Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My colleague has just pointed out the difference that we have and why we have moved this amendment. It would certainly make a difference if instead of calling it ‘small business’ you called it ‘eligible business’. We would not have a problem if the definition of ‘eligible’ was a business that was having difficulties under the criteria, and if it could meet the criteria it could go on. There is some sort of reason that the government wants to use the term ‘small business’, but it needs to take it away from a definition. We would look at the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ terminology in that area. It states that small business is five to 19 employees who are involved in that business, not 100 as the bill puts forward.

The opposition has great concern that the last time the government tried to do something on this it failed dismally. The audit shows that. It is a shame that those in the National Party—the honourable member for Parkes, the half minister, is sitting at the table; he used to work for the farmers union but he has not been out there screaming and hollering to get this rectified—have let it go through to the keeper without really getting on board and making something happen even earlier than this. That is why we are concerned. It failed dismally. The government failed to put in place something that was going to achieve its goals. It estimated that there would be 17,000 applications, but 452 applied and 182 were able to be assisted.

There were a lot of people who suffered and a lot of people who did not get what the government said they were going to give them. That is what occurred. People suffered and probably lost their businesses. Their businesses probably do not exist now because of this. But they could probably have come back into play in better times if they had had some assistance. So from all the huff and bluff, all the rhetoric about how brilliant the government are at looking after regional Australia, they did not do it—they failed miserably.

We have moved that amendment in good faith. I would have thought that the government could have given it some consideration. I take what the parliamentary secretary at the dispatch box has said and I wish her well on her tour to Tasmania. When the member for Hotham was the minister in this area there was national drought policy development and a Rural Adjustment Scheme, which allowed for the assistance of farmers in times of exceptional circumstances but it was not limited to drought—there are other exceptional circumstances.

Under exceptional circumstances criteria, it cannot have rained for a certain period. The point I was making about Tasmania is that, while it might rain there, the rain and the moisture content in the ground do not achieve anything. South Australia has a similar problem with these criteria, which were set up for New South Wales and Queensland not for the other states. We need to assess the criteria and have another look at them. That is what I am asking for, and I think we should do that as a country. Both major parties should be looking at this to assist people when they get into trouble.

Of course, the bigger issue that we should be dealing with is that drought is an ongoing phenomenon that is a part of our country and a part of our landscape. So we have to drought-proof ourselves and come up with ideas on crops that will grow with less water, and all those sorts of opportunities. There are exceptional times when we get there, but we have to be smarter than we have been in the past, when we just accepted drought as drought. There are a lot of other things we have to think about and we have to introduce intellectual rigour into this debate. Labor certainly did that in government, and I think we did it a lot better than this government. I am disappointed that we have not been able to pick up our simple amendment, which I think would have made this a better bill in the long term. (Time expired)

Question negatived.

Bill agreed to.

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