Tuesday, 16 August 2022

Camping regulation

Mr TILLEY (Benambra) (13:09): The ongoing farce of the jackbooted approach to public policy that is the issue of licensed riverfront camping continues. There are about 90 sites that have been picked throughout the state of Victoria. Three of the spots coincidentally have been identified on Sarah and Stuart Crosthwaite’s dairy farm on the Kiewa River at Kergunyah South. There was another one, making it four under consideration, but the inspector from the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning was not authorised to walk across the road to have a look at that paddock. That apparently was somebody else’s job. All three sit atop a steep riverbank. Access to the river is near impossible. Adding insult to injury is that on the opposite bank, about 100 metres away, there is a designated public camping spot at Boyds Bridge Reserve. Why there is any need for these spots is a mystery, particularly with the biosecurity threat of foot-and-mouth disease on our doorstep. Who is going to carry a portable toilet 700 metres to camp on the farm or the licensed riverfrontage when they can drive straight onto the reserve?

It is increasingly apparent that this wasteful exercise is fulfilling an election promise, knowing these spots are unlikely to be used. You need a machete and a snakebite kit to get to most of the ones along the Mitta Mitta River in the Benambra district. This is just a sick joke that gives campers and fishers false expectations while creating fear, frustration and anxiety for the landholders. We will fix it.