Council & Business
1 May, 2026
Governance confusion makes council vote invalid on contentious broiler farm
Central Goldfields Shire Council deferred their decision on a broiler farm application due to not being “fully informed” after already refusing it earlier this year.
Central Goldfields Shire councillors unanimously voted to defer a decision on a broiler farm at 3280 Pyrenees Highway, Carisbrook, after unanimously refusing the same planning application in February.
The planning application sought a broiler farm accommodating up to 400,000 birds alongside a caretakers house and associated buildings all run by Pavilion Farms.
The planning application received 56 objections and two neutral submissions from the community.
Mayor Ben Green, who moved the alternative motion, said he wanted to postpone their decision until the May council meeting.
“Due to the inordinate amount of considerations to be made and the unfortunate shortage of time, I’ve been unable to give this matter proper consideration,” he said.
Councillor Geoff Bartlett, who seconded the motion, said it was important councillors understood what they were voting on.
“I think if we haven’t all been fully informed of the matter, it’s paramount we defer,” he said.
“We can’t fully make a decision if we don’t all know what the details are.”
However, the council officer’s recommendation for approval remains unchanged since December, and repeating the council vote came down to governance issues.
According to the officer’s report, if councillors want to vote against the officer’s recommendation, they must move an alternative motion before it goes to a vote.
In the February council meeting, no alternative motion was moved and the recommendation lost so no decision was made.
Councillor Gerard Murphy said “logically” this didn’t make sense.
“I’m with you Mr mayor that we have to have more information because the whole of the council group said in February no, now it comes back to go back through the whole thing again, it just doesn’t make sense,” he said.
The Maryborough District Advertiser understands, following their unanimous decision, councillors were instructed that any refusal of the planning application must be based in the planning scheme and be submitted to the CEO two weeks before the council meeting.
The reason given was to allow the motion to be reviewed for technical and legal correctness.
This comes after Central Goldfields Shire Council opposed, and lost, a similar application from the same company due to how the planning scheme is applied at VCAT.
Objectors raised numerous concerns surrounding the broiler farm application for 705 Baringhup Rd, Carisbrook which informed council’s decision to refuse it.
However, while some of these concerns became conditions at VCAT, others couldn’t be fully considered under the relevant planning law or the Victorian Code for Broiler Farms.
During the February council meeting, councillor Anna de Villiers said local policies to deter broiler farms would help, and were being worked on, but were not complete.
“The reason why VCAT manages to pass this is because we do not have the policies and planning in place to deter the development of broiler farms on the Moolort Plain,” she said.
The limits of the relevant laws have been criticised by objectors, including Carisbrook landholder and long-time environmental advocate Alison Teese OAM.
“Even if 10 percent of the Central Goldfields Shire wrote objections to it, it could still get through VCAT with the existing planning law,” she said.
“All the good common sense in the world can’t stop these permits.”
The Pyrenees Highway application has been ongoing for around two years and lapsed to the next year at the December council meeting.
The applicant previously appealed to VCAT when council hadn’t decided on the Baringhup Road application after about one year.
If approved, the application would be the sixth broiler farm in the region and the fifth run locally by Pavilion Farms.