Leave Farms To Farmers
Victorian Government regulations allowing public camping on riverfront Crown leases remain a mess.
The policy is so bad, that even the reduction from 17,000kms of riverfront licensed farmland to just 27 trial sites is still grossly impacting farmers and landowners.
The botched camping regulations started on 1st September 2021.
But Member for Western Victoria, Bev McArthur, said the 27 farm sites are still being assessed with farmers bizarrely excluded from the process, a scenario she has requested be overturned in the Victorian Parliament this week.
“Farmers are simply being told an assessment is taking place but are not being involved in the process. That makes no sense,” she told the Victorian Parliament this week.
“No-one knows the land better than they do. No-one knows their business better.
“How can DELWP possibly understand the risks or do any proper impact assessment without involving farmers?”
“It is they who have to deal with the consequences of mess, damage, fire, open gates, broken fences, stock escapes, biosecurity breaches and God forbid, serious injury or death.
“This short-sighted and high-handed approach must end,” she said.
Mrs McArthur said the Government is blind to the insurance repercussions now plaguing farmers.
“Why can insurers see the problems, but the Labor Government cannot?”
Enforcement of the regulations remains a concern.
The Government is silent on whose responsibility it is for cleaning up a trashed site, the monitoring of the 14-day camping limit, the carrying of firearms, the ban on firewood collection and the proper disposal of human waste and toilet paper.
The Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, Lily D’Ambrosio, is also at odds with her department about the registration process to identify who is camping on a farm.
“This is so poor a policy that tinkering around the edges will never set things right,” Mrs McArthur said.
“These are businesses, not beauty spots.
“If free camping is such a priority, open up your parks and forests for camping.
“Leave farmers to farm,” she told the Parliament.
8 September 2021
