The Victorian government will announce its state budget on Tuesday and Stock & Land will be present to analyse what it means for farmers and rural dwellers.
In his announcement for 2023, Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas' big ticket item was a COVID Debt Levy - a suite of tax measures to help reduce the bill racked up by the state during the pandemic.
Back then, he said the government borrowed $31.5 billion to pay for the "tools" needed to confront the emergency, such as hospital equipment, testing centres and business support.
The tax measures saw large businesses with national payrolls of more than $10 million a year - about five per cent of Victorian businesses - pay additional payroll tax.
The change was supposed to last four years.
Major agribusiness companies were hit by the measure and therefore, so was the wider farm sector.
In Tuesday's budget, Treasurer Pallas will likely give an update on where these COVID debt repayments are at and outline the continued plan for revenue raising.
Road maintenance
In 2023, the Allan Labor government committed at least $6.6m to road asset maintenance, across Victoria including an extra $2.8m, over the next decade.
The budget committed $770m to road asset management, claiming that is more than 35 per cent higher than the annual average of the previous decade, from 2010 to 2020 ($567m).
"The scale and quality of this investment is yielding returns in the regions again in 2022-23, with expected performance meeting or exceeding performance measure targets for road quality measures on roughness, cracking and rutting," the 2023 budget papers said.
The budget papers also stated that the road area resurfaced or rehabilitated in regional Victoria had fallen well short of the 2022-23 target of 12,120 million square metres.
With Victoria's road infrastructure continuing to be raised as a major issue by those in opposition, farmer representatives and rural community groups, it is likely more funding may well be allocated in Budget 2024.
An update will also be given on the road resurfacing and rehabilitation targets.
In 2023's budget measures, flood recovery efforts received a boost, with $347.5 million allocated into affected areas for work during 2023-24.
Bushfires, drought and flooding hit Victorian farmers over the last 12 months with calls made by several groups for increased recovery support from the government.
Tuesday's budget could see an update on the expenditure in such areas over the last year and the forecast for the year ahead.
Biosecurity has been another area where Agriculture Victoria invested resources over the last year, with there likely to be increased funding to back the state's new strategy.
Budget asks
The Victorian Farmers' Federation (VFF) has called for the creation of an innovative capital expenditure fund for farmers as part of its budget wish list.
VFF president Emma Germano said the proposal would help boost the industry's current $19.6 billion food and fibre economic export contribution.
"Victoria remains the powerhouse of Australian agriculture, indirectly employing more than 150,000 people, pouring billions into the economy and retaining the mantle of Australia's largest exporter of food and fibre products," she said.
"There's no doubt that despite our economic heavy lifting and genuine rank as one of the state's biggest employers, the agriculture industry has been short-changed on critical investment from the government for years."
Ms Germano said the creation of the fund would represent some "forward thinking".
"It aims at enabling improvements in agriculture sector productivity, safety, resilience and climate change adaptation," she said.
More to follow...
