Vineyard calls for cash

By Kath Gannaway
YARRA Glen vineyard operator Greg Liney is holding on by his fingertips as he struggles to survive the financial aftermath of Black Saturday.
He, like others in tourism, viticulture and retail industries across the Yarra Valley, has fallen through one of many cracks in the recovery system.
Mr Liney lost his ’09 crop, with more than half the vineyard he leases on the Healesville-Yarra Glen Road burnt, but he said he was fortunate it has recovered to about 75 per cent and has produced a good crop.
The crop is worth $200,000 and he has a contract with a local winery to buy the grapes.
Mr Liney said he started picking two weeks ago with the few thousand dollars he had managed to keep hold of over the past year but says he was faced with a situation where with the first payment for the grapes not due until the end of April, and unable to get bridging finance to carry him over, he had no guarantee of being able to harvest from one day to the next. Mr Liney said the financial impact of the fires is not restricted to just one financial year and believes banks and the government through the Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority (VBRRA), should be doing more to assist individual businesses.
As he leases the vineyard, his only collateral is his Chum Creek home, which is mortgaged to Bendigo Bank, and his crop.
He is lucky to have the house. The fire burnt up to the verandah posts and wiped out sheds on the property.
The bank’s 12 month hold on mortgage repayments ran out earlier this month and his attempts to get further finance through the bank, and through the Rural Finance Bank, have been unsuccessful.
“I need an injection of $50,000 that I can pay back over five to 10 years, to enable me to both keep my house, and continue to operate what has proved to be a successful business,” Mr Liney said.
“I’m not asking the banks to be charitable. They should be going to the government and saying some of our customers are in trouble, and working together to ensure businesses don’t just fall through the cracks.”
Mr Liney argues the financial repercussions he and others in business are facing should not be taken in isolation.
“You get very single minded, can only deal with one thing at a time and my focus has been on the vineyard and trying to get it profitable,” he said of the challenges of the past year.
“I haven’t had time lift a finger to start fixing anything at home; between the vineyard and making time to see the psychologist, doctors, case managers and DHS … you just can’t process all this stuff,” he said.
Mr Liney told the Mail on Sunday that eleventh hour negotiations with the winery would see his crop harvested.