VRFish, the peak body representing Victorian recreational fishers, is buoyed by the bipartisan support from both Labor and Liberal parties for improving recreational fishing and boating in Victoria via a range of long overdue and celebrated reforms.<\/p>\n
If re-elected, Labor has pledged to return 100% of licencing and registration fees to boating safety and facilities, abolish all boating ramp parking and launching fees and establish a Better Boating Fund <\/em>to fix the State\u2019s failing boating infrastructure.<\/p>\n Likewise, the Coalition have committed to creating a Blue Infrastructure Fund <\/em>to reinvest all boating revenue back into boating infrastructure and have made it their policy to abolish boat launching and parking fees.<\/p>\n Boating governance reforms will be supported with Labor establishing a dedicated boating infrastructure authority and the Coalition appointing the Victorian Ports Corporation to oversee, build and maintain marine boating infrastructure.<\/p>\n VRFish Chairman, Rob Loats said, \u201cOur fishers are frustrated with the current state of our boat ramps and fixing our ramps through better governance and funding is a key priority within our Election Policy.\u201d<\/p>\n The Victorian Government collects around $27 million annually from boat registrations and licenses, however, it is estimated that only $3 million per year is reinvested into boating infrastructure.<\/p>\n VRFish has strongly advocated for 100% of all boating registration and licence revenue to be held in a Trust Account to build, maintain and improve Victoria\u2019s recreational boating infrastructure.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are elated that both parties have has listened to our concerns and provided bipartisan support to improving the boating experience for all of Victorians recreational fishers and boaters,\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe have also been advocating for one single expertise-based agency to oversee, build and maintain our boating infrastructure as there are over 40 separate organisations managing Victoria\u2019s boat ramps which has led to many ramps being neglected.\u201d<\/p>\n Fixing Victoria\u2019s boat ramps through boating infrastructure governance and funding reforms is a key priority in the VRFish Election Policy based on the priorities of Victorian recreational fishers. This demonstrates the benefit of having a strong and independent peak body.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" VRFish, the peak body representing Victorian recreational fishers, is buoyed by the bipartisan support from both Labor and Liberal parties for improving recreational fishing and boating in Victoria via a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[284,43,314,328,283,82],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vrfish.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2541"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vrfish.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vrfish.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vrfish.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vrfish.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2541"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/vrfish.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2552,"href":"https:\/\/vrfish.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2541\/revisions\/2552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vrfish.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vrfish.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vrfish.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vrfish.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}