Sam McMahon (NT, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This bill, the Farm Household Support Amendment (Relief Measures) Bill (No. 1) 2019, demonstrates this government's dedication to the needs of farming communities in rural and regional Australia. It is amongst a raft of support that this government has been and is committing to Australian farmers, families and communities. This bill amends the Farm Household Support Act and the Farm Household Support Minister's Rule to extend the FHA from four years of cumulative income support over a lifetime to four years of support in every 10 years. It's an important change. It will also increase the off-farm income offset. The settings for the offset are being relaxed, and the cap is being increased from $80,000 to $100,000. It will provide a relief payment up until 30 June 2020 for recipients who have exhausted or will exhaust their first four years of FHA.

As a veterinary surgeon, one of my former roles was to provide veterinary services to primary producers. These services included disease investigations, addressing production issues, reproductive improvement, animal welfare, farm biosecurity et cetera. All of these are designed to improve production and profit to the primary producer. The majority of this work does involve animal production enterprises, but often there are mixed enterprises also involving cropping and horticulture. In this role, I have seen many farmers affected by factors often totally beyond their control. We are well aware of the effect of natural disasters and cyclical weather events such as drought, floods and storms. There are also many other things that cause hardship and can lead to temporary loss of income. These can also include loss of market access and fluctuating prices.

I support Senator Roberts in his comment that farmers are being driven to suicide, and I have seen this firsthand for myself. But I disagree with the view that this government is not doing enough. The government is committed to supporting our farming communities to generate their own wealth and build strong, resilient livelihoods. We recognise that sometimes farmers encounter more than one period of hardship in their lifetime. This bill acknowledges this reality and provides an extended safety net. We have preserved the important principle that payments are time limited. We don't want to have farmers sitting on land that's unproductive forever. This provides tools for farmers and their partners to move the business to a more sustainable footing, or to sell or diversify, or to take other measures to make their farm profitable. An eligible farmer will now be able to access payment for up to four cumulative years in each 10-year period—so out of each 10 years there will be four years where they can access this payment.

An example of the importance of this is from my home in the Northern Territory. Mango production is the biggest horticultural enterprise there. Whilst it is a high-value crop, it is very sensitive to a range of environmental and market forces. It is an annual crop with a very short harvest season. Therefore, any extreme weather event occurring anywhere from flowering to picking can be devastating to the individual farm or to the region. Things such as early storms can knock off almost an entire crop. Fluctuations of hot and cold weather can prevent fruit from setting. The timing of the crop is also imperative. The NT has the first mangoes to market, thereby getting premium prices. If there is a weather event which leads to a late flowering, we then compete with Queensland producers, leading to poor prices for everyone. Extremely poor years are not that common, but, with the possibility of so many things that can go wrong that are totally outside of your control, it is almost certain that you're going to have more than four in your lifetime. This bill gives that little bit of certainty and security that, when you do, at least there'll be a safety net there.

Many farmers out of necessity, as we know, run diverse business operations, and it's a good thing to be more resilient and prepare for things such as drought, floods and other impacts on the farm businesses. We know that, when conditions are tough, even our very best farmers can find that they're struggling to make ends meet. This bill allows for a fairer assessment of those facing hardship to have their eligibility for FHA tested with their income and losses. For the first time, we're linking farm enterprises with their directly related businesses, and income and losses can be considered together. As I've stated, this offset has been increased from a cap of $80,000 to $100,000 per couple. Single people can use the whole cap themselves. For the first time, farmers generating income from activities like agistment, which is common in the Northern Territory, can have that income from the agistment considered against either the farm enterprise loss or the loss of another related business. This will greatly broaden the scope of people who'll be able to claim the FHA.

The offset will no longer be restricted to just claiming the interest payable on a farm loan. In the Northern Territory we often have intergenerational farms with two or even three generations involved in the farming business. If those generations suffer a loss, each couple can claim a share of that loss. It also applies to people who are not life partners but are business partners—important to us in the Northern Territory.

One of the things that we struggle with, certainly at the moment, is that many people, particularly down south, don't think of the Northern Territory as having droughts—after all, we get a wet season every year. Even many Territorians don't think of us as having droughts, but we do. Earlier this year half a million head of cattle were destocked off the Barkly region. Many of our most productive Barkly Tableland properties are just dust. Sure, some of those are owned by large companies and are not subject to these allowances and concessions, but many still are family-run businesses. I was on a station out of Alice Springs just last week where I spoke to a fourth-generation owner who's doing it pretty tough at the moment. They, like many, have off-farm income and related farm businesses operational to survive. Being able to offset this by an increased amount will mean a lot to them.

The issue has been raised in the press recently that farmers are coming off FHA and are essentially being thrown to the wolves by the government. This is certainly not the case. Many of them who are exiting their four years of FHA have done everything that they can to respond to the circumstances and are still going to be in financial hardship. At the same time, as we know, we're facing a very dry summer, horrendous bushfires and just devastating conditions in many jurisdictions. At moments like these our farmers need a little bit of extra help and support just to survive on a day-to-day basis, so farmers and their partners that have come to the end of their four years of FHA this year will receive a relief payment to help make ends meet—single people $7½ thousand and partners $6½ thousand, so a total of $13,000 between them. This will give them about six months of extra income support. The payment will be delivered in the next six weeks to those already eligible, and those who are still on FHA but will exhaust their entitlement on or before 30 June will be paid as they exit the program.

It is vitally important that we, as a government and a nation, provide support to our producers in times of need and hardship, and I commend this bill to the Senate.