Thursday, 10 February 2022

Eastern Victoria Region

Ms BURNETT-WAKE (Eastern Victoria) (12:43): (1619) My constituency question is for the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change. Deer control remains an unaddressed issue in Eastern Victoria, and I would like to thank Carol Soloff from Sassafras for raising the issue with me. Carol has seen around a dozen deer roaming for over four months in Sassafras. They have significantly damaged private property, run across roads and caused road safety issues, and they are increasing in number. According to the Victorian Deer Control Strategy deer can be controlled by landowners on private property, but Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning authorisation is required when on public property. For locals like Carol this strategy is simply not practical, given that these feral deer frequently roam across various private properties of different landowners as well as across public land. The minister in October 2020 said, ‘This strategy will address feral deer numbers in the outer suburbs of Melbourne’. My question to you is: what reduction in deer, if any, has taken place since that announcement was made, and what should Carol Soloff do to address the growing number of roaming feral deer in Sassafras?