Claims weeds and pest animals are out of control on Crown land

South West Coast MP Roma Britnell told parliament for 18 of the past 23 years, Labor had been in power and there had been an outbreak of pest animals and noxious weeds on Crown land.

"Blackberry, boxthorn, ivy, serrated tussock, gorse, Patterson's Curse: you name it, you'll find it on Crown land," Ms Britnell said.

"Colonies of rabbits and droves of wild pigs have made National Parks like the Cobboboonee their home.

"They are not only destroying our beautiful native environment but now also venturing onto adjoining farmland and ruining fertile pastures."

Ms Britnell called on the Environment minister, Ingrid Stitt, to explain what she was doing to manage and control noxious and pest animals.

"Private landholders are doing their bit, but this government has dropped the ball," Ms Britnell said.

"I call on the minister to immediately activate emergency measures to eradicate noxious weeds and pest animals from south west Victoria's Crown land".

The Catchment and Land Protection Act 1994 indicated all landholders, including the Crown, have responsibility for managing and controlling noxious weeds and pest animals.

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Victorian Farmers Federation Land Management committee chair Gerald Leach said it had been a long term problem, which was causing "enormous angst" between farmers and Crown land managers.

"There is always an issue, simply because the government doesn't resource that part of Crown land management sufficiently," Mr Leach said.

"We believe when Crown land managers do their annual report, they should not only state what the issues are, in terms of invasive plants and animals, but also what resources are required to manage them effectively".

Both weeds and pest animals were a problem, he said.

"The wet spring and summer has highlighted the weeds issue, because there will be a lot more seeding of invasive plants occurring at the moment," he said.

Wedderburn sheep producer Graham Nesbit said wheel cactus was a big issue in his area.

"It's a weed that poses a great risk to all our parks, Crown lands and roadsides - it's high on the radar and there are programs being put together, but getting funding for them is proving a bit of a challenge," Mr Nesbit said.

"We were told we were getting some announcements, but the last time I spoke to the local Landcare groups they had heard nothing."

He said the weed had spread been Maldon and Buckrabanyule - "the department (Agriculture Victoria) is concerned it will become a supercell and virtually unstoppable," he said.

While attempts were being made to control the weed on Crown land, it was also getting onto properties of absentee landholders.

"As a woolgrower, my concern is it gets in around my treelines, the sheep pick it up," he said.

"Shearers are hard enough to find, without having wool with spines in it - that's part of my concern."

The horticultural sector could also be affected, as the fruit of the wheel cactus could be a host for fruit fly, he said.

"This will just create a bridge between all our horticultural areas - we have a big enough problem, trying to control fruit fly now, without adding that burden of creating a corridor for fruit fly just to move up and down and around as it pleases," he said.

Childers Cove dairy farmer Brian McDowall said there was four metre tall boxthorn growing in the coastal reserve, which had a three kilometre frontage onto his property.

"The birds bring it in, it's a noxious weed," he said.

"There are rabbits, foxes - you name it - breeding up no end.

"They are out of control".

Authorities used to slash the area, but for the last five or six years there had been little to no maintenance, he said.

Heywood prime lamb producer Georgina Gubbins said she was having trouble with blackberries, spreading from Crown Land, as well as VicRoads reserves, V/Line and disused railway lines.

"The blackberries have been there since I've been there," she said.

"The authorities did have an eradication program for two years, along the roadsides, and they almost got it," Ms Gubbins said.

"Then they left it and it's spread again".

The issue was raised at a recent Agriculture Victoria forum, she said.

"It came up that they (the authorities) are not coming back and continually keeping top of the problem".

There were programs for specific problems, but they kept changing, she said.

"Does it come back to centralisation, and lack of local knowledge?" she said.

Blackberries got into the electric fences on her property.

"It's just keeping on top of them that is the big problem," she said.

The government had a strong record of investing in effective invasive species management, across the south-west and the state, a spokesman said.

"We're targeting invasive species like pigs, foxes and weeds through successful investment in initiatives covering some 90,000 hectares," the spokesman said.

The government said the Glenelg Ark was established in 2005 to support the recovery of native mammal populations impacted by foxes through a broad-scale and continuous fox baiting program across 90,000 hectares of Crown land.

Fox numbers in the managed areas were continuing to decline, which was resulting in strengthened populations of not only Long-nose Potoroos and Southern Brown Bandicoots but other species such as the Common Brushtail Possum, Heath Mouse and Swamp Antechinus.

The Glenelg Ark and Glenelg Eden projects were part of the Victorian Government's Weeds and Pests on Public Land (WPPL) program, which invested more than $4 million per year to fund landscape-scale weed and pest projects, focusing on protecting Victoria's biodiversity.

The WPPL program also included the Weeds at the Early Stage of Invasion (WESI) project, a statewide capability building project that supported Victorian land managers to manage weeds that are in the early stage of invasion and a threat to biodiversity.

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