Tuesday, 29 July 2025

 Gayle TIERNEY (Western Victoria – Minister for Skills and TAFE, Minister for Water) (14:25): We welcome the recent rainfall through Victoria, but we know the impacts of drought are still hitting hard across Victoria. That is why the Allan Labor government’s Drought Response Taskforce is listening directly to farmers and regional communities across Victoria, ensuring their voices shape the support we are delivering through these tough times. The government has now invested over $144 million in three targeted support packages to help farmers and communities across our state, including significant investments through the water portfolio. Our water investments include: over $30 million to extend the East Grampians rural pipeline to connect hundreds of landholders to reliable, secure water through a pipeline project that is already underway; $1 million to directly employ farmers and farm workers through our catchment management authorities in Glenelg Hopkins and Corangamite to provide much-needed cash flow in these hard times; $3 million to boost Victoria’s statewide emergency water supply point network, adding new standpipes in places like Colac for farmers to access water; $2.5 million to facilitate community access to underused groundwater bores in the south west, with pilot sites already being explored by Southern Rural Water; plus $3.5 million to develop a new sustainable water strategy for western Victoria, which has been the hardest hit by drought, to ensure that we are even better prepared for droughts over the next 50 years. The Allan Labor government is backing our agriculture industry and supporting our farming families and the jobs and communities that rely upon them.