Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to raise an issue which is very important in the electorate of Barker, which I have the honour to represent. Many people across this nation of ours but especially those in the electorate of Barker are affected by the flow-on effect of drought and water shortages to small businesses, most particularly in the Riverland and Murraylands regions. Drought is something we cannot control, yet its devastating economic effects are felt more and more each day. To put it into perspective, my electorate of Barker, covering 64,000 square kilometres, is 10 per cent larger than Tasmania. One hundred per cent of Barker is either in drought or not far off it. So in my electorate alone an area larger than Tasmania is struggling due to drought. While heavy rains last year heralded the end of the drought in much of the eastern states, South Australia remains in the grip of one of the worst droughts on record. The Riverland and Murraylands areas of my electorate are facing an unprecedented economic crisis as the lack of water in the River Murray system leads to a dramatic contraction in business.

While drought directly affects farmers, it also has a flow-on effect to the businesses that rely on servicing farmers. Shop owners across the Riverland tell me that their towns are feeling the impact of the downturn in the irrigation industries. At least 19 shops in Renmark alone have shut since last June or are expected to close by the end of this year. Operators say businesses in Berri, Barmera, Loxton and Waikerie also have closed or are closing. Takings at the Renmark Country Club and the Renmark Hotel Motel, for example, have plummeted by 30 per cent. The hardware chain of stores in Berri, Barmera, Renmark and Loxton report business downturn of 10 per cent and in many cases much more. A major tractor and implements sales dealer estimates his sales to be down by up to 40 per cent on the same time last year and even last year was down on the previous years. So we are really seeing a contraction in the local area. Even the local newsagency reports the impact as quite severe.

In short, the crisis in the Riverland’s once-mighty irrigation industries and small businesses is taking a horrific toll. More and more Riverland families are struggling to put food on the table as spending tightens. Many growers have their properties on the market, but there are few, if any, buyers, which is very understandable. Throughout the Riverland, a growing number of workers have also been made redundant. Employment has declined dramatically, welfare problems are rapidly worsening and a greater number of people are forced to seek work outside the region. Conditions in the Riverland are now worse than they were during the recession we had to have in the early 1990s.

Increasing numbers of schoolchildren are on the school card, with the Renmark High principal estimating a 20 per cent increase in applications for assistance this year. The economic downturn is very tough in the Riverland and the Murraylands and it is even tougher around the Lower Lakes area around Meningie, Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert.

But, although the crisis is hitting the region hard, worse is yet to come as irrigators were told just last week that they will not get more water this year from the River Murray system and in fact they will be starting with zero allocations. Many growers have survived the past year—just—by borrowing and using their superannuation and life savings, but, with their reserves exhausted, they face a very difficult and bleak future. Even the wine growers are being squeezed—and I beg them to excuse this terrible pun. As I move through my electorate, I talk to a lot of growers who are at the end of their tether. Bankers will no longer finance many growers to buy water this year, and this will lead to people walking away from their properties—the sorts of things that we saw in the Great Depression.

Many growers are telling me they are considering whether they can actually continue this next season. It might have rained heavily in the catchment areas in parts of the eastern states, but the drought has not gone away in my electorate. The continuation of the drought is having a devastating impact in the Riverland and Murraylands and it is all too obvious that the region will struggle to survive until the River Murray system recovers and produces normal irrigation allocations. As the drought sends small businesses to the wall, there is a corresponding increase in the number of people accessing counselling and mental health services. Families have to deal with the increasing stress of family members who are suffering depression but whose economic circumstances mean they have difficulty in affording mental health care and medications.

It was the coalition government which introduced drought assistance measures, but it remains the fact that the Rann state Labor government must do more to secure the future of the Riverland and Murraylands areas. Current South Australian state government measures are inadequate. Basically, they form a committee, write a report and tell us all our problems—as if we did not know. We are seeing a loss of skilled workers, social upheaval and environmental degradation, which always happens when you do not have the resources to spend on improving the environment. Unfortunately, the Rudd Labor government’s first budget did not offer any hope for rural and regional South Australians, slashing over $1 billion in funding to rural and regional projects.

The Prime Minister has to understand that the world does not end in the eastern states. As a local member in the Riverland, I am heartened by the ingenuity and determination of Riverland residents in the face of this horrible adversity. Recently a group of Riverland businesses and community groups banded together with the intention of creating a Riverland arts trail. Similar to the Riverland Wine and Food Trail, the arts trail aims to bring the work of local artists to the attention of both locals and tourists alike. The concept of tourists coming into the area in pursuit of art and staying the weekend has merit and potential. Regrettably, the Prime Minister does not share this vision, with Labor’s budget slashing funding to Regional Arts Australia and imposing taxes on the tourism industry and tourists, which will keep them away. Nor did Labor’s budget show any sign of the $1.5 billion structural adjustment package set aside by the coalition government as part of John Howard’s $10 billion plan. That was set aside to help rural communities recover from the loss of productive capacity because of water entitlement cutbacks.

Irrigation is a huge economic driver in the Riverland and Murraylands—as the member for Braddon would know. He visited the Riverland as part of the agricultural standing committee inquiring into water resources and he would realise, if he went there again, how things have changed quite drastically.

There are many businesses reliant on the irrigation industry and, as the drought has demonstrated, without water these businesses are doing it very tough indeed. Minister Wong cannot ignore the worsening economic impact that the buying of $3.1 billion worth of water entitlements will have on small businesses along the river. These communities really need to survive. If the water is bought, taken away and not replaced with better infrastructure and improvements so that we get better use of the available water, you will see rural communities die. I do not think any government should feel proud of that.

Minister Wong makes much of the allocation of $953 million over the next two years to fund irrigation infrastructure projects, but the reality is that small businesses in the Riverland and the Murraylands do not have two years. They do not have the five years or so that it will take for the benefits of infrastructure spending to come their way as increased water flows. They cannot wait that long.

As the member for Barker, honoured to represent the Riverland and the Murraylands, I fear for the plight of small businesses and working families so integrally dependent on the Murray-Darling system. I bring the plight of small businesses in the Riverland and the Murraylands desperately suffering the economic impacts of drought and reduced water flows to the attention of this House.