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.
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 blown out to early 2015, stallholders were told they had to sign new leases or their market spaces would be opened for national tenders.
In a decision handed down in the Supreme Court of Victoria late last month, 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. This would not jeopardise their chances of securing stalls once the move to Epping is finally made.
Fresh Start chief executive John Roach, who operates at the Footscray market, described the unanimous decision by all three sitting judges as a “landmark”.
“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.”
Costs were also awarded against the government.
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.
The court found that the MMA had tried to force stallholders to commit to new leases in order to justify work it 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.
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.
