By Aaron Cordy
VICTORIAN Premier Jacinta Allan met with stakeholders at the Greater Shepparton City Council offices for the state’s second Drought Taskforce meeting, which she chaired, on Friday, June 13, to see what action needs to be taken for farmers, primary producers and rural and regional communities.
“Today’s meeting had a dedicated focus on two key priority areas identified by the task force last week,” said Ms Allan.
“The first of those was in the financing and banking sector, and we had an excellent discussion where we invited in representatives, farmers from across different parts of the state, and they shared with us their own personal on-farm experience.”
“Also there were other representatives from the communities as well who talked about how else we can get around and support farmers, and then also to having banks represented on the committee on the task force, they were also able to hear first hand, the experiences that are being lived right now in our rural and regional communities, and talked about how they are also providing support.”
The first Drought Taskforce meeting in Camperdown highlighted three issues that the taskforce has provided an immediate response to.
The first is the establishment of a new drought freight network for the south west part of the state. This will provide temporary relief on our road network to be able to get bigger trucks closer to the farm gate to deliver the feed and fodder that is needed for those farmers.
The second matter raised last week was getting feed and fodder from interstate into Victoria as quickly as possible. Permits will be streamlined from 10 days down to two business days to turn around permits for fodder coming in from interstate.
The third was to fast track control permits to mitigate the damage to pastures from kangaroos.
“I made the decision to both establish the drought Taskforce and to chair it as Premier, as sending a very clear message that this was a top priority for the Government,” said Ms Allan.
The State Government has provided three packages of support totalling $67M for drought relief. The first of those packages was released in September of last year on the back of work with farmers in the south west region of the state. There is a discrepancy between the level of financial support for the south west region and what has been received by the north east region and the Goulburn Valley.
“This goes back to why we have the Drought Taskforce is to be the clearing house for all of these issues and requests for support to come and be considered, not just by the government, but by broader representatives from across rural and regional Victoria, as we consider what we do next in providing support for farmers but also for rural and regional communities,” said Ms Allan.
