Allan facing bush revolt, One Nation challengers as farmers and fireys fume

One Nation star recruit Barnaby Joyce will meet with disaffected Victorian farmers and volunteer firefighters as a bush revolt against the state government starts to take shape in the aftermath of the state’s bushfires.

Andrew Weidemann, a Wimmera grain farmer who founded the Across Victoria Alliance to protest the government’s tax increase on regional property owners, confirmed the former deputy prime minister would travel to Horsham next month to address the organisation’s first conference.

He said alliance members would seek to stand as One Nation candidates in November’s state election.

“We are very much in the process of talking about how we can have that impact on this next election, what candidates are putting their hand up and what they are going to stand for,” Weidemann said.

“There is a lot of angst out there at the moment, and it has all been self-induced by government.”

NSW-based Joyce confirmed his attendance and said his focus would be stopping Victoria’s rollout of wind farms, solar farms and transmission lines.

“In regional areas, we are infuriated that we have once more become the default penance for inner-city privilege,” he said. “Intermittent power, for us, is a scourge. There is no upside for us. People are looking for those who, in an unequivocal and forthright way, are going to say enough is enough.”

Opposition Leader Jess Wilson, who has spent the past few days with CFA volunteers in fire-affected communities, has provisionally agreed to address the conference, which is being staged at a golf club razed by the deadly Black Saturday fires 17 years ago.

The Across Victoria Alliance is a loose political movement formed last March which rails against the Allan government’s Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund, the transition to renewable energy and land access issues related to the resources industry.

In the lead-up to this summer’s devastating fire season, it campaigned with the CFA Volunteers Group and the United Firefighters Union over CFA resources, ageing fire trucks and what it claims is “all-time low morale of volunteer and career firefighters”.

CFA Volunteers Group president John Houston confirmed his members would seek to influence the outcome of November’s election.

“We are not going to tell people who to vote for,” he said. “We are going to ask people to look at the candidates and tick the box of the one who is going to support the CFA the most.”

Although Victoria has so far avoided large-scale loss of life from the fires, with cattle farmer Max Hobson the only confirmed casualty from firestorms that have destroyed 228 homes and burnt more than 400,000 hectares, Premier Jacinta Allan has felt the ire of CFA volunteers and residents of fire-impacted communities who believe the state was not well-prepared for this summer’s catastrophic conditions.

In the fire-ravaged town of Alexandra on Tuesday, she was heckled by residents and landowners.

Allan has denied accusations the CFA’s budget has been cut over time, as shown in its published annual reports, arguing that additional funding was provided before the fire season. The most recent annual report from 2024-25 is still yet to be made public, despite being due last year.

Pat Millear, group officer of Westmere CFA, said volunteers had been left high and dry by the government.

“We’ve been left short for sure, because we’ve got a lot of 30-year-old tankers here,” said Millear, who helped fight the Streatham fire. “It’s hard yakka on the back of the truck. No air-conditioning ... you’ve got no comforts … whereas the new ones have got all the monitors and things.”

Government data released in 2023 showed 230 CFA trucks were more than 30 years old.

CFA Chief Fire Officer Justin Heffernan said this week that the government had provided more money in this year’s budget to replace ageing trucks, with 167 on order or in production.

Millear, an outspoken critic of the state government and the Emergency Services and Volunteers Fund, said new firetrucks would better meet health and safety standards. “We’ve been let down big time … as volunteers they expect us to just keep turning up every summer.”

Allan has pleaded against politicising the devastation to avoid adding to the alarm or trauma of fire-affected communities.

“I accept that there are communities that have been impacted and are grieving and are traumatised, and I will continue to provide support. I’ll continue to listen to those communities,” she said.

The CFA’s Heffernan, when asked what more could have been done to prepare, said catastrophic conditions last Friday meant dangerous fires were all but inevitable and deaths expected. “We had over 200 fires … out of those, 12 became major fires. So there were successes,” Heffernan said. “I’m speaking to our volunteers on a daily basis. They’re hurting.”

The dispute about CFA funding has been clouded by the delay in publishing the CFA’s most recent accounts. The government has not provided updated figures on the authority’s current budget.

Allan said the delay in publishing last year’s financial information was “a result of auditor-general processes”.

The Victorian Auditor-General’s Office rejected reporting that it was responsible for delays and issued a statement to “correct the public record and maintain confidence in the timeliness of financial audits”.

The CFA handed over its draft report on September 30, one month later than regulations stipulate, and the draft report was cleared by the Auditor-General’s Office three weeks later. This process was finalised on October 31, with inconsistencies in the proofed version spotted on November 10 corrected by the CFA.

The CFA said it provided the 2024-25 annual report to the Department of Justice and Community Safety in November after being audited by the Auditor-General’s Office.

Under the Financial Management Act, overhauled last year, annual reports need to be tabled within 14 days of being received by the minister if parliament is not sitting.

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