Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

It is with pleasure that I support the Farm Household Support Amendment (Additional Drought Assistance Measures) Bill 2008, not because I am a supporter of drought—in fact I oppose drought quite dramatically—but because I think it is appropriate that governments of all persuasions support those people, the farming community, who are suffering from drought. It is good to see the current government in the budget papers carrying on the assistance that the previous government put in place for drought affected farmers.

As I speak, in parts of Australia, particularly the grain-growing belt of the north-west and New England, rain is falling. Hopefully it will fall in many other areas so that the need for such assistance long term will be wiped out by some degree of prosperity in the farming community. This drought has been going on for many years and there has been a degree of support from various governments—household support such as we are looking at tonight. Exceptional circumstance and business assistance has also been in place. From time to time the government has used supposedly appropriate figures for exceptional circumstance and household assistance to display that there has been an enormous amount of assistance going to the farm community. In fact, if you look back through the figures for the last six to seven years of the drought, the assistance that has been given to the building industry comes to mind particularly because of the first home owners scheme, which was set up, as you would remember, Mr Deputy Speaker, in response to the impact of the goods and services tax on the building industry. Something like $7 billion has been expended in that time in assistance to the building industry via the first home owners scheme. I think many commentators would suggest that in a lot of ways that has not helped first home owners. It has probably inflated the value of the properties and houses that have been purchased. Nonetheless, from time to time, in the media at least, arguments are produced that there has been an enormous amount of money allocated to the farm community to support it during drought.

If people refer to the actual spending that has taken place over a period of years, they will see there have been quite small sums of money—some hundreds of millions of dollars on average. To other industry groups in Australia—the car industry; the building industry, as I mentioned; the oil industry; and many other industries—there is something like $12 billion to $15 billion annually of assistance. The amount of assistance to the farming community on average over that period has been $200 million to $300 million. That is for one of the most important industries in Australia—and I refer to the exceptional circumstance business assistance arrangements that have been put in place.

Many people, including the politicians in this place, like to refer to exceptional circumstances drought assistance as not only being business assistance. I am pleased to see the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry here because I think he is aware that the figures for exceptional circumstances drought assistance have on average, since the drought started, represented quite a small amount of money in total. It is some hundreds of millions of dollars annually, but compared to other industries—the car industry; the housing industry, through the first home owners scheme; the oil industry et cetera—it is a small amount of money.

What has happened in terms of the politics of drought assistance is that the exceptional circumstance household support has been bracketed in as being some sort of business support to agriculture. Technically, if you are unemployed in this country at the moment—and household support is the payment of an unemployment benefit to those who cannot work—you can apply for unemployment benefits. In the farm sector’s case, where they are not unemployed but they are not earning an income—so in that technical sense both an unemployed person and the farm sector, if they pass the criteria in relation to exceptional circumstances, are the same—they will be considered the same as the unemployed because they are not earning an income.

But some politicians tend to refer to the combination of both the household assistance—which is the unemployment benefit, Newstart—and the business assistance as being drought support. Drought support in my view is exceptional circumstances business assistance.

I have just had a message that it is raining at home as we speak. Being a practising farmer I am pleased to see it is raining at home and I am glad my wife called to tell me.

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