I move: That I introduce a bill for an act to amend the Planning and Environment Act 1987 and the Environment Effects Act 1978 in relation to agricultural land and for other purposes. Victoria is Australia’s largest agriculture-producing state, accounting for approximately 28 per cent of Australia’s gross value of agricultural production, with a farmgate value of around $22 billion each year. Our state is home to more than 21,000 farming businesses, representing around one-quarter of all farming enterprises in Australia. Together they produce the food and fibre that feed and clothe millions of people, generate billions of dollars in exports and underpin one of Victoria’s most important industries. But agriculture’s contribution extends well beyond the farm gate. This sector supports thousands of jobs across transport and logistics, food processing, manufacturing, agricultural technology, research, science and innovation. It is the economic backbone of many regional communities and a vital driver of investment, employment and prosperity across our state. Farmers are also the custodians of our landscape. Every day they manage our soils, care for our waterways, protect biodiversity and safeguard the natural assets that future generations will depend upon. They carry the responsibility of producing the food and fibre the world needs while ensuring the land remains productive for those who come after them. That is why this bill, the Planning and Environment Amendment (Agricultural Land and Food Security) Bill 2026, is so important. This bill is about protecting capability, not preventing opportunity. It recognises that Victoria’s most strategic agricultural land should be protected while ensuring development elsewhere only proceeds where our long-term agricultural capability can be maintained.
Yet despite agriculture’s enormous contribution to our economy and our communities, agricultural land receives surprisingly little recognition within Victoria’s planning system. When major projects are assessed, we rightly consider biodiversity, cultural heritage, native vegetation, landscape values and environmental impacts, but too often agriculture is treated as simply another land use rather than as a strategic asset that underpins our food security, regional economies and export industries. This bill seeks to change that. Its purpose is straightforward, and it is certainly not to prohibit development. It is to ensure that when decisions are made that affect agricultural land, those decisions are informed by agricultural expertise and made transparently, consistently and with proper regard for Victoria’s long-term agricultural capability. We cannot manufacture more high-quality agricultural land. Once productive land is unnecessarily fragmented, sterilised or permanently degraded, its productive capacity may never be fully restored. That is why decisions affecting agricultural land deserve careful, informed and transparent consideration.
This bill establishes a new framework within the Planning and Environment Act to ensure agriculture is properly recognised in planning decisions. It establishes clear objectives, recognising the importance of agricultural land and food security. It provides for the identification of strategic agricultural land. It requires decision-makers to give significant weight to protecting that land. It introduces agricultural land impact assessments for prescribed developments. It requires consultation with Agriculture Victoria before significant decisions affecting agricultural land are made. It requires agricultural expertise to be represented on advisory committees and Environment Effects Act inquiry panels. It strengthens rehabilitation obligations through mandatory rehabilitation bonds and ongoing monitoring, and it establishes a public register and annual reporting requirements so Victorians can better understand the cumulative impact of development on agricultural land. These are practical reforms that improve decision-making, transparency and accountability.
Importantly, this bill does not presume every proposal should be refused, nor does it elevate agriculture above every other public interest. Rather, it ensures agricultural impacts are properly understood, properly assessed and properly weighed alongside all other relevant considerations. Projects that can coexist with agriculture should be able to demonstrate they can do so responsibly. Projects that permanently reduce Victoria’s agricultural capability should be required to justify those impacts and demonstrate why they are in the broader public interest.
Victoria faces increasing pressure on agricultural land: urban growth, renewable energy generation, electricity transmission, extractive industries, major infrastructure. Each of these developments may be necessary, but each of those also has the potential to permanently alter productive farming landscapes. As these pressures increase, our planning system must evolve to ensure agriculture is no longer the forgotten consideration and farmers have a voice. Regional communities deserve confidence that agricultural expertise will be at the table when decisions affecting their livelihoods are made. Farmers deserve confidence that the long-term productive capability of this land will be properly considered.
I commend this bill to the house and urge that anybody who enjoys our Australian and Victorian food support this legislation.