21st January New Victorian minister to court farmers in bridge-building trip VICTORIA’S new Agriculture Minister, Jaala Pulford, will set off on a regional tour this week in a bid to mend bridges with the state’s $11 billion agriculture industry, amid concerns about the power the Greens will wield over the Andrews government. The Labor government is yet to reveal its position on several key rural issues and swiftly put some farmers offside when it announced less than two weeks after the November election that it would scrap the $100 wild dog bounty. Ms Pulford is expected to tour drought-affected parts of northern and central Victoria later this week to meet with farmers and hear their concerns. Victorian Farmers Federation president Peter Tuohy said he was optimistic the government would heed the peak body’s warnings to consult farmers before finalising its policies, after an initial meeting with Ms Pulford this month. The government has not declared its plans for the $460 million proceeds from the sale of the Rural Finance Corporation, and is under pressure to reinvest the money into rural Victoria. Mr Tuohy said the government’s likely reliance on the Greens in the upper house — where Labor will need the five Greens’ votes as well as those of two other crossbenchers or Coalition support — was cause for concern: “We don’t want decisions being made out of Toorak around environmental issues. “They’ve already made one, which was removing the wild dog bounty. We don’t want those sorts of things to continue to happen without an understanding of the implications.” Mr Tuohy said the government’s decision to separate water from the agriculture portfolio and place agriculture in a “mega department’’ with public transport, the arts, energy, ports and tourism was also worrying. Victoria is Australia’s largest exporter of food and fibres, with meat and dairy responsible for about 40 per cent of the $11bn export produce. Mr Tuohy hoped to convince the government of the need for a $220m rail upgrade to standardise tracks in Victoria, pledged by the previous government as a long-awaited means to ease freight travel, particularly for grain crops, and return passenger travel to Mildura. Ms Pulford was unavailable for comment.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 06:09:32 +0000
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