Wednesday, 6 April 2022

Department of Treasury and Finance

Budget papers 2021–22

Ms LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (17:02): I rise to speak on the budget 2021–22. I rise to speak particularly on the portion of the budget that raises the funding for Parks Victoria and for the Barmah forest. The issue that I want to raise on behalf of my constituents, who are extremely concerned about this, is the trapping of brumbies that is going on in the Barmah at the moment. Constituents are coming to me complaining about the inhumane practices of the Andrews Labor government with the trapping. In fact just this afternoon I received an email from someone who had witnessed two mares who were heavily in foal who had been trapped. These are horses that had never been handled before. They were trapped in the traps. Then of course Parks Victoria people come out and load them onto a truck and take them off to be rehomed. But for these particular mares that were heavily in foal, this would be a really traumatic experience. They have never been handled before. Suddenly they are caught in a trap, they are sent off on a truck and they are put in extreme trauma.

There has not been a count done of the brumbies in the Barmah forest in recent times. Locals are very concerned about the amount of brumbies that are being taken out of the forest, because the count has not been done in order to establish how many horses there actually are there in the forest. I call the minister to immediately stop the trapping of the Barmah brumbies and to instead conduct a proper headcount. The last headcount that was done we know was inaccurate. It was taken in a spot in the forest where the horses were coming to drink and to feed and then multiplied out across the forest. It was completely inaccurate. It was way over the top on the numbers that were portrayed as being in the forest. There needs to be an accurate count done and there needs to be a stop to all of the trapping of brumbies in the Barmah until this count is conducted.