Farmers go in to bat WE ♥ HORSHAM

Victoria’s peak farming organisation has put regional councils across the state on notice over decisions involving local government farm rates.

Victorian Farmers Federation president David Jochinke said his organisation would place a statewide microscope over municipal rating plans and was prepared to fight hard against any it believed unfairly burdened farmers.

Mr Jochinke said councils were under enormous pressure to meet budgets, but asking the farming sector to shoulder a greater rates burden while other sectors enjoyed reductions was unacceptable.

“We’re going to write to every regional council asking them to do everything possible to appropriately balance out each rating category, based on historical rating percentages,” he said.

“We will be taking a keen notice of all councils and will be targeting them for please-explain responses as soon as their budgets are struck.

“We will be analysing each council using a comprehensive study we completed two years ago and comparing them against each other. Yes, councils are on notice to make sure they are fair and equitable.”

The federation move comes after many years of debate surrounding rating differential systems designed to establish a level playing field between various municipal rate-paying sectors.

The issue has led to major upheaval involving Ararat Rural City Council and long been the subject of debate of other Wimmera councils such as Horsham Rural City.

Mr Jochinke used Northern Grampians council as an example of potentially ‘unfair discrepancy’ where agricultural sector rates were set to go up 25 percent while residential rates were going down by almost 15 percent.

“To give it credit, the council executive has identified this as an issue and has been active in approaching the VFF to find a way of addressing this unacceptable imbalance,” he said.

“But this scenario is what’s happening across the state, and at the end of the day it’s elected councillors who have the final say and we’re calling on them to be fair to all ratepayers.”

Rates are usually based on property values and changes in valuations, combined with a differential percentage established by councils, and can heavily influence how much each sector contributes to a municipal rates burden.

Mr Jochinke said it was important that regional councillors were aware of all issues surrounding the collection of rates.

“For example, the only bearing a rise in farm valuations has on wealth comes if a farmer sells their business,” he said.

“It has no bearing on any day-to-day cash flow and the reality is that it doesn’t alter farmers’ capacity to pay rates.

“One of the certain things we do know is that too many farmers are not getting the rate reductions we’re seeing in other categories.”

Mr Jochinke stressed the federation was concerned for regional communities as a whole, not just farmers, in getting rates equations right.

“This is a communities issue. Farmers feel it acutely because they directly feel the pain, but in the end regional communities suffer if the system is out of whack,” he said.

“Essentially this is a whole community issue we need to get right.

“In the short term, we could probably solve the immediate issue by asking all rate categories to follow CPI and go up 2.25 percent.

“There would be no fairer way for the moment. But in moving forward and considering local government sustainability, we need to look at a better system.” It’s on again! The one-day We Love Horsham Shopping Spree, now in its third year, returns on Friday.

The Weekly Advertiser and radio stations 3WM and MIXX FM are urging shoppers to make the most of an opportunity to hunt down bargains as part of the shopping spree and be in the running to win prizes.

The We Love Horsham promotion is part of a series encouraging shoppers to support Wimmera businesses.

Horsham business response to the promotion has again been strong and The Weekly Advertiser has published a major advertising wrap and lift-out in this week’s edition.

People who shop at any participating We Love Horsham business on Friday can take their receipts to the MIXX FM outside broadcast van outside the Exchange Hotel on the corner of Firebrace and Pynsent streets to enter a prize draw.