Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In my contribution to this debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2014-2015 and related bills I wish to talk about the coalition government's support for the Rural Financial Counselling Service announced by Minister Joyce only yesterday. The Rural Financial Counselling Service program provides grants to state and regional organisations to provide rural financial counselling to primary producers, fishers and small rural businesses suffering financial hardship and who have no alternative sources of impartial support. The critical part of that is the impartial support. That is exactly what those in extreme circumstances need. What they need is sound, realistic support from someone who has no vested interest in the outcome of the decisions needing to be made, no matter what those decisions are—the decision to stay in that business or not.

Having been through this with fellow farmers I know that there are times when you need these services. The time you need them most is when you are at your most vulnerable, when no matter what you do you cannot control what is actually happening to you. It may be because of a series of droughts or extreme weather events or it may be because of continuous years of low prices for your product, and you may be at the end of your tether after literally worked your guts out for years. You have tried everything within your power to stay in business, but there is no light at the end of the tunnel and your whole situation appears to be hopeless. It is when you are at your most distressed and your most stressed, often struggling to work your way through the business and family issues, that your personal family relationships are also under the most pressure. The whole community suffers as well. With so many small rural communities relying on the profitability of the agricultural and farming sector, when the farmers are struggling, the local small businesses, the local community service and sporting and emergency service organisations all suffer as well. Farmers and their families directly contribute to all of these. This is how our communities actually function in regional Australia.

When you have had to watch your partner and your family suffer immeasurably—those people you love most who have stood by you and worked by your side year after year on the land you love, the property you have worked on perhaps all your life, which could be the farm that you brought as that young couple seeking an opportunity on the land—these support services can be crucial. For some businesses in that situation, impartial, reliable advice will help them work their way through their financial issues—some however will not be able to. It is inevitable that some primary producers and businesses will have no choice but to make the toughest decision of all—to sell, if they can, and leave their rural area. It is how this process is managed that matters most.

The Rural Financial Counselling Service in WA has been operating with its current board and structure since 2008. The core business of this service is to help farming businesses, the individuals, to come to terms with their circumstances of declining profits, increased costs and more complex marketing systems in a rapidly changing environment. The service adopted a strategy to make sure that farmers who engage with the service are taken through a legitimate counselling and business evaluation and management process—that all-important impartial, reliable advice. It allows people to deal with their personal emotional issues as well as their business issues; to work through the grief, the sense of loss, the enormous frustration about their change in fortunes and the absolutely debilitating sense of failure often brought about by changes that often totally out of their control—this is the family and business is crisis; and ultimately come to terms with the reality of their situation, which can mean either structural change back to perhaps being a profitable business or a more managed, dignified exit from their industry.

To me, the key principles of the WA service are critical in these situations—the principles of not building dependency in the people they work with and to work in a way that increases people's ability to make informed decisions for their business and family and, really importantly, to make these decisions from a calm, focused and informed position. An equally important principle is to have a clear focus on the family's opportunities. That critical 'light at the end of the tunnel'—the hope, the way out, the way forward—is important to all of us. We all cope so much better when we have a plan and know what the first step is that we need to take. That is what the service provides. For those who need the help of these services, it is most important to seek them before they are left without choices—before having to walk away from their property, their business and their life with nothing left.

I know the WA Rural Financial Counselling Service takes take their role very seriously They know they need to bring lifelong benefits to the people who need their services—the farming families and their communities. I really wish they had been around during the deregulation of the Western Australian dairy industry experience for my friends and colleagues and those who did not have access to a service like this. There are those who, to this day, are still overcome with grief and find it very difficult to come to terms with the decisions that they were forced to make at that time, and to deal with their pain, their sense of failure and the sense of not being in control. Some of these people that I see still cry over what they have been through. The difference between a farming business family that can come to terms with their situation, including the loss, and the ones that do not is massive. It can have lifelong effects—as I know only too well. One feeds into depression, suicide, the failure and the no future and the other takes what they have with energy into a different future—that of contributing, building and learning from the difficulties they have experienced.

