Wednesday, 5 March 2025

Statements on parliamentary committee reports

Environment and Planning Committee

Inquiry into Securing the Victorian Food Supply

Ella GEORGE (Lara) (10:09): I am really pleased to rise today to speak on the Environment and Planning Committee’s inquiry into securing the Victorian food supply. This report is a comprehensive and necessary examination of food supply and food security right across Victoria, which the chair in her foreword describes as ‘an existential issue for our state now and into the future’. As the committee heard throughout this inquiry, access to affordable, nutritious food is a fundamental necessity and a key determinant of health, wellbeing and social stability. The importance of this inquiry at this point in time cannot be understated. It brought together key stakeholders, experts and community organisations to explore the pressures impacting our food supply, from rising cost to supply chain vulnerabilities and the challenges of population growth and urban sprawl, which I will touch on in my contribution later.

I sincerely thank the chair of the committee the member for Wendouree, committee members and the secretariat for their hard work and dedication to this important issue. I deeply appreciate the efforts that went into researching, consulting and drafting this report, and I commend the spirit of collaboration that was evident throughout this process.

I want to speak on this committee inquiry because I think it is of particular importance for the Lara electorate for two reasons: firstly, in terms of food security and ensuring our Victorian food supply, and secondly, in terms of some of the issues that this report discusses with regard to population growth and urban sprawl. This report is particularly relevant to the community in the Lara electorate and the wider Geelong community because we have seen a sharp rise in food insecurity. In the past year alone food relief services in Geelong have reported a 33 per cent increase in demand, reflecting the broader cost-of-living crisis that is hitting Victorian families. We know that there are several key factors contributing to the cost-of-living crisis – increases in gas and electricity prices, housing stress and mortgage pressures – and of course food prices continue to rise, making the essentials more expensive than ever.

We have fantastic local organisations like the Geelong Food Relief Centre which do extraordinary work in meeting these growing demands. The centre in Geelong has two social supermarkets, ensuring that families have access to affordable food, but we know we cannot have affordable food without a food supply. The rise in food insecurity has also seen a huge surge in community support, and over the past two years I am really pleased to say that the number of volunteers at the Geelong Food Relief Centre has nearly tripled, growing from 65 to 185 people.

The second reason that I want to speak on this report is with regard to population growth and urban sprawl, which was a key theme of this report and something that the committee examined very closely. The location of the Lara electorate means that we are at the forefront of dealing with matters of population growth and urban sprawl, particularly for once rural townships like Lara, Little River, Avalon and Balliang. We are consistently seeing large blocks of acreage up on realestate.com.au being pitched to the market with the prospect of ‘This could be future residential housing’, ‘This could be rezoned for residential land’. What we are seeing is prices massively jacked up across the area of what was once agricultural land and the potential loss of agricultural land, which we know is so important for our food security here in Victoria and a key theme of the committee’s report.

I am really pleased to see in here across the, I understand, 33 recommendations considered by the committee and made to the Victorian government that there are a number of recommendations that directly address population growth and urban sprawl, protecting our agricultural land and ensuring that agricultural land is here now and into the future for future Victorians, and there are some agricultural covenants as well, which limit the way land can be used and developed. I think these are incredibly important recommendations that will really help secure the future of prime agricultural land in and around the Lara electorate. I know the member for Point Cook is very passionate about this land too, with his electorate encompassing some spectacular growers from the Werribee South region who have provided all kinds of amazing vegetables for Victorians to enjoy over many years and, I hope, for many years to come.

This is an incredibly important committee report at a very important point in time for Victoria as we look at food security and securing our food supply system. I was really pleased to speak on this.