advice to RFPG. Response Deadline 12 December. NL attends TRP Open Day in Traralgon 11 December and Andrea Wandek verbally agrees to an extension for RFPG submission until Monday 16 December. Proximity to date of Board meeting (scheduled for 19 Dec but unknown to RFPG at the time) suggests that our Submission was never likely to get serious consideration.

15 Dec 2019: RFPG Submission

19 Dec 2019: Draft revision of TRP approved by the Board (see minute of Board meeting obtained through FOI) based on late Agenda paper (also released under FOI).

23 Dec 2019: Finalised TRP announced in Gazette (Legal approval) and simultaneously published

Two RFPG FOI requests launched (24 Dec 2019): to VicForests and to DJPR

Jan - April: negotiations with VF directed to a more focused set of requests

6 May 2020: first round response from VF; almost entirely redacted or withheld

22 May 2020: Appeal for review of VF decision to OVIC

26 June 2020: Notified of a decision by OVIC overturning most of VF’s refusals and redactions

9 July: VF provides Board Agenda (TRP segment only) and the Agenda paper on the TRP revealing a very superficial response to submissions and no indication of what if any response to submissions has been made

27 July 2020: VF provides Minutes of Board meeting of 19 December, initially not identified among documents discovered on the basis that the minutes were not created until after 23 December. These Minutes reveal that Board rejected a requestfrom DELWP received the day before the meeting asking for coupes within IPA areas to be removed from TRP.

24 March 2020: DJPR provided its response, largely redacted or withheld. However, the response includes the letter from DELWP to VicForests, partly redacted, referred to in the minutes of the Board’s TRP decision. We safely assume that the redacted part of that letter cites DELWP’s concerns that coupes covered by the IPAs were still in the TRP, and we know from the Board’s minuted decision and the subsequent approval that it ignored DELWP’s request and left the subject coupes in place.

30 March 2020: Application to OVIC for a review of DJPR’s decision to redact or withhold.

10 July 2020: Further release of certain documents approved by OVIC. Based on the reasoning provided for OVIC’s decision, we think it possible that the agreement by OVIC with DJPR’s partial redaction of the correspondence in documents 3,4 and 5 is either because the exact boundaries of the IPAs were not at that time settled (although according to the DataVic website they were settled on 7 December[1]), or because there was disagreement between DELWP and DJPR on the question of whether the policy (the Forestry Plan) was settled. Regardless of all that, everything is now settled and the coupes with overlapping IPAs should be removed.

RFPG denounces TRP as unlawful

12 June 2020: Declare the TRP illegal!

July 2020 TRP revision

Late June: Consultation round on revised TRP commenced

27 July 2020: revised TRP approved

The July revision added salvage logging coupes (responding to the EG bushfires) and rolled forward the specified period of harvesting from 2019-2024 to 2020-2025. It also deleted net area figures from Dec TRP (still in Info Pack but not mandatory).

Deletion of net areas and extended period for harvesting about ensuring enough coupes for industry and maximising flexibility until logging starts to wind down. Reassuring industry that the timber will be there.

Adding coupes before bushfire biodiversity assessment is complete; again directed to reassuring industry (see Bushfire Biodiversity Response and Recovery V2.1 August 2020)

August TRP revision

7 August 2020: draft TRP revision launched (consultation until 14 September)

7 September 2020: RFPG submission submitted

11 September 2020: RFPG submission to VAGO audit of Biodiversity 2037 arguing that the unlawfulness of the TRP should be recognised

13 September 2020: addendum to RFPG submission

Possums

27 May 2020 Justice Mortimer Judgement; (orders announced 21 August 2020)

Long term planning provisions not pleaded, but precautionary principle found to have been breached. While VicForests’ submission in the Possums Case argued that the Code did not apply to the TRP, Her Honour refused to comment on this matter since EJA/FoLbP did not plead otherwise. The arguments are to be found on paras. 318-418 of the Judgement.