After several false starts, in June 2022 DELWP launched the Comprehensive Code Review, mandated through the 'modernised' regional forest agreements signed in 2020.

The Rubicon Forest Protection Group has given notice of our intention to submit to the Code Review. However, the more we focused on the Code the more obvious it became that the whole regulatory system is deeply flawed and that an isolated focus on the contents of the Code might not help forest conservation very much. The Code is flawed but it is part of a deeply flawed regulatory system. 

Our preliminary submission (20 June 2022) canvassed a range of issues but focused on our critique of the process foreshadowed for the Review by DELWP. We called for a more structured, accountable and consultative process. 

We have subsequently submitted a substantive critique (revised version of 10 July) of the regulatory framework governing timber harvesting in state forests in Victoria including specific suggestions for strengthening the Code which are nevertheless embedded within a staunch critique of the whole regulatory system.

The headline arguments in this critique are:

• There is a serious neglect of the fundamental purpose of regulation, namely the protection of the forest ecosystems, with a lack of focus on ecosystem processes and relationships in both the monitoring and the regulation of timber harvesting;
• While Victoria is failing to implement its commitments under the regional forest agreements (RFAs), the Commonwealth is failing to withhold accreditation of Victoria’s forests management regime, thereby allowing failure to continue;
• There has been a failure to attend to landscape level assessment and protection; associated with the insistence that the Timber Release Plan (TRP) is not a planning tool and that the Zoning Scheme is an adequate and sufficient tool for longer term and area wide planning;
• The FMZ schema used as the only regulatory tool directed to long term area wide planning, is not fit for purpose and with a few notable exceptions (eg exclusion zones for Leadbeaters Possum and the Spot-Tailed Quoll) has lain largely untouched by review or revision for over two decades;
• The failure to apply the precautionary principle (as specified in the NFPS, the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act (FFG Act) and the Code) is manifest in the neglect of climate change, in the failure to address the extremely young age profile of the ash forests in the Central Highlands and in the lack of rules, indicators or compliance standards regarding ecosystem processes and relationships. The State of the Forests 2018 comments: “There is considerable scientific evidence predicting damage to the vitality and health of Australia’s forests due to climate change”.
• The strong new provisions in Section 4B of the FFG Act are ignored by OCR and by VicForests, while VF’s owner, the Treasurer, turns his back.
• The fact that the regulator is only an administrative unit within DELWP, and so subject to Ministerial control, and that the Government has made it abundantly clear that the Victorian Forestry Plan takes precedence over environmental safeguards (see Media Releases of 27 July 2020 and 30 June 2021) has meant that the OCR has been prevented from acting against VF on all but the most black and white slam dunk issues.  Indeed, Minister D’Ambrosio is on the record defending this unacceptable arrangement, being quoted in the latter media release stating: “When we have clear, black and white definitions, we can better ensure that threatened species and habitats are protected.”
• Victoria, via DELWP, permits VicForests to breach multiple clauses of the Code of Practice for Timber Production 2014, as confirmed by Justice Debra Mortimer in her judgement in The Possums’ Case.
• While the State of the Forests report (2018) cites a range of indicators which are only ‘fair’ and in some cases getting worse, the determinants of this decline are not encompassed by the Code in a form which allows for ‘black letter law’ policing by the OCR. 
• The 2020 revised regional forest agreements (see Central Highland RFA) commit the Victorian Government to reviewing relevant provisions of the FFG Act, Sustainable Forests (Timber) Act 2004 (SFT Act) and the Forests Act 1958 (Vic) as well as the Code of Practice for Timber Production but there has been no mention of such legislative reviews in the published information regarding the Comprehensive Code Review.

First posted 17 May 2022
Revised submission linked 10 July 2022