Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Let me make it very clear to the parliamentary secretary: we are not opposing the bill; that is not what is being suggested here. I do think that there is an issue about definitions. You said when referring to small businesses that the term just did not matter, that it was not important. So therefore you should have no difficulty accepting the amendments put by the opposition. It is very clear to us that whatever definition you use for small business, a small business is not one which has 100 people in it. The ABS defines a small business as one which employs five to 19 individuals. Now we have got a definition which tells us that a small business is one which employs up to 100 people. Frankly, I am not quite sure where that is coming from. There is no question about accepting the interest rates support that you have referred to and the household support, but tell me what household has 100 people in it. What is going on here?

Let us get it very clear: we are concerned about making sure that the drought relief, the support, is given to those people who most need it. We are concerned to ensure that the application process is not impeded by bureaucratic processes which prevent people getting access to the support that they require—and that is why we have been critical of the past performance. It was estimated that there would be 17½ thousand applications in the previous scheme and that 14,000 would be successful. We hear that 452 applications were received and only 182 were successful. What was behind all that? How could you make such a wrong assumption?

What are the assumptions that you have put into this current bill? How many people do you estimate, in the current arrangements, will apply? You have already said that since, I think, the end of last year there have been 280 applications and 69 per cent of them have been successful. How many applications do you estimate you will receive between now and the end of the program in 2008, when it is due to expire, and how many do you think will be successful? And what are the reasons that applications are not successful? What advice can we now give to the Australian community about how they can be successful? What are the things that impede people from accessing this assistance? We need to know that and it is important that the people who live on the land know that.

Those people who are affected by drought should have absolute confidence that when they make an application, in the way that is being proposed by the government, they will not be in the 31 per cent who will not be successful. They should be able to enter that process knowing that in all probability—not with certainty but in all probability—they will be successful. And if they are not being successful then it should be up to the government to publicise very openly the reasons, not why individuals are not successful but what the causes are for people not being successful. When we know that, we can then address the issues, and it might also explain the previous abysmal performance. Not only was the application process a problem, and there were obviously definitional issues which have been referred to by the member for Lowe, but clearly there have been other reasons why people were not successful. We the parliament, the Australian community, need to know those reasons so we can tell those people who are so badly affected by drought currently and into the future that they can have confidence when making applications to get the relief they so badly require. They need to have confidence when they make an application that they will not be frustrated at the end of the day because they have not been successful; they need to have every chance of being successful. I think that is something the government ought to put to rest today—and you have got the opportunity to do it now.

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