Noon
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Mother Pauline Carter and daughter Tamrie Carter have gone in to meet Planning Minister Richard Wynne and MP Maree Edwards.
They are in Melbourne with family members Brad and Greg.
Tamrie said she was looking forward to meeting Mr Wynne and having him recognise they were a family and real people.
"So he knows we're not just a name on a file or a piece of land," she said.
While they were not confident the meeting would change anything, Tamrie and Pauline said they believed it could not hurt their cause.
It has been a stressful three weeks for the family since the City of Greater Bendigo voted to compulsorily acquire 313 hectares of the Carters' land for the proposed Marong Business Park.
"Our life is on hold," Brad said.
11.45am:
Tamrie Carter has delivered her statement on behalf of the Carter family.
“The council thinks that by offering compensation we would be happy, despite my father telling them from day one we are not for sale,’’ she read.
“How can a family that produces your food and battles the elements that Mother Nature throws at us farmers over the decades be treated like this?
“To every politician and councillor who gets to hear this, please. Please stop and think about us – the people who make up the community. I am pleading with you to say no to the public acquisition overlay.’’
Watch the full statement here:
Earlier
CARTER family members and supporters are in Melbourne to hand-deliver a “plea” letter to planning minister Richard Wynne, urging him not to approve the forced sale of their land.
A crowd rallied at the steps of Parliament House on Wednesday morning to support the Carter family.
The council last month voted 6:2 in favour of placing a public acquisition overlay on a section of the Carters’ farm, at an emotional and at times fiery council meeting.
Among the group in Melbourne was former Bendigo mayor Alec Sandner, who last month urged the current council to abandon plans to forcibly purchase the land.
Watch here:
At 11.45am, Tamrie Carter will read an official statement on behalf the family.
At 11.55am, the family will meet with Mr Wynne and Member for Bendigo West Maree Edwards.
The minister is yet to decide on whether to accept Bendigo council’s plan to forcibly buy 313 hectares of land off the Carter family to build an industrial park in Marong.
If Mr Wynne signs off on the overlay, the acquisition will go ahead and there are no avenues for appeal.
Last week, Max Carter said the letter explained what the land meant to the family.
“The letter is just asking him to show a bit of sympathy to the family and details how much we love our land,” he said.
Right wing activist Avi Yemini was also at the event.
Last month, about 100 protesters gathered outside the Bendigo town hall ahead of the council vote. Chants of “keep fighting Carters” rang out in the council chambers after the decision.
The debate over whether to publicly acquire private land west of the city for an industrial park has raged for 16 years, and pitted the needs of a broader community against those of a farming family.
The City of Greater Bendigo maintained it considered seven other sites for the business park, but the land in Marong was considered most strategically placed.
Debate in recent months has focused on the conclusions of an independent planning panel in 2016, which found there was insufficient justification for the COGB to compulsorily acquire property in Marong to build the business park, when other options were available.
A former Bendigo mayor referenced the panel’s findings in urging the council to abandon forced sale plans.