STATEMENT: Agriculture Infrastructure Fund

Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Peter Walsh

Regional Victorians will not be fooled by the Andrews Labor Government’s attempt to bribe them with the scraps off the table from the sale of the Port of Melbourne.

The Port of Melbourne was built off the back of farmers and exporters and the Melbourne focused Labor Government are again short changing regional Victoria.

Regional Victoria has 25 per cent of the state’s population and Labor’s “scraps off the table” fund is just three per cent of the potential Port of Melbourne sale proceeds.

The sale of the Port will raise as much as $7 billion and a $200 million fund is treating regional Victoria with contempt. Melbourne will get 97 per cent or $6.8 billion from the sale.

Melbourne Labor’s disregard for regional Victoria was highlighted in the State Budget when just 2.9 per cent of major project funding was allocated to regional Victoria.

The Coalition are not against the sale of the Port in principle, but any sale must be in the interests of all Victorians. That includes rural and regional Victorians.

The current clause in the legislation preventing the development of a second port for 50 to 70 years is of particular concern.

The last thing the Coalition wants to see is the competitiveness of our state’s export industries put at risk by the Port of Melbourne being constrained in the future. We know the Port will reach capacity well within 50 years’ time.
Media enquiries: Sarah O’Connor 0432 074 888   sarah.oconnor@opposition.vic.gov.au