THE Victorian Government's funding of fencing co-ordinators in bushfire-affected communities came to an end last Friday.
Under the program, $2 million was put towards funding a team of fencing co-ordinators who co-ordinated more than 13,000 volunteers, who in turn put in a combined 100,000 hours to rebuild 2330km of burnt-out boundary fencing.
The Government worked primarily with the Victorian Farmers Federation to administer the fencing co-ordinators, with local councils stepping in recently to run the program.
Department of Primary Industries emergency manager Michael Boyd said 78 per cent of the 8362km of boundary fencing burnt out in the Gippsland and Black Saturday fires had been replaced, with the bulk of the work done by landholders using their own, or contract, labour.
Given most of the boundary fencing had been completed, Mr Boyd said it was no longer necessary to maintain statewide co-ordination of the volunteer program.
But Opposition bushfire response spokesman and Nationals leader Peter Ryan said there was still plenty of fencing to be done and called on the Government to continue funding the co-ordinators' positions.
"Fence rebuilding efforts are far from complete in many bushfire-affected areas, such as Gippsland," Mr Ryan said.
Nationals member for Morwell Russell Northe said the Government should not cut funding to key fencing co-ordinator positions where fencing was still under way, such as in the Traralgon South district.




