John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I thought that might be correct. As I said earlier, I think Keith Perrett has done a good job—being chairman of that body is probably a pretty thankless job. I hope the reason for extending the term of service is not because you intend for it not to exist any more.

The interest rate subsidy, as I said before, has a very big social component—if not for the farmers concerned then for the towns that depend on the money that the farmers spend. I am well aware that the small business side has not been taken up to a big extent partly because they have a totally different structure from farming. It has not been taken up to a large extent by the town small businesses.

Minister Burke, I think you have been too frightened to change it in case you make a mistake. We changed it a lot to take into account the changes and the length of the drought. You should too—come to us for advice on what to do and how to change it, if you want. I am well aware that you are much more fascinated by the National Party than you are by agriculture. That is fine—we are quite happy for you to concentrate on us; you won’t be concentrating on your politics! This is an extraordinarily serious issue. To simply assume that if you do what we did you will keep it out of trouble is not true. Some areas now have gone even longer into drought. I never dreamt I would see a drought this long in my lifetime; I never want to see another one. Irrigation is something the government should think about. The irrigators have not had water even if the dryland people have.

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