By Lachlan Abbott
The VicForests general manager called the private investigator into his office and put a yellow folder on the table. In it there were three photos.
“Do you know [her]?” The general manager wanted to know. The investigator did not know the woman.
VicForests unlawfully surveilled environmental activists protesting state logging roughly a decade ago.Credit: Jessica Shapiro
“Well, you’re about to get to know her.”
So began VicForests’ covert surveillance of two environmentalists and a university professor to gain information to discredit them. The spying took place in 2010 and 2011, but a new report from Victoria’s privacy watchdog has found it was unlawful and a flagrant breach of privacy.
That investigator told the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner that the general manager said: “I want to know what she’s doing, where she’s going and who she’s doing it with.”
He said words to the effect of: “I want as much dirt on her as possible.”
The investigator followed the woman around Toorak and Healesville, and even called her pretending to be a university student doing a thesis on the impact of logging.
“I did a block of surveillance on the environmentalist and that was up to four to five days. As I said, she was a very relaxed person to do surveillance on. I followed her to a university ... she went and did the normal things, she went to chemists, she went to a bookshop, she went into Toorak Road,” he said.
The investigator also surveilled another environmentalist and Australian National University professor David Lindenmayer, at the request of the Victorian government agency.
OVIC commissioner Sven Bluemmel said the Privacy Act breaches were “serious and flagrant”.
“Whilst the surveillance took place almost a decade ago, the seriousness of the allegations led my office to conduct the investigation upon becoming aware of them,” he said.
“No one in the community should be subjected to this incursion on their personal privacy.”
The commissioner found a former VicForests general manager met a private investigator at a cafe and directed him to conduct the surveillance. This was largely based on evidence from the investigator and his former investigative partner; the former manager did not respond to the OVIC probe.
The commissioner found a lack of governance enabled VicForests’ unnecessary collection of an environmentalist’s personal information. However, VicForests did not accept the investigation’s findings, the report notes.
Instead of issuing a compliance notice, OVIC gave five recommendations to implement a new governance policy, which VicForests accepted as part of its new security and surveillance policy.
The state-owned company said in a statement it was “disappointed” the watchdog had “drawn conclusions on claims that changed and grew over time and were unsupported by any documentary evidence”.
“VicForests does not conduct covert surveillance,” the statement said.
“The overwhelming evidence uncovered through the two investigations shows that no board member or executive of VicForests at that time had any knowledge of the individual being engaged to conduct the work as claimed.”
Premier Daniel Andrews told reporters on Thursday he was yet to see the report and did not want to comment until he had been briefed. But when asked if it was appropriate for a government agency to “collect dirt” on activists, he said: “I doubt it was appropriate.”
The commissioner found the investigator travelled interstate to spy on Lindenmayer for VicForests in addition to videoing an environmentalist, but couldn’t determine whether the investigator collected his personal information.
Lindenmayer said he found out about the surveillance when the investigator contacted him some time ago.
“I was sceptical to start with. But by the end of the discussion it was patently clear he had surveilled me,” he said.
Credit: Matt Golding
“This is utterly appalling what’s happened, unbelievable.”
Lindenmayer urged the Victorian government to shut down VicForests immediately. “It’s clear that this organisation should no longer exist,” he said.
The investigator also went to a second environmentalist’s home in Healesville, but he told the commissioner he didn’t see them. The OVIC investigation was unable to find sufficient evidence to determine whether a third environmentalist was also tracked.
VicForests admitted to hiring the private investigator in court documents lodged after the investigator launched a lawsuit against the company in 2013, having injured himself while surveilling protesters at a Toolangi State Forest coupe in August 2011.
The documents did not relate to the alleged surveillance of the three activists at the centre of this probe.
The OVIC investigation was sparked by an ABC report in 2021, which was followed by a referral from the Victorian Greens.
The Greens called on the state government to abolish VicForests in light of Thursday’s report and past adverse findings against its logging practices.
“VicForests has been breaking the law for years – yet the Victorian Labor government has done almost nothing to rein them in or sanction them,” said Ellen Sandell, deputy leader of the Victorian Greens.
“This new report of even more illegal activity proves that VicForests cannot be trusted to follow the law and must be shut down.”
The Andrews government brought forward the end of native logging in Victoria to January next year in its most recent state budget. A Supreme Court injunction temporarily stopped the work in November.
Environmentalists concerned about wildlife extinction celebrated the decision after fighting for decades to end the practice. But some regional Victorians lamented the loss of an industry that powered timber towns for years.
VicForests blamed ongoing litigation brought by environmentalists for its record financial loss of $52.4 million last year.
Our Breaking News Alert will notify you of significant breaking news when it happens. Get it here.