source : the age
This week The Age reported on worrying shortcomings in the state government’s duty to disclose to the public how $1.5 billion was invested by it into the forestry sector following the banning of native forest logging in January 2024.
Environmental Justice Australia, with support from forensic accounting by Clarium Forensics, examined the money trail for the $1.5 billion that was to be used for transitioning, subsidies, compensation and industry support following the formal end of native logging. The investigation found, from public records, that of the government’s $1.5 billion investment, $615.3 million was unaccounted for.
It also found that ForestWorks, an industry not-for-profit that supported 95 per cent of forestry Worker Support Program recipients, received $71 million to help with training and new skills for forestry workers and their families.
This dovetails with findings handed down in April by Victorian Auditor-General Andrew Greaves which said ForestWorks had failed to keep accurate records and had not shown some of its programs had worked, and that funding may have gone to ineligible workers. ForestWorks had issued hardship payments to 32 people who also received other government payments, which was in conflict with its own eligibility criteria.
According to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, ForestWorks had a reported revenue of $23.67 million in February – 99.47 per cent of it from government funding. It also has strong ties to the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union, to which it paid $619,990 in 2025 for services, director fees and rent. Two of the six board members list their CFMEU qualifications in their biographies.
The allocation of public money should not be a secret business. When government money is spent, the public has the right to know where it has gone. A record of expenditure is essential. Yet, in this state, the obstacles to seeing a true picture of public spending are as consistent as they are troubling.
At best, misuse of public money and lack of transparency about how it is spent represent gross incompetence. In some of the most egregious examples we have seen in the building sector, it is best described as corruption, plain and simple.
These latest disclosures involving state government money and the forestry sector raise, again, issues over how millions of dollars of taxpayer funds are being spent. Specifically, how to measure that the $71 million to deliver skills and training to forestry workers is actually working – and from that how to measure how a large proportion of the $1.5 billion was being used.
Late on Monday evening, a state government spokeswoman did outline a list of initiatives funded under the forestry transition package that amounted to $1.51 billion, but without details of, or links to, the programs. The initiatives included $200 million for timber harvesting transition support for sawmill businesses and workers, and $193 million for targeted timber industry and worker transition support services.
The use of taxpayer money to mitigate any hardships from the end of native logging is commendable; the lack of transparency is not. The Premier Jacinta Allan said on Tuesday that “the reporting … is being done in the usual way through agencies’ annual reports, and also the budget. These matters have been accounted for in the usual way through agency and department annual reports, and the budget. To say otherwise would be wrong.”
And yet, Premier, why is transparency in this state reduced to so little a meaning?
Victorians deserve proper transparency and probity over how their taxpayer dollars are spent. The murkiness enveloping full disclosure of where and how the $1.5 billion has been used, paradoxically, illustrates the lack of responsibility the government is showing to voters. It’s a simple equation: public money equals public records, available to public scrutiny.
Continued examples of the government thumbing its nose at transparency should concern all Victorians. It creates an environment where corruption can fester and public money can be wasted, ultimately leading to budgetary issues and higher taxes.
This is why The Age continues to return to these issues.
If the Allan government can’t see that this a problem, then it can’t see the wood for the trees.
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