Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Farm Household Support Amendment Bill 2019. This bill addresses some of the recommendations around the assets test and income test from the independent review of the farm household allowance that the government commissioned late last year. Firstly, this bill will extend the temporary increase of the on-farm asset limit from $2.685 million to $5 million. The review panel have been quite clear in arguing that increasing this asset limit will open the program to a number of still very financially distressed farm asset holders who have previously been excluded from the farm household allowance. This is particularly businesses in the cropping sector, who carry larger asset levels. The bills digest notes that the extension will mean that about 8,000 farmers will retain eligibility for the scheme. They also note that the government has ignored the recommendations from the review to index the asset limit to CPI. It does make me worried that we will have to have new legislation in this chamber within only a few years, again to adjust the asset limit.

The second thing that this bill does is to separate and decouple on-farm from off-farm allowable income deductions. The complexity around these measures has been overwhelming for many farmers looking to access the scheme. While these changes may help, it is very clear, not only from the review, but from the broader community outcry, that there is still an awful lot of work that needs to be done on improving accessibility to these support payments and simplifying the application and reporting process.

I would like to note here that certain members of this chamber and the other place have been accusing the Greens of hating farmers or hating regional Australia. This is obviously a flat-out lie.