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Topic:Forestry, Logging and Timber Industry

Swifts Creek residents are remaining positive about the town's future. (ABC News: Madeleine Stuchbery)

Swifts Creek, an alpine town in Victoria's East Gippsland region, is set to lose its major employer when a sawmill shuts down.

The town is just one of many remote communities undergoing an identity crisis while transitioning away from traditional industry.

Community members are workshopping ideas for how to keep the township afloat economically in a post-logging landscape.

Link copiedShareShare articleThe remote High Country town of Swifts Creek is home to about 200 people, a general store, a thriving community hub, a bakery, and not much more.

For more than 80 years, generations have worked at the sawmill, cutting native timber for lumber and processing the wood for construction.

The town's only school is metres away.

But the mill is set to fall silent as the Pentarch Forestry group shuts down sawmill operations, with many workers made redundant.

The Swifts Creek sawmill has been a major employer for more than 80 years. (ABC News: Madeleine Stuchbery)

It is the latest in a succession of blows for the region.

Swifts Creek's lone pub has been up for lease since September 2025.

In neighbouring Ensay, the pub is up for sale, and the region's iconic mountain calf cattle sale will shift to the regional centre of Bairnsdale, in Victoria's east, for the first time in more than 80 years.

It is an event that draws cattle buyers and farmers from across the east coast.

The main street of Swifts Creek, in Victoria's High Country region. (ABC News: Madeleine Stuchbery)

The region's main industries are forestry and agriculture, feeding into the cliche that the High Country is the sole territory of cattlemen and loggers.

But while cumulative business closures have left many speculating about the future of the town, others are taking a more creative and optimistic approach to small town life in the future.

Swifts Creek is one of 11 towns identified by the Victorian government in its Forestry Transition Program as being vulnerable to the shutdown of the state's native timber industry, which closed in June 2024.

Pentarch has confirmed seven employees have been made redundant at the mill, while seven will stay on to pack down operations at the mill as part of the shutdown.

Pentarch Group commercial manager Paul Heubner said the company remained focused on keeping workers employed within the company, and has offered Swifts Creek staff jobs at another mill in Yarram, about a three-hour drive south.

"These things are difficult; if we lose the workforce in the region, it gets harder and harder," he said.

"The longer this takes, the more people that move out of the region and the harder for us to stand up the operation."

The state government's Forestry Transition Fund aims to support new jobs and development in towns affected by the end of logging, on top of a $20,000 payment available for ex-native timber workers.

In October 2025, the fund paid $50,000 to Stock Dog Kennels and Four Peaks Pastoral Services at Swifts Creek.

Many in Swifts Creek feel the community will be able to pull itself up by its bootstraps if the government follows through on promises to support transitioning industries.

Eddie Mauger, a farmer and president of the Swifts Creek Bush Nursing Centre, has called on the state government to mobilise funding.

Tori Betts, Eddie Mauger and their daughter, Daisy, live at Swifts Creek.  (ABC Rural: Fiona Broom)

He said a community plan to build accessible housing in the town for aging residents had been stalled, as the group waited for the state government to pay them.

"The whole town's been let down," he said.

"I feel like the money that was meant to be going into forestry transition has actually transitioned into paying the loggers.

"We've been waiting for four months for $120,000 that we were approved for in October.

"We've been approved and it still hasn't been signed off."

Minister for Development Victoria and Precincts Harriet Shing said a "large and ongoing investment" was needed to empower towns such as Swifts Creek to plan for a future beyond native timber logging economies.

"Community-driven change around the areas that locals want to develop is at the heart of a successful transition," she said.

Ms Shing said more than $2 billion had been made available to support those affected, including providing resources for upskilling.

From mining to venison processing, a metal sculpture art trail and even hosting city kids for a rural education, hope for the future economies of Swifts Creek runs through the town.

David Knaggs, owner of the Junction Hotel at Swifts Creek since 2015, shut the doors to the pub in late 2025.

A "for lease" sign is propped in the window of the pub.

He said the community was a commodity worth investing in.

David Knaggs says he is optimistic about the town's outlook. (ABC News: Madeleine Stuchbery)

"It's a fantastic place for kids to grow up. It's just so healthy," Mr Knaggs said.

"The government had speculated about the demise of the timber industry and the forestry closing down, it was inevitable … but you can't go backwards, and you can't stay at the same place. One door closes, and another opens.

Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal chief executive Natalie Egleton said place-based design was a successful model for rural communities to look to when transitioning from single-trade economies.

She said models where a focus on community and place had paid off included the foundation's work in the Maryborough community, and NSW Bega Valley's circular economy.

"Where we see it work well is where communities actually sit down and look at the assets they've got, and that they may not be leveraging," Ms Egleton said.

"The most important thing in any of these conversations about the future is the mindset and the spirit of the community, the sense of who they are, and who they could be.

"Places that can build a sense of confidence and hope can almost do anything, because you open up a mindset about creativity and abundance."

Analysis by Ian Verrender

Topic:Forestry, Logging and Timber Industry

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