Farming and Rural Affairs

Protecting Farmland and Sensitive Land

Victoria is one of Australia’s most important food-producing states. Our farms generate more than $22 billion a year in food-and-fibre exports, around a quarter of the national total. This sector underpins regional jobs, food security and export income.

Yet the best agricultural land, water catchments and high-risk areas are being opened up to industrial solar, wind, battery, and transmission projects. At the same time, the Labor government has stripped landholders of the basic right to control access to their own property and given energy companies expanded powers to enter land and seek compulsory acquisition.

What we will do:

• Ban industrial solar, wind, battery storage and transmission projects on land that is in a domestic water catchment supply area, irrigated, flood prone or bushfire prone.
• Require full rehabilitation bonds on every energy project so the cost of decommissioning falls on the proponent, not the landholder or the taxpayer.
• Cancel wasteful spending on unnecessarily expensive new transmission line upgrades.
• Disband the Western Renewable Energy Zone and remove its compulsory acquisition powers.
• Reverse Labor’s changes that allow energy companies and government agencies to access private land without the landholder’s consent.
• Classify large-scale wind and solar projects as industrial developments, not rural ones. They must meet industrial fire safety standards and attract land tax rates that reflect their industrial character.

Labor has treated farming families as an obstacle to be overridden. One Nation will put them back in control of their own land.

Timber and Forestry

Victoria’s timber industry is worth $9 billion a year, contributes 1.7 per cent of the state’s economy, and supports 17,000 direct jobs, rising to around 50,000 across the supply chain. Labor’s approach has been to shut down local production and leave the market to overseas suppliers who operate under far weaker environmental standards.

That is not good for jobs or the environment. Trees are a renewable resource. Victoria should be growing, harvesting and processing more of them, not importing timber while local mills close and regional jobs disappear.

What we will do:

• Incentivise greater use of Australian timber in construction through a “local wood first” policy in government procurement.
• Request a five-year GST exemption on basic building materials, including timber, for homes valued up to $1 million.
• Support a proper fire response plan for Victoria’s forests.
• Support forestry training and tertiary education to secure the next generation of workers.
• Require clear country-of-origin labelling on timber products.
• Support native timber thinning, planting, harvesting, processing and local manufacturing.

Victoria has the trees, the skills and the industry. One Nation will back them instead of shutting them down.

Selective Forestry Rebuild

Currently much of Victoria’s forests are unhealthy. There is a complete lack of resources to maintain them. Forests are more susceptible to high-intensity wildfire that scorches the landscape and kills the seedbed, because the flora has changed and access for low-intensity burning is no longer there. Pest flora — blackberry, St John’s wort, ragwort, oxalis and others — are out of control. Pest fauna — deer, foxes, dogs, cats and European wasps — are not being managed. Money and resources are so inadequate that maintaining State forests and national parks to a required standard is impossible. Biodiversity values fall as a result.

Labor’s shutdown of previous forestry practices and the loss of contracts also left a vacuum. That vacuum is an opportunity to rebuild the industry on a completely new model — not a return to archaic clear-fell harvesting — developed with industry experts.

What we will do:

• Review previous forest management practices and complete research on modern, sustainable harvesting before locking in the rebuild model.
• Rebuild on selective harvesting, not clear-fell. European and United States models have practised selective harvesting for centuries, returning to the same forests every 25 to 30 years. Selective harvesting reduces slash on the forest floor, and crown cover from remaining trees limits sunlight that drives fire-prone ground species.
• Start from the Tasmanian platform: selective harvesting under a strict, approved Forest Practices Plan, with the same species we have in Victoria, where that approach has already shown strong results.
• Design the model to be low-cost and self-funding, so harvest revenue supports forest improvement, fire prevention and suppression, and management of pest plants and animals.
• Require monitoring and transparency at every stage from planning to completion, so practices keep improving and the public can see what is being done in their name.
• Maintain access for management of invasive flora and fauna, forest health and wildfire response — locked-up forests without access cannot be protected.
• Store carbon in forest products rather than under a lock-it-up system that leaves fuel loads to burn. Young eucalypts absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide in their early years; as they approach 80 to 100 years they absorb less, drop branches and leaves, move toward carbon neutrality and can become carbon negative. Selective harvest with regrowth keeps that cycle working. Claims will be made carefully and backed by monitoring.
• Support tertiary forestry education so Victoria has the workforce to sustain and improve the industry for future generations.

One Nation will rebuild forestry with industry experts on a selective, accountable model — not clear-fell, and not neglect.