Nearly all recent major property sales have gone to overseas buyers or expanding Australian farming families, and all of these properties need competent managers and workers with a wide knowledge of animal husbandry, machinery operation along with plant and crop management.

To this end, the Victorian government is to be applauded in providing funds to upgrade tertiary facilities, particularly on-site accommodation, across the state.

Training on the job was the go in the past, but now sophisticated machinery and management practices have moved away from seat-of-the-pants experience.

The increased funding of TAFE agriculture training programs is welcome and could even provide a pathway to many seeking to gain future higher qualifications.

Now our educators need to pick up the ball and turnout graduates equipped to handle the rapid advances in plant and livestock breeding along with the implementation of sweeping technology.

Taxing problem

The old adage that you cannot tax a way out of financial trouble applies to a proposed levy on fossil fuel producers for a National Climate Disaster Fund.

The fund is the brainchild of the Australia Institute, with close links to the ALP, which believes the escalating cost of natural disasters is driven by climate change.

Money would be raised for the fund through a $1 levy per tonne of carbon pollution on fossil fuel production in Australia, which would currently raise around $1.5 billion a year. They contend that natural disasters are estimated to currently cost Australians around $13 billion per year.

These costs will rise dramatically as the frequency and intensity of fires, floods, drought and heatwaves increase due to climate change, unless emissions are cut.

Seems a little odd that those bleating fossil fuels are the cause of all our ills and need to disappear as soon as possible, tax them as they go down the gurgler.

It is also evident that the Australia Institute is not listening to the debate caused by the resignation of Joel Fitzgibbon from the national shadow ministry.

Anyhow Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore has chimed in with "The devastating fires, burning across NSW at unprecedented levels, are just the latest reminder that climate change is increasing the severity and frequency of natural disasters."

Of course the esteemed Lord Mayor has seen bushfires, droughts and floods in the city of Sydney. Before jumping on a disaster bandwagon she should tootle off to the harbour and check sea levels and make sure the Opera House will not disappear with an incoming neap tide.

Also backing the idea is former Prime Minster Turnbull which will ensure the idea does not advance.