David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Minister for Water Resources, Drought, Rural Finance, Natural Disaster and Emergency Management) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Cowper for his question. Over the summer, I witnessed firsthand his leadership, not only in supporting his communities that went through these fires back in November, putting his arms around them and getting them through this time of grief, but also in the recovery—only last week, when I was in Dorrigo visiting a number of farmers and small businesses and understanding what the next phase of the recovery is. They were very appreciative of the initial support that was handed out by the federal government through the disaster recovery payments of $1,000 per person and $400 per child. We then doubled that as we came up to the start of the school year to give those families, those individuals, some dignity and respect and for them to have some money in their pocket to get the essentials on the table to get them through that initial period.

But now it's about working through the longer-term recovery and the clean-up, and that's around the $75,000 recovery payments to our farmers and $50,000 to our small businesses to help them clean up and get the infrastructure to build back better, to give them the resilience they need to move forward. It's also been around making sure that they have access to interest-free loans to help their cash flow—taking away the interest and repayments that their banks would be charging them—whether it's through the RIC, for farmers, or through small-business loans through the state agencies.

That's been important, but today as a parliament we have come together to pass legislation—in fact, only a couple of hours ago in the Senate—to make sure that the payments we have put forward are tax free, that the Australian Taxation Office is working with the parliament in our will to make sure that we support those people that have been supported.

Mr Fitzgibbon interjecting—

I take the interjection, member for Hunter. This is a serious issue, with all due respect. These are people's lives we're playing with. This isn't churlish politics.

The reality is we'll continue to focus on the recovery of those families out there. And the ATO is moving further, around ensuring the deferment of GST payments and also tax returns so that those who want to change the cycle of their GST to monthly to get a refund can do that, and those that have PAYG instalments can defer them. They're some practical solutions about putting money back in their pockets.

As we heard from those communities in Dorrigo, they want a local recovery, not a Canberra recovery. Andrew Colvin and I will be out travelling the country making sure that it's tailored through these individual local economic zones to make sure the recovery is tailored to them. That's being complemented, as we heard, around the impacts the tourism industry has had. That $76 million package that we put out there for tourism isn't just about putting bums on seats from overseas to Australia; it's about getting Australians out there supporting one another. We all have a role to play in this, and each Australian can help another Australian by getting out, visiting our country, supporting one another, helping us to survive through this tragedy but then thrive.

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