Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Minister for Workforce Participation) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Gwydir for his question. Of course, he knows only too well the impacts—the financial, social and psychological impacts—of drought on so much of rural and regional Australia at the moment. When we were first elected in 1996, it was very evident that not much had been done for the unemployed. It was a case of shifting around the deck chairs. Mickey mouse courses tended to be the way it went—anything so Labor could disguise the real unemployment figures. So one of the first things we did in 1997 was to introduce Work for the Dole. It has been hugely successful, with over half a million people in the last 10 years helped to a new life.

Building on the experience of Work for the Dole, we looked at how that program might be tweaked and a further program evolved which would in particular address the problems in rural and regional drought affected areas, where there was a loss of rural workers. This is fairly self-evident to people in the country. When you have drought impacting on your farm, there is an enormous extra workload: there are livestock that have to be kept fed, there is water carting, feeding—a whole range of work that needs all hands to the mill. But, sadly, incomes also plummet, so many of our farms have had to let their rural workers go. Not only do you lose the labour on the farms that is essential but your own local communities can be downsized to the point where your schools, fire brigades, service clubs, sports clubs—the very fabric of your local community—are downsized and therefore threatened; they may become nonviable.

So we introduced Drought Force. Drought Force is all about those who have lost their jobs in an EC declared area being able to volunteer to work on farms. It is interesting that no-one opposite is really interested in this, because they do not represent rural and regional Australia. But perhaps they might like to tune in, because it does impact on the rest of the country as well.

If you volunteer to Drought Force because you have lost your job in an EC declared area, you can work on a farm property for 2½ days a week. Indeed, in most cases we see people volunteering to work full time. In return, you are paid Newstart allowance. So the farmer has your labour, but of course he cannot afford to pay. In addition to the Newstart allowance and some $20.80 extra a fortnight, the worker also receives a $1,600 training credit paid in two instalments. Right now, as we speak, there are people on Drought Force throughout drought affected Australia carting water, feeding stock, milking cows, fixing fences and cleaning out dams, but their very existence in that small local community is part of the fabric of that local life. Drought Force is one of the key ways that our government will ensure that our farm communities survive not only financially but also socially and psychologically.

I ask that those opposite call on their state colleagues in state governments—particularly Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland—and ask them to also take this drought seriously. I am ashamed to be a Victorian, where our Victorian government has its hands in the pockets of farmers, charging them for water they are not delivering. It is a disgrace. The same is happening in New South Wales. This government, the John Howard government, is helping drought affected communities to survive. I call on the states to do likewise.

See this speech in context