The Victorian Greens support Animals Australia's current "Don’t buy into cruelty" media campaign which highlights the appalling conditions on intensive pig farms in Australia and congratulate 60 Minutes for airing the issue in its broadcast, "The Hidden Truth" last Sunday night.

"Greens around Australia are working with animal rights lawyers and animal protection groups to put a stop to practices that inflict extreme and unnecessary suffering on farm animals," Greens MP Sue Pennicuik said today.

Greens member for Southern Metropolitan Region and spokesperson for Roads and Ports, Sue Pennicuik said today that "the Premier’s announcement this week to proceed with construction of the Frankston Bypass1 before the panel inquiring into the project had even finalised its Inquiry once again demonstrated the government’s contempt for Victoria’s planning and environmental assessment processes."

Brown Mountain old growth trees much older than was thought

The University of Waikato, New Zealand radiocarbon dating laboratory has confirmed that a Shining Gum (E. denticulata) cut down by VicForests in the Brown Mountain old growth forest was 550-600 years old.

Greens MP Sue Pennicuik said in parliament today that “VicForests and the Brumby Government cannot ‘replace’ these trees once they are cut down. It would take until 2600AD to regrow a tree to the same size.”

“This ancient tree measured 11 metres around the stump close to the ground. It was young when Joan of Ark lived and before Christopher Columbus discovered America,” she said.

Greens MP, Sue Pennicuik visited the Brown Mountain area over the Australia Day  weekend and described the destruction of the old growth forest to the east of Brown Mountain Creek as 'heartbreaking'.

"I spent Sunday morning walking through one fantastic stand of old growth to the west of Brown Mountain Creek, where trees with 11 and 12 metre circumferences towered above us. They could be up to 400 years old," said Ms Pennicuik. Anyone who went there could only be awed and inspired and would want to see it protected.

"I was devastated to then visit an adjacent area that has been clear felled by Vic Forests over November and December. To see what just a few weeks ago was magnificent rainforest smashed to pieces is just terrible. It is senseless. Giant trees that have lived for hundreds of years and were home to threatened species have been just knocked to the ground in what now resembles a moonscape.

Greens MP, Sue Pennicuik said today that logging at Brown Mountain in East Gippsland is state sanctioned vandalism and a blatant overturning of the ALP's 2006 commitment to protect old growth forests in East Gippsland.

The Report of the Select Committee on Public Land Development, which was tabled in state parliament today calls for broad reform of how public land and open space in metropolitan areas and regional centres is protected, and for more open processes around the proposed development, transfer or sale of public land.

Greens MPs from Victoria, NSW and the ACT will converge on South East NSW to step up the Greens campaign to end the logging of native forests.