So, from my experience in dairy and rural communities, I see that the real job of services like RFCSWA is to help people manage their individual circumstances and the process they need to go through, and to help the family understand and work through the grieving for their losses—the loss of their property, the loss of their dreams, the loss of the hopes of the young couple or individual who started out so many years ago and worked themselves to the bone. There is also perhaps that dreadful thought that, throughout this process, they may have robbed their sons and daughters of a future—the future sometimes being an opportunity of an education or an opportunity in the business—and the thought that they have to leave their community, their lifelong friends. This is part of what they have to go through, but it is a process the WA RFCS uses that returns the all-important sense of control and urgency to the person, the individual. Once a farming family regains focus on the decisions that have to be made, they will create their own solutions. This type of government program should never be a part of delaying the process of people coming to terms with the absolute reality of their position. That is why this service is so valuable in Western Australia. I am so pleased that we are supporting this service and the continuation of it—of assisting rural businesses and all the people involved to regain focus and find solutions.

RFCS WA's success is built around the fact that it takes the farming family on a journey either assisting to restore profitability in that business or leaving the business and industry with dignity. The farmer gains and takes ownership of the reality of the situation. The person who does not go through an ownership process but is made to fit a simplistic predetermined proposal is likely to be distracted by useless goals and delays their necessary adjustment by years—again, a damaging process to the individual and the business—with an ongoing loss of equity, opportunity and sometimes life itself.

One very important statistic from the RFCS program in WA relates to suicide. This is a very real risk in the challenges facing farming families. With the current approach to rural readjustment, the WA service has dealt with over 1,000 farming businesses across most agricultural sectors. This is the best indication of the effectiveness of the service: there has not been one suicide by either a farmer or a related family member.

The business planning process, while it is not perfect, combines appropriate tailored counselling skills and takes people on an appropriate journey to understand their position. It allows either restructure of the business or exit, but it maintains people's dignity, because they own the process. They are part of the decision-making process.

The way forward for farming families in financial difficulty needs to include the integration of economic, social and environmental factors. Adaptation is a process requiring recognition and management of loss and change—change can be very hard for people to deal with.    Extreme care is needed, because each person has their own individual issues and a simple, one-dimensional analysis can be harmful. A sound business planning framework is the vehicle to help people understand their current situation and future possibilities. But, most of all, I know that for the WA RFCS, each person is valued and respected—something that we all want and need. The person matters. Their family matters. Their future matters.

The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry in 2012 contracted PricewaterhouseCoopers to conduct a national performance audit of the fourteen Rural Financial Counselling Services in Australia. PWC said of the WA client engagement that it was 'better practice and/or innovation—delivering a higher level of service' when compared to other services across Australia. The report said:

Client services are well managed through the Organisation's Client Management Framework. This framework provides a one-page overview of the client management process and is an effective tool for ensuring that all key steps and decisions are made by the rural financial counsellors and for recording client decisions and outcomes.

It can be incorporated into client management files and used as a tool to review the performance of individual rural financial counsellors.

I have several reasons for having confidence in the WA service. Most importantly, I know that each person is valued and respected. The person matters, their family matters and their future matters.

Counsellors are meeting people often at the worst time in their lives. People like the chairman of the WA Rural Financial Counselling Service, Julian Krieg, take this particular personally. When we see families and businesses in such crisis, it is like dropping a stone in a bucket of water because of the ripple effect. It affects a whole lot of other businesses in that community. It affects a range of other families besides the individual family directly.

As I said earlier, during the time of such significant change in the dairy industry, there were many families who went through some very tough times. Many of them are no longer in the industry or in rural communities. I saw some small towns like Brunswick Junction lose some wonderful families who had contributed so much to that small community. We saw shops close. The ripple effect has a huge impact in our small regional communities.

I am very pleased that the coalition government is so committed to these types of services in rural and regional communities throughout Australia.

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