John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Riverina for her question. Of course she, along with many other members in the Liberal and National parties, constantly has the interests of Australian farmers and rural Australia at heart. The Australian Labor Party are busy getting rid of the one and only farmer they did have and replacing him with another trade union official. I say to the member for Riverina, as I have been able to say to farmers around Australia already, that earlier today I announced an additional $430 million in drought assistance measures to provide security to farmers in the grip of the worst drought on record, many of whom face a very unhappy and uncertain situation over the coming spring.

Today’s announcement will extend the 38 areas of agricultural production currently EC declared until March 2008 through until September 2008. That will provide plenty of advance warning and assurance to those farmers who are sorely in need of both our understanding and our assistance, although that understanding and assistance and the need for it falls far short of their desperate need for Mother Nature to provide some rain. This particular extension alone will cost some $340 million.

I might also inform the House that there are many farmers in Western Australian agricultural zones and in Tasmania outside already declared areas that have experienced low rainfall for the past 18 months and have a less than 50 per cent chance of receiving average rainfall in the next three months. However, they are not currently covered by EC declarations. These farmers are facing the very grim prospect of a second consecutive failed season, so today I have announced interim EC assistance for those further areas of Western Australia and Tasmania. This will provide access to income support to approximately an additional 4,000 farmers in these two states and it will allow the state governments to focus their efforts on completing applications for full exceptional circumstances assistance, which includes interest rate subsidy payments. Importantly, this will mean there is no delay in payments to farmers while state governments prepare their paperwork. The estimated cost of this additional measure is some $90 million.

The government continues, and I thank my colleague the minister for agriculture on this matter, to have under consideration some other proposals that have been put to it by the National Farmers Federation and others to see whether there should be some further alterations to those already announced by the government to the operation of the exceptional circumstances assistance. Let me say to the farmers of Australia: we will stand, as a government, shoulder to shoulder with you through this terrible drought. Fortunately, this nation is strong enough fiscally and strong enough economically to give help to our fellow Australians so desperately affected by this terrible drought.

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