Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to call on the government and the banking sector to do everything they can to help our agricultural producers in these difficult times. We have a lot of farms under stress in south-west Victoria, and of course there are a lot of farms under stress in northern Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia. The government needs to do everything it can to help these farmers with their current plight.

I call on the Treasurer and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to get the Farm Finance package sorted out. Make sure you sit down and negotiate with the states and get it ready to be rolled out come 1 July. This is taking too long. There are people who need assistance now, yet you have not finalised it. Sit down with the states and get this sorted out. I call on the Treasurer to talk to the Australian Taxation Office. Make sure that the tax office is being consultative and doing all that it can when negotiating with farmers under stress. When people are falling behind with BAS payments and other forms of taxation payments, I call on you to sit down with them and work through the issues. Have plans put in place to help them through the next difficult three, six to 12 months, while they get their finances in order so that they can continue to produce.

I also call on the banks. The banks have readily lent money in many cases to farmers. The farmers are now facing difficult times, and some of difficulties they are facing are not due to what they are doing; it is due to the high dollar; it is due to climatic conditions; and it is due to a lot of other different types of reasons. I call on the banks to be very sensible and very reasonable and to sit down with people to help them work through these difficult times. It is beholden on banks to do that. The best thing for our country and for the various regions like the south-west is for the banks to work with farmers to make sure that they can continue to produce through these difficult times. These farmers will turn their situation around if the banks and the government can work with them.

Finally, I call on the government to take some proactive action to get some support and ongoing help for these farmers. Get greater access to markets for them. Work hard on getting a free trade agreement with China, with Japan and with South Korea. Also, work with farmers to help them reduce their production costs. Get rid of things like the carbon tax. Reduce electricity prices for them. Put more flexibility into the workplace so that farmers can employ people to help them lift their productivity. These are the steps that need to be taken, and they need to be taken immediately by the government.