Farming

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

Our Policies

Water
Protecting Farmland
Fisheries

Water

Victorian farmers need reliable water to produce food. Too much of the system has been tied up in trading by people who do not irrigate, in permanent buybacks, and in rules that treat water as a speculative asset rather than a productive one.

What we will do:

  • Restrict water trading to farmers who have land to irrigate, not to speculators.
  • Reinstate the 1,500 gigalitre cap on buybacks.
  • Provide full allocation at the start of the season, up to 120% where storage allows.
  • Classify dam overflow as environmental flow, not as irrigation water.
  • Support the proposed expansion of Lake Buffalo and its connection to Lake Nillahcootie via pipeline.

Protecting Farmland and Sensitive Land

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
    • 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 and stop the sell-off of Victoria’s food-producing heartland to industrial energy projects.

Fisheries

Recreational fishing alone contributes an estimated $2.27 billion to Victoria and supports nearly 20,000 full-time jobs. Nationally, the recreational fishing industry generates around $11 billion in economic benefit. Commercial fishing and aquaculture add further value and export income.

Despite this, the Labor government cut 35 fisheries officers in 2025, reducing total numbers from 192 to 157. Only 54 of those remaining are frontline officers, yet they are expected to cover more than 2,500 kilometres of coast and 250,000 kilometres of inland water frontage. That is not serious enforcement, and it leaves Victoria’s waterways open to illegal fishing and environmental damage.

What we will do:

  • Reinstate the 35 fisheries officers cut by Labor.
  • Support the expansion of aquaculture, including Port Phillip mussel farms, to grow local production.
  • Oppose offshore wind proposals that fail to properly protect Victoria’s sustainable commercial fishing zones.

Other Policy Areas

COST OFLIVING CRIMEUPDATE IN PROGRESS ENERGYUPDATE IN PROGRESS HEALTH EDUCATION FIREARMS &HUNTING FARMING FISCALMANAGEMENTUPDATE IN PROGRESS