Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

It has not been the best week for the National Party. We had a drought announcement, which was trumped by the Prime Minister last week. We've got their deputy leader under siege from within. On Monday we had Senate estimates confirming that the Drought Communities Program has been excluding thousands of regional Australians, based on an arbitrary threshold around employment. We heard that only 14 per cent of their fake $7 billion drought package is actually for the immediate assistance of farmers. We've had a backflip on the eligibility criteria for the Drought Communities Program, with a review dropped to one journalist. But, then, only yesterday it appeared that the review wasn't actually happening and that they in fact look like they're cancelling the program altogether and coming up with something else, and we see this leak that there's now going to be some future drought stimulus package to communities. All the while, as this chaos has been happening and the government has been failing, over its now seven years in office, to actually have a proper plan for the drought and a proper drought strategy, we've seen communities across the country suffering.

In contrast, Labor has spent the fortnight trying to work with the government on drought. We are urging the government not to give up on our farming communities and our food systems and to release the drought coordinator's report. This is an important report that will enable government to start to have a national drought strategy and to convene a drought cabinet. Our proposals are a genuine attempt to work with the government in any way we can to support rural communities doing it tough. Our offers fell on deaf ears, meaning that we see the government now scrambling around and trying to find a solution to what has been a very long-term problem.

Looking specifically again at the Drought Communities Program, which is administered by the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development: this program provides relatively small amounts of money, a few million dollars, directly to local governments, allegedly to stimulate the local economy. If done well, it can be a sensible and good approach. But under this government's watch we've seen this program bungled. I received an email today from a South Australian—in fact, from the member for Barker's electorate—who was concerned that contractors working on a Drought Communities Program project in his home town of Morgan were in fact not from the local town but from well over an hour away. What is the point of local stimulus if you don't actually employ locals?

Projects have included toilet blocks at cemeteries, fences in areas where they've not necessarily had any economic impact, music festivals, a sailing club upgrade, new town signs and, of course, cemetery upgrades. The government needs to do a much better job explaining how some of these projects are actually improving lives in drought-affected communities. I note that to be deemed eligible, councils need to satisfy rainfall and primary industry employment criteria set by the minister after analysis by the department. But the announcements of eligibility appear to be made to suit the political needs of the minister and not the economic needs of rural and regional Australians.

The first round was announced in 2015-16 and the second round in September last year. Further councils were added to the second round three times over 2019, including 14 councils added during the election campaign. Because this was during caretaker, no analysis was undertaken by the department. The last batch, in late September, included the Moyne Shire Council, which, as we know, has refused the money and urged the government to reallocate it to other communities. As we know from estimates, that money has not been reallocated. In fact, there is actually no process for councils to apply for this program. We've seen communities under stress excluded from the program because of the arbitrary decisions of the program and the minister. Rural communities across Labor-held seats in New South Wales—Singleton, Yass, Eurobodalla, Kiama and Shoalhaven—are experiencing the effects of drought but they have missed out on this money.

On Tuesday, I welcomed the soft announcement of a review of this program, but it does now appear that that review is off the table. The leaked announcement overnight that we have seen on the media today would be all well and good if we could in fact trust the Nationals to administer these funds fairly throughout regional Australia and treat drought affected communities all across the country equally. (Time expired)

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