THERE was a sense that the Bass Coast Shire Council has simply kicked the can down the road again by allocating $35,000 in the recent budget for yet another review of the differential rate on farming properties in the shire.
Cr Tim O’Brien expressed his disappointment on budget day, Wednesday, June 18, that the council had not been able to move on reducing rates to farmers and Bass Coast VFF President Bill Cleeland did likewise at a Farmers’ Picnic at the Ventnor Recreation Reserve last Sunday.
“We were hopeful they’d do it this year, but they’ve decided to do a review instead,” said Bill Cleeland.
“There are a lot of issues there. Will they adopt the house and curtilage approach of Mornington Peninsula and do away with the rebate (Rural Land Management Program) while increasing the differential?
“We’ll have to see if we’re actually worse off under that scenario.
“Farm value increases have settled down, but we had significant rises in recent years following through to rate increases well above the rate cap 3%.
“We’ve shown them that and there’s a fair bit of support on council for what we’re saying. We’ll just have to wait for a bit longer to see how the review goes now. But the outcome is there’s no change this year,” said Mr Cleeland.
At the June 2025 council meeting, Cr O’Brien expressed his disappointment the council had not been able to do something to alleviate the financial problems for farmers.
“The comment that I'd like to make is that budgets are never wholly good nor bad. I find parts of this budget, you know, disappointing. We've gone through that. I think that that it's disappointing that we that we still have just an 80% differential.
“I really feel that we've let our farmers when we're surrounded by local government areas with significantly less to pay. So, 70% and 65% differentials.”
Phillip Island stock and station agent, Greg Price, who organised last weekend’s farmers’ picnic said that despite the recent rain, it had come too late to reduce the pressure on primary producers who had been impacted by 18 months of dry conditions, and the costs associated with drought, including buying in feed.
