Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

The bill before the chamber, the Rural Adjustment Amendment Bill 2009, amends clause 7 of the Rural Adjustment Act 1992 to allow for the appointment of National Rural Advisory Council members for three terms. The proposed amendment will remove the current provision that a person may on only one occasion be reappointed as a member. The Rural Adjustment Act 1992 specifies that NRAC’s main role is to provide advice on rural adjustment and regional issues, including whether areas should be assessed as being in drought—or, as we have come to know it, exceptional circumstances or EC. The bill will provide that current or previous members who have served two terms can serve an additional term.

The work of NRAC is often harrowing and difficult. Their decision on whether or not to extend drought exceptional circumstances declarations can be the difference between survival and economic ruin for many. They are at the coalface, dealing with drought affected farming families who, due to drought, are operating under extremely high levels of emotional and financial pressures. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the chair of the NRAC, Mr Keith Perrett, and his fellow members for their contribution to rural Australia. It is a significant one.

In January this year NRAC toured Tasmania, my home state, and met with farmers from the drought declared areas of the state—areas such as Flinders Island and Waterhouse in the north-east, the Midlands and Central Highlands, all large and traditionally productive areas of my home state of Tasmania.

Those who have not experienced the first-hand effects of drought can perhaps distance themselves from how devastating it can be. Unlike cyclones, fire and flood, which are often fast and furious, drought creeps up on you. After the initial media reports, the slow burn of natural disasters quickly becomes a dry argument. Agriculture is traditionally a very proud industry. To be reduced to begging for assistance is sadly for some the final straw. As an example of the financial and emotional stress I have been speaking about, I want to put on the record the story of one Tasmanian farmer I came into contact with last year. This family with generational ties to the land have reduced their livestock numbers by 75 per cent. They had 12,000 sheep on their property and they have cut that to 2,000. They killed all their newborn lambs last year bar 100 that they kept for breeding. They made that decision to support the 2,000 breeding ewes that they had left. They had 700-odd head of cattle and they are down to less than a dozen. The neighbours looked over the fences when they were making these extraordinarily difficult moves and asked: ‘What are you doing?’ This farmer was the first in the district, and the response was: ‘I’m trying to preserve myself into the long term. Be prepared to have to do the same thing yourself.’ Pastures were ruined. They got an infestation of bugs in the ground and it is going to take years, after they get rain, to restore the country. It is a completely demoralising process.

There are some very good organisations that do great work to support these people. Service clubs such as Rotary and Lions run successful fodder drives. Just in the last couple of weeks there was a fodder drive from the north-west of Tassie down into the Midlands to provide support for farmers who are still going through that process. Aussie Helpers, the Salvation Army and the CWA distribute funds to meet the immediate needs of farm families, often quietly, without fanfare. They are doing a great job. In my home state, the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association have developed a very well coordinated network to assist the drought affected farmers. The Tasmanian Women in Agriculture—who are obviously very close to all this—recently facilitated the highly successful Boot the Drought project. This project provided a valuable way for women to break the cycle of isolation and share the impact of drought on their families in a fun and informal way. And there are many other groups and individuals I have not individually mentioned here—and that goes right across the country, and I am sure that colleagues would have examples in their own patch—who have gone well beyond the call of duty to make a contribution and to lend a hand.

The current drought is like no other experienced. It is not a one-in-25-year drought like the EC processes were initially established for; it is more like a one-in-100-year drought. And I do not think even the best prepared farmers could have prepared for this. I remind the chamber that many areas of Australia are facing their seventh year of drought. I recall four or five years ago reflecting on what one more year of drought might be like. Despite huge rainfalls in Northern Australia, the Murray-Darling Basin still records low water inflows. This region is described as Australia’s food bowl, providing not only valuable food security but also thousands of food manufacturing and processing jobs whilst generating billions of dollars of export revenue—and we saw the impact of that when the national account figures came out in the last couple of weeks. We saw the impact of the work that Australia’s farmers are doing despite the difficulties. With extremely low irrigation water entitlements and collapsing milk prices, rural communities who are reliant on agriculture are naturally wondering what they will be hit with next.

I think it is pertinent to take note at this point of some of the policy developments that the government is putting in place at the moment. In the budget it disbanded the highly acclaimed Land and Water Australia which would have to have been one of the most fundamental research and development corporations of the group that exists here in Australia. The government cut funding to the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation which does research on new and emerging industries. It is proposing to raise export charges for our exporters through AQIS by 66 per cent by removing the 40 per cent rebate that existed on export charges. The impact of the proposed CPRS legislation on the agricultural sector is absolutely diabolical, as we found out during the hearings of the climate change inquiry. In fact, we did some calculations on the beef industry and we found that there will be an annual cost in excess of $100 billion a year in cumulative impacts from the policy decisions of this government. You really do wonder what the minister is up to.

A dairy farmer speaking at a breakfast this morning said that one of the greatest risks for agriculture in this country at the moment is government policy—and, heavens, wasn’t she right? What this government is doing at the moment is absolutely disgraceful. It has changed the eligibility rules to the youth allowance, making it almost impossible for young people in rural Australia to access higher education, and we heard discussion about that yesterday. Australia’s strong agriculture sector, the only bright light in our economy, was one of the only reasons that the economy did not go into technical recession and yet we have these impacts out of the budget. In fact, agriculture was the only sector to record any growth in the last quarter. The coalition supports this bill. It is a sensible amendment to the current processes, and again I commend the members of NRAC for the work that they do in support of the farmers of this country. It is significant work and, as I said in my contribution, it is quite trying. I indicate the opposition’s support of the legislation.