The Victorian Farmers Federation has been running a strong campaign leading up to state election on November 24.
Focusing on the theme of Delivering for Agriculture – Growing Communities, we put parties and candidates on notice back in July when our state election platform was launched at the VFF conference in Ballarat.
Since then, farmers around the state have repeatedly sought opportunities to reiterate and reinforce their key asks. Demands for a fair and equitable rates system, investment in fit for purpose roads, reliable energy and telecommunications infrastructure, safe and healthy workplaces and action on costly rural crime have featured prominently in our public commentary.
We’ve kept these issues on the radar via a series of candidate forums in rural and regional electorates which have drawn strong crowds.
With rates raised repeatedly at these events, our successful campaign has now reached a point where both the ALP and Coalition have committed to a post-election review of Victoria’s rating system.
The release of the VFF’s election scorecard indicating plenty of room for improvement from the parties and candidates in late October also drew attention.
Since then we’ve seen a range of announcements from the parties on some of our key election asks, such as investment in telecommunications infrastructure, and farm skills and safety.
While these are welcome, overall they still fall some way short of the long-term vision for agriculture farmers have been calling for. There is still time to improve the long-term agriculture policy forecast.
That means there are also still opportunities for the parties and candidates to deliver for agriculture in partnership with Victoria’s farmers, up until the state election and beyond.
Just as we put all candidates on notice before the election, whoever forms government after November 24 needs to understand that they must deliver for agriculture. It’s a responsibility of forming government which Victoria’s farmers will expect them to meet.