Stonewall as ivy grows

By Tania Martin
THE State Government has maintained its wall of silence over weed funding for the Dandenongs despite continued calls for assistance.
Eastern Region MP Edward O’Donohue is the latest to join the campaign which has gone unanswered.
Mr O’Donohue said weeds were growing out of control while the Government fails to take responsibility and continues to under fund local council weed programs.
He said after travelling through the Dandenongs it was easy to see that weeds were getting out of control.
This latest call for action comes after the Shire of Yarra Ranges last year urged the State Government to inject an extra $1 million into weeds in the Dandenongs. Walling Ward councillor Len Cox moved a motion at a council meeting on 24 April last year calling for the Government to take action on weeds funding.
Cr Cox at the time told the Mail that the shire’s current allocation of $120,000 was nothing short of pathetic.
He said if nothing was done soon the weed problem would reach the point of no return.
But despite the council’s impassioned plea for the Government to take action, the request was denied.
Shire spokesman David Ashton last week said that in reply to the council’s request, the State Government pointed out that it had already allocated significant resources to environmental weed management.
Mr Ashton said the Government said that the state-wide provision for weed management didn’t allow for the level of resources that the shire requested.
However, he said the shire was continuing to advocate for increased weed management funding.
“We have also kept local environment groups such as Landcare informed of the developments to help them in their own advocacy efforts,” Mr Ashton said.
Mr O’Donohue said one of the problems was that there was no clear definition on who is responsible for funding weeds management.
Despite a meeting on 2 April between the Municipal Association of Victoria, the Department of Primary Industries and the Department of Sustainability and Environment, no allocation of responsibility for weeds management has been agreed to.
“The State Government needs to take full responsibility for maintaining roadsides and begin reducing the impacts weeds are having in our local areas,” Mr O’Donohue said.
Weeds are continuing to grow rampantly throughout the Dandenongs with ragwort, sweet pittosporum, ivy and blackberries quickly taking over roadsides, gullies and waterways.
Mr O’Donohue said that for every day the dispute over who was responsible, weeds would spread further and their eradication would be made even more difficult.
The Mail contacted the State Government but couldn’t get a response before going to print.