AMENDMENTS put forward by the Liberals and Nationals in Victorian Parliament to help deter animal activists from farm trespassing have been blocked.
The Liberals and the Nationals moved two amendments to the Livestock Management Amendment (Animal Activism) Bill 2021, proposing to increase the maximum penalty for farm trespassing to be in line with NSW, and to have river frontage licensed land included as part of farm biosecurity plans.
Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Leader of the Nationals Peter Walsh was disappointed the amendments were not successful.
“This legislation has been two years in the coming, and now it’s going to be an indefinite time before the issues about how you actually implement the legislation are going to be brought out, so farmers could be waiting another 12 or 18 months before they actually get any protection,” he said.
Blocked by Labor, Greens and Independent MPs, Mr Walsh thought some of the reasons for not passing the amendments were “crazy”.
“Tim Quilty’s reason for not supporting the increased fines was, ‘Well, no one pays their fines these days anyhow, so what’s the point of actually having higher fines’, which I found rather illogical, because the fines are there to actually stop people doing the wrong thing, and they should be enforced,” Mr Walsh said.
“If his reason for not supporting it is because they’re not enforced, we need to fix the legal system so they are enforced.”
Farm trespassing fines in NSW are up to $21,809, while it is currently only $10,904 in Victoria.
“The reason for not including the licensed river frontage was, ‘You don’t build intensive animal infrastructure on licensed river frontage’, which is correct, but the licensed river frontage is a way that people can actually access a farm now, without the protection of a biosecurity plan,” Mr Walsh said.
However, the government did announce tougher on-the-spot fines for unlawful animal activists on Wednesday. Fines will now be $1,272 for an individual, and $8,178 for an organisation, with further penalties of up to $10,904 for an individual and $54,522 for an organisation that can apply for more serious offences.
While this is something that Mr Walsh was on board with, he believes it doesn’t solve all the issues with farm trespassing.
“The on-the-spot fines are something that we actually, through the Upper House enquiry, actually pushed very hard to get,” Mr Walsh said.
“But we wanted these additional changes to make sure that the legislation would give farmers real protection from farm invasion.
“They are just picking a little bit out of it to make out they have done a good job, when in fact they haven’t,” he said.
Mr Walsh says he will now have to wait until the November election to try and further assess these amendments.
“If we are elected to government, we’ll most certainly be reviewing the functioning of the legislation and whether it is achieving its purpose in stopping extreme animal activists from doing farm invasions,” Mr Walsh said.
“If it’s not working, we’ll make sure we change it so it does work.”
