David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, it rocked your world. I was able to get the crossbenchers to change their minds and allow the Regional Investment Corporation to get through. That had Senator Wong and the member for Hunter scrambling all over the place, wondering who on the crossbench had changed their mind. We got it through. It's ready to start giving concessional loans. It's ready to roll on 1 July. Again we see the politicisation of trying to stop a piece of infrastructure—an investment in drought concessional loans. They're politicising drought and the hardship of these people. We are better than that. The member for Hunter is better than that—he is. He genuinely gets it. Unfortunately, he's decided to score cheap political points rather than come on the journey of trying to make a difference in those people's lives. In regional and rural Australia they're doing it tough at the moment. There's a way forward, and this parliament can find that. I know the member for Hunter can do that. The reality is that we are putting that framework in place.

The piece that I'm most excited about with what we are doing for farm household assistance is that we're not just handing out money every fortnight; we're allocating a case worker to each one of these people. So it's not just a handout—they'll sit down with them. We've invested an extra $20 million in rural financial counsellors: that's going to secure their services to 2020, and around $3½ million of that will go to increased services for demand. So we'll have someone that's going to sit around the kitchen table with people, get under the bonnet of their business and have the tough conversations. We've got to be honest. Some people are going to have to make some tough decisions about what their future is, but that needs to be done in a calm and decisive way. They need time, and by extending the farm household assistance by a year, we give them that time and we let them have those conversations with dignity and respect. They'll have those conversations with the experts. They'll sit down and have the conversation about whether they should continue or not. This is about making sure the right decisions are made with the right mindset.

While we were out in western Queensland and western New South Wales, we also made an additional commitment of $2 million towards online psychological services. People in drought-affected areas are fatigued and hurting, particularly in parts of my electorate that have been drought-affected for up to seven years. They need some help and they need the help in an emotional sense. Being able to reach out, and having the ability to do it from the privacy of their own home, is important to them. It's important that we all agree—I know those opposite join me—that the stigma of mental health should never be such that someone would never ask for help. We live in a great country. This investment is about allowing people to reach out. I ask everybody, whether you're okay or not, to reach out to someone near you and ask whether they are okay. I have seen firsthand the emotional torment that some people are going through after seven years without an income—seven years without seeing what their blood, sweat and toil could become. It's heartbreaking.

It's important that we make those investments, not only in a financial sense but in an emotional sense. That's why what this government has done with respect to farm household assistance and other drought assistance packages is to make sure it's a whole measure—around emotional and financial support, and making sure we're investing in the resilience of regional and rural Australia and of our farmers. I'm proud to say that the farm household assistance will give our farmers that dignity, and the opportunity to reflect and to be able to work through the issues they need to work through to ensure they can make the right decisions for themselves, their families and their communities. I commend the bill to the House.

Question negatived.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

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