Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

—I move:

That the House:

(1)

recognise the seriousness of the drought situation across rural Australia; and

(2)

calls on the Government to:

(a)

recognise the need for long term commitment for Exceptional Circumstances (EC) declared areas, and to provide continued support to allow those areas to fully recover from the drought;

(b)

look at the history of EC declared areas and the direct correlation between longevity of declaration and hardship inflicted;

(c)

commit to the extension of support programs to allow those areas to fully recover regardless of meeting current EC requirements; and

(d)

extend EC assistance to all rural based businesses who meet the criteria.

I have put this motion together in a very precise and concise way. It is no secret that we have had a significant ongoing drought right across many areas of Australia, none more so than in my electorate of Riverina. My concern and the reason for putting this private members’ business to the House is to alert the minister that there is a need for some dramatic and drastic urgent changes to be made to our current EC policy. Whilst I recognise that there is a transitional phase—transitional income support—when people are coming out of drought, I do not believe that it adequately covers the requirements that the many farmers and businesses will require to move themselves forward as a result of this ongoing drought.

The process is that you have regional stress, you lobby the state government and you then put in an application for EC. Then of course comes the issue of having to collect the meteorological data. The proponent collates and analyses the meteorological data with respect to EC meteorological criteria. That is the problem. There is and will be many areas that may have experienced recent rains that may not in fact meet these EC meteorological criteria, but it is a fact that many businesses and farmers will not be able to continue if they are not able to access a continuation of income support and interest rate subsidy. I look at all those small businesses in rural communities and I look at the 9 October press release from the minister, the Hon. Tony Burke, that says:

Many farm businesses have significantly increased the debt they are carrying, as the drought has dragged on.

The drought saw average farm debt in Australia grow from $238,000 per farm in 2001-02 to around $702,000 per farm in 2006-07.

The minister goes on to say:

Interest rate relief on farm debt will provide a significant boost after many years of financial pressure.

I just tell the minister this: there is no interest rate relief for our farmers; there is no interest rate relief for our small businesses. In fact the interest rate relief that was announced last week only applied to homeowners. It has not applied to these farming families. There has been no relief for these farming families. So it is very timely that I place this motion on the record in order to raise the plight of those people who are desperately trying to ensure their future progress, but they require the support of the government to do so.

When you have a full EC assessment NRAC conducts a comprehensive assessment of all the meteorological rarity, the impact on production and the downturn in income. Under EC criteria in the past there have been fewer than two crop losses in a row in most cases. Here we have extenuating circumstances where we are seeing three crop losses, four crop losses and five crop losses in a row. These are circumstances that were never envisaged under the old EC program, under the old EC criteria.

I urge the minister to urgently look at the recovery phase for businesses, community members and farming families in rural and regional Australia that have been affected by drought and who may be coming out of EC declaration, to ensure that they will have ongoing support so that they can meet the demands of the future for food production in Australia but also to ensure that they have their entitlement to enable them to live and work in rural and regional areas. This is an urgent cry for assistance to ensure ongoing drought relief past that available under normal circumstances of an EC declaration and to make changes to effect that.

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