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TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2021
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Happy Aus Day Melbourne holidaymakers Allan Wotherspoon, Poppy Burgmann, Stuart Wotherspoon, Archer Burgmann, Win Wotherspoon, Helen Liecester and Chelsea Burgmann in Loch Sport for the Australia Day long weekend.
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Events today across Wellington, page 3.
Calls for hastening on farm trespass laws:
Legislation is delayed Sarah Luke
THE state government has been accused of failing to introduce laws to better protect farmers against trespass, after seemingly stalling on legislation to impose on-the-spot fines. However, the government maintains work has been going on behind the scenes to get the legislation off the ground, with an estimated delivery by some time later this year. Last February, a parliamentary inquiry report was released recommending on-the-spot fines be implemented as a solution to stop extreme animal
activists breaking into farms, stealing livestock and threatening biosecurity. In June, the government announced it supported 13 of the report’s 15 recommendations, including the on-the-spot fines, however legislation for the fines has still not been implemented. Eastern Victorian MLC Melina Bath brought the issue of illegal farm trespass and animal activism to state parliament at the beginning of 2018, and an upper house inquiry was established in May 2019. Referring to New South Wales’ bolstered Biosecurity Act, adjusted in July 2019 to include on-the-spot fines for farm trespass beginning at $1000, Ms Bath said other states had already
enacted similar laws, so there was no excuse for Victoria’s protracted delays. “Farmers deserve to feel safe in their own homes, but Victoria’s weak farm trespass rules embolden extreme activists to break the law, instead of deterring them,” she said. In March 2019, a law-breaking activist received a fine of $1 in court after livestock was stolen from the Gippy Goat Café in Yarragon in March 2019. The café was attacked multiple times by activists and subjected to sustained online abuse, eventually closing in April. Gippsland South MLA Danny O’Brien said farm invasion took a heavy emotional toll on farm GP1619925
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families and their employees. “These farms are not just a business,” he said. “For the people who live on them, they’re home,” Mr O’Brien said. “The Andrews Labor government continues to let down our farmers, it’s refused to prioritise seasonal worker shortages for crop harvesting and it’s failed to protect our livestock farmers and their animals, despite the inquiry’s recommendations.” In June last year, then Agriculture Minister Jaclyn Symes announced the state government would introduce on-the-spot farm trespass fines “with a view to making fines for this behaviour Continued page 5
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