Fears government land grab at Twelves Apostles will ground helicopter business

Owner Richard Nesseler said after two years of pandemic lockdowns, the move to take 32 hectares of his sheep farm was like the "nail in the coffin" for his business.

He said the business was only operating at 35 per cent of what it was pre-pandemic.

Under the government's plans, the helicopter site would be annexed from the acquired land and while the government says it would allow it to keep operating, Mr Nesseler said plans to revegetate the land around it prevented it doing so safely.

"We haven't got any safe passage in or out of that helipad," he said.

CASA guidelines require adequate buffers around the site and Mr Nesseler fears it will leave him with no choice but to close.

Mr Nesseler said he was speaking out to make the public aware of his plight after receiving no response from the government which goes into caretaker mode next week ahead of the election.

He is nervously waiting for his land to be acquired in the next couple of days.

Lawyers have been engaged because "there was too much at stake".

Development Victoria was seeking to bypass standard planning processes - by getting ministerial sign-off - to acquire the land. It would deny Mr Nesseler the chance to put his case to an independent panel.

"It's an extraordinary set of circumstances where they don't really have the grounds to do that," he said.

Mr Nesseler said it was an option that was usually exercised for a road, school or hospital that was urgently needed, not for a tourist development.

The government is planning to build a new tourist information centre on the land.

"It is very strange times," he said. "This is a really scary precedent what is trying to take place here."

Mr Nesseler said there was talk the government had set aside $2.3 million for land acquisition of the site.

"I think they're dreaming if that's the case, and particularly if they have to compensate us for our tourism tour business," he said.

The real cost could be as high as $50 million for a $108 million tourism development.

Mr Nesseler said it was about being able to operate his business and farm his land which had been in the family for three generations and almost 50 years.

The pandemic left him unable to operate for about 18 months and he had to sell off part of his fleet.

"What a kicker this is," he said.

He said the land acquisition was "probably the toughest thing" he'd ever had to go through.

Mr Nesseler said he had been willing to privately build the tourism infrastructure that had been desperately needed for decades.

"It's not about profiting, it's about keeping our land which we think is far more valuable than any tourist development along there for the future," he said.

"The government in their wisdom are saying 'no, we're going to take the land away from you and build exactly what you've proposed to build here and then we're going to put private business on it to profit from it and it won't be you'.

"I don't know what we've done to deserve this, honestly.

"It's not a walk in the park here. There's a lot of hard work behind the scene. There's a lot of risks that have been taken that small business do day in, day out. The government is just swooping in and taking all that away from us."

Three hectares of land is leased to the government for the current Twelve Apostles visitor centre, but under the plan the government wants an area "16 times the playing surface of the MCG" to build a building and car park on.

"It's a bit of an overreach," Mr Nesseler said.

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