The Victorian Nationals want an independent chair, with wild dog experience, to head the Wild Dog Control Advisory Committee and put aerial baiting programs to tender, leader Peter Walsh says.
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Mr Walsh said the Nationals would also restore majority landowner representation to the committee and reduce red tape hampering wild dog control. “Wild dogs are hounding livestock in Victoria’s High Country at the expense of farmers’ livelihoods while Labor dithered,” Mr Walsh said.
The Victorian Farmers Federation has thrown its support behind the wild dogs proposal.
“Hundreds of thousands of dollars are currently spent on spring and autumn aerial baiting, but if the contract to bait wild dogs went out to tender, the government could save money and invest more in expanding the program,” the VFF’s Gerry Leach told Fairfax Media.
Labor ended the wild dog bounty program in early 2015 but it was re-introduced in October 2016, after pressure from landholders and other stakeholders, and appointed Warragul Labor MP Harriet Shing to chair the Wild Dog Advisory Committee.
The Nationals’ wild dogs policy commitment:
- Appoint an independent chair to the Wild Dog Control Advisory Committee, with relevant wild dog control experience
- Restore majority landowner representation to the Committee
- Cut red tape that hampers wild dog controllers and affected landowners from control efforts
- A competitive tender process for spring and autumn aerial baiting
- The government dismissed the Coalition’s plan, saying it would be a backward step.
“It should come as no surprise that the Coalition wants to privatise wild dog control and send the cooperative efforts by government and farmers back decades,” Agriculture Minister Jaala Pulford said. “Mr Walsh has demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of how the current wild dog and fox control program operates.”
Wild dogs are hounding livestock ... at the expense of farmers’ livelihoods.
- Peter Walsh