There is a lot of misinformation being spread about the Outdoor Recreation Victoria Bill that is before the Victorian Parliament at the moment.
The Bill should have been finalised last week; with the extraordinary development of a change of Premier and a looming reshuffle of the Ministry, it is understandable but nonetheless concerning that it did not. We say it is concerning because there has been a concerted misinformation campaign waged against this bill by anti-hunting and public land access activists, and we know that they have a sympathetic ear amongst some in Cabinet.
It is important to understand what this bill is and, as importantly, what it is not.
At a fundamental level, this bill merges the existing functions of two agencies that both regulate, research, licence, and oversee compliance with the recreational pursuit and take of wildlife. In that regard it is entirely unremarkable and is the State Government exercising disciplined and responsible fiscal management and budget repair post the COVID era as an accepted recommendation of the Independent Review of the Victorian Public Service (the Silver review).
The two other things that this Bill does is bring hunting into line with fishing and with a slew of other Victorian Government Authorities such as Food Safe Victoria, Worksafe, Sustainability Victoria, the Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, Respect Victoria, the Small Business Commission, the Institute of Teaching and the Essential Services Commission that both promote and regulate their respective activities, and, create a new Land Access Panel, which would be purely advisory and have no land management responsibilities or powers. This new panel would simply formalise and structure what is now an ad-hoc, disjointed and arbitrary process for the representatives of hundreds of thousands of Victorians to resolve legitimate public land access issues.
SSAA Victoria and others in our sector support these changes, not because they are radical, but because they are a sensible progression that recognises the growing importance of active outdoor recreation and the sustainable use of wildlife to a growing and diverse number of Victorians.
Why the opponents of active outdoor recreation and the sustainable use of wildlife oppose this merger so vehemently is that they don’t think that activities like hunting should either exist at all or, at least, that they shouldn’t be allowed on public land. That is understandable and a legitimate view to hold. What is not legitimate is that they are engaging in gross misinformation by making demonstrably false statements such as
- That this will be a “corrupt super-agency”,
- That the GMA has not developed since the compliance failures (ironically under the watch of George Buchhorn, whom these people lionise) a decade ago,
- That the land access panel would absorb the powers of the (rightly) abolished VEAC or that it would undermine the conservation of nature.
None of these claims stands up to even a cursory reading of the Bill that is before the Parliament.
What the opponents of this bill say they want and what they actually want are two different things. They have spent a decade deriding the cost and the leadership of the Game Management Authority (GMA) and calling for its abolition; now, when the Government moves to abolish the GMA to save costs and to strengthen and diversify governance, they are pulling out all stops and spending a large amount of money, time and energy to keep the GMA in place.
It is understandable that the new Premier and his new Cabinet would pause and take stock of everything on the Government’s agenda. If they do so in a clear-eyed way that is guided by sound fiscal management, budget repair and robust governance of the Victorian Public Service, we are confident that the only conclusion they could arrive at would be to reject this cynical and misleading misinformation campaign and to proceed with the Outdoor Recreation Bill as they committed to do in response to the Silver review.
