Wednesday, 27 November 2024

 Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (10:52): As a committee, I will take up where our chair left off. We are that proud of our report from the Environment and Planning Committee on the inquiry into securing the Victorian food supply that most of us are in the chamber. We loaded up and were able to work as a fantastic functioning team to get a job done and to get a committee report to give to the government. With 29 findings and 33 recommendations, as the chair, the member for Wendouree said, it was something that we could all work together on. Being from the regions and being able to move around, it was terrific that we could all be as one. We are on different sides of the political spectrum, but we have come together because these are concerns that affect everybody in our seats and everybody throughout Victoria.

As our chair said, I would also like to thank the members of our team, who are the member for Croydon, the member for Monbulk, the member for Bass, the member for Warrandyte and the member for Ripon. As we travelled around regional Victoria to our public hearings, which we had in Melbourne Morwell, Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo, people gave their time to come and express where they think there need to be changes to protect our food bowl, because at the end of the day we all need to eat. We need to make sure that we are supplying a secure food source and a food source that still is accessible, both monetary-wise and in locality, around the state. We are very, very diverse with what we do produce around this great state of Victoria.

One of the regional hearings was in Morwell. We had some farmers come down, and it was great to hear them talk about how they have had to diversify and change the way they run their farms because, as we hear, the next generation of farmers is not continuing on the family tradition. For most farmers it has been generational. As we found out, there are less and less workers that are having to be used on the farm, so modern technology has taken over to make sure that we can, now and into the future, make sure that our food supply is solid and make sure that it is accessible for everyone else.

As part of the regional hearings program, as we travelled around, we learned about pockets of different ways that people produce food. We went to the Cape Community Farm down at Cape Paterson. It was astounding what they are doing down there. The member for Bass put that on our radar to go down and see how they are building communities, not just houses, and how they are securing the food supply for those members who choose to live in that location. It was really great that we could do that. With urban sprawl not only around Melbourne but also the suburbs and as our regional centres get bigger around regional Victoria, we need to make sure that we protect the most valuable asset, and that is our prime agricultural land that will secure our food supply into the future.

One of the other things that we did, and I think it is because we are such a great committee, was we also provided the way forward for a lot of people to give birth along our journey in the last 12 months. The member for Ripon welcomed a beautiful baby into our committee. Behind our great team, as the member for Wendouree said, is Helen, who also had a baby, and we have the wonderful expecting mother in the member for Warrandyte.