The state government has been found to be “unconscionable” in its dealings with fresh fruit and vegetable wholesalers and growers as they negotiate their move from Footscray to a new market site at Epping.
In a decision handed down in the Supreme Court of Victoria last Thursday, the way was cleared for stallholders, represented by Fresh State, to not sign on to the government’s new lease conditions until details are agreed and without jeopardising their chances of securing stalls once the move to Epping is finally made.
The government, through the Melbourne Market Authority (MMA), has announced the Footscray market will close at the end of July next year, with the Epping market due to open in August.
Although there are fears that date has already blown out to early 2015, stallholders were told they had to sign new leases or their market spaces would be opened for national tenders.
Fresh Start chief executive John Roach described Thursday’s decision as a “landmark”.
It was a unanimous decision by all three sitting judges, who also awarded costs against the government. “When you’ve got three judges in agreement, that’s a huge win,” Mr Roach said. “For a government to be faced with a judgment of unconscionable conduct is not pretty.”
Mr Roach said the case stemmed from action taken in December last year by the MMA, which presented stallholders with leasing contracts offering them smaller and inadequate selling and storage spaces at Epping at double the rent they had been paying at Footscray.
They were offered less security of tenure and no assurances that local road networks would be upgraded in time to cope with an extra 4000 to 5000 trucks and cars every day.
“It was sign or lose your spot, which is unfair and unreasonable” Mr Roach said. “We are very willing to move on fair and reasonable terms.”
Thursday’s decision found that the MMA had tried to force stallholders to commit to new leases in order to justify work the MMA needed to undertake to complete the Epping market.
The MMA also claimed the Epping move was in the interests of both the state and the Victorian public because the Footscray site had been earmarked to use as a works and assembly depot for construction of the east-west tunnel.
Victorian Vegetable Growers Association president David Wallace said the court decision “gives everyone a bit of a breather”.
“We were being asked to pay more to go somewhere less convenient,” he said.
Mr Wallace, who grows capsicums for export from his Hume base in the Keilor valley, said traffic management at the new site remained a major issue.
“This was too big a job for government to be involved in,” Mr Wallace said. “They came in with a perceived idea of what they wanted, not what growers wanted.”
Growers finally face the government and the MMA over the commercial fairness of their lease contracts on October 28.
A spokesperson for Major Projects Minister David Hodgett said the aim remained to open the Epping market next year.
