Hansard debates

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (17:44): My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change. In a response to an adjournment matter in March last year the former Minister for Agriculture wrote to me and stated that state roads ‘are generally not considered appropriate for roadside grazing due to safety issues’. She also said that the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning acts in an advisory capacity to local government with regard to roadside grazing. Clearly this advisory capacity is far more peremptory than the former minister made out, with Moyne shire mayor Daniel Meade telling the Hamilton Spectator that the regulations by DELWP ‘are completely unrealistic’. Cr Meade said that this forced Moyne shire to go above them and straight to the federal Minister for the Environment to seek a commonsense solution to government obstruction of roadside grazing.

Droving on roadsides provides innumerable benefits to rural communities, all of which I have raised in this house on numerous occasions. Providing relief to drought-stricken livestock is among the most important, as well as reducing the fuel loads on roadsides that pose fire risks. Unfortunately the state and federal governments impede the ability of communities to reap these benefits. DELWP requires written approvals, grazing management plans, site diagrams and a range of other red tape that makes life impossible for drovers, stock owners and local government instrumentalities. For the former minister to suggest that state roads are inappropriate for roadside grazing is to essentially oppose it entirely. When John Wilson visited the Moyne shire to drove drought-stricken cattle from New South Wales on roadsides, Victorian government departments insisted that doing so on state roads was illegal. John could simply not continue to drove the cattle on council roads because he had to continually travel on state roads to reach the next area.

Prohibiting roadside grazing on state roads makes it entirely unfeasible. It is shameful, this position of the Labor government, because it endangers rural communities by allowing unmanaged fuel loads on roadsides to continue to grow. The action I therefore seek from the minister is that he immediately direct DELWP to repeal their regulations that prevent roadside grazing in Victoria. The CFA are warning that this year’s fire season is not over and that a predicted dry March means that the risk of bushfire is real and significant. CFA district 5 assistant chief fire officer Richard Bourke said:

We protect the community through the reduction of fuel hazards along roadsides.

So we do need DELWP to repeal these regulations immediately.