Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Maranoa for the question. Obviously, I have an acute knowledge of the seat of Maranoa, having lived there for quite a while, having started a business there. There was a Senate office that was further from the coast than any other Senate office in the history of this nation, which shows our belief in regional areas.

It is with great pleasure today that we announce a $100 million facility for further assistance, at a rate of 3.21 per cent over 10 years, giving people access to this money for 10 years. I also note the member for Parkes, Mark Coulton, who has done so much work towards this—3.21 per cent for 10 years; five years interest only; five years PNI; borrowing up to $1 million. This is to help people who are dealing with those droughts—a one-in-100-year drought in so many areas—but it also gives consideration to those who are near that one-in-100-year drought area. It also deals with people who have to deal with the ravages of the cessation of the live cattle trade to Indonesia—something that fully lays on the shoulders of the other side who closed it down and absolutely decimated those people's lives and decimated their incomes. It has been left to this side to try to fix it up. We are very proud of the work we have done here on agriculture. We are very proud of the work that the coalition has done, because it was under your government, the previous government—just to start off, you halved the size of the budget in agriculture. If you—

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