Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a prepared speech here which was prepared a few weeks ago and which talked about a prospective 17-million-tonne grain crop for Western Australia. Certainly it has been one of the best seasons that I have experienced in my 50 years. As a farmer at Katanning, I have seen a few, and it certainly has been a fantastic year, with early rains and crops going in early.

But Mother Nature is a very cruel taskmaster, and early in September we had a series of frosts just as the crops in the eastern Wheatbelt, in my electorate, were flowering. That has been followed up by some more frosts in late September, and we are forecast to have more frosts this week. Early estimates of the damage to the crops run between two million and four million tonnes, so that is around 30 per cent of the Western Australian grain crop, but of course in some areas it could be 100 per cent of an individual grower's return this year. It is very heartbreaking: a year's hard work can go up in smoke overnight.

So I have taken the opportunity today to raise this issue with the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, the Deputy Prime Minister, and he is very much aware of the situation. There have been calls for a system of multiperil crop insurance. The government has put $5,000 on the table for growers to have a full audit of their crop production records so that that crop insurance can be put into play through commercial players. I just commiserate with those growers in my electorate who have been so badly damaged.