Thursday, 26 May 2022

Northern Victoria Region

Ms LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (12:37): (1806) My constituency question is for the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change. Victorians were rightly outraged when the minister announced that the brumbies in both the Barmah and Alpine national parks would be wiped out by professional shooting culls. In Barmah Parks Victoria agreed to reduce the number through trapping and working with volunteers from the Barmah Brumby Preservation Group to place them at the group’s brumby sanctuary or rehome them. Concerns were raised with me by Barmah locals when only 10 brumbies were trapped by Parks Victoria in April, with five being placed at the sanctuary and five rehomed. But it was a media report in the Weekly Times that revealed the deceptive nature of the Andrews Labor government, with details of plans to start shooting brumbies in secret rather than trapping the horses as promised. Will the minister immediately intervene and stop Parks Victoria’s plans to secretly cull Barmah brumbies by contracting professional shooters?