The lone Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party MP in Victoria’s parliament has made one of his first major policy pushes of the year – to give deer meat to food banks and homeless shelters due to the high numbers being hunted.
State parliament will on Wednesday debate a motion from the upper house MP Jeff Bourman to set up a pilot program to distribute venison from government-controlled culls to food charities.
Bourman, who also sat on the committee examining duck hunting this year, said about 123,376 game deer were shot by recreational hunters in 2022, a 49% increase on the long-term average due to their ballooning numbers. Many were shot and left to rot.
He also said the cost-of-living crisis was making it harder for Victorians to put food on the table, with many turning to food charities, who are in turn struggling to meet demand.
“There’s only so much you can fit in your fridge,” Bourman told Guardian Australia. “What I’m trying to do with this proposal is to find a path for that protein to go to those in need. These animals are going to die anyway, so we may as well use them.”
Bourman’s proposal, dubbed “Hunters for the Hungry”, already operates in the United States, where it is supported by the powerful gun lobby, the National Rifle Association.
But the MP said he envisioned his proposal would closely resemble another program in place in the New Zealand North Island towns of Taupō and Tūrangi, which began in 2020 as a way to use surplus meat from a deer cull.
As of May 2023, New Zealand hunters say they have donated more than 4.5 tonnes of venison mince to food banks. Only meat that hunters would put on “their own family’s dinner table” is accepted for processing and it cannot be traded or sold on.
The Victorian Animal Justice MP Georgie Purcell pointed to Bourman’s comments about meat going to waste and said fewer deer should be hunted.
“I commend his willingness to help the homeless population of Victoria,” she said. “However, shooters constantly insist they utilise the whole animal so I would suggest a better solution might be to stop shooting in surplus.”
Purcell said more meaningful reforms to help people experiencing homelessness included “drug harm reduction, addressing the scourge of family violence and building affordable housing”.
Bourman said the Victorian government could begin its trial during its annual cull at Wilsons Promontory national park. He said only the most competent hunters participate in the cull and there were cool rooms and oversight mechanisms already in place.
“Currently, the meat goes to waste,” he said. “I just can’t understand why we haven’t done this before. It seems to be a no-brainer.”
It is one of Bourman’s first major policy pushes since being re-elected last year, having used an earlier debate spot in February to call on the government to support the native timber industry. Three months later, the government announced it would shut down the industry six years earlier than scheduled.
The new motion, however, is unlikely to garner the support needed to pass the upper house.
