Tuesday, 13 August 2019


Constituency questions

Gippsland East electorate


Gippsland East electorate

Mr T BULL (Gippsland East) (14:42): (868) My constituency question is to the Minister for Agriculture, and the information I seek is the detail of the next round of drought support for farmers in my electorate. Large areas of the state received considerable rainfall over the past week to 10 days—up to 135 millimetres in some places. Bairnsdale received only 7 millimetres. The drought is still very significant in my area. We are about 150 millimetres down on last year’s rainfall total. New South Wales’s drought support dwarfs Victoria’s. The minister will not make a decision on council rate subsidies; she will not make a decision on fodder subsidies. We are in real trouble. We need help in our area. I ask the minister to please outline what her next round of drought supports will be, but more importantly when they will be made available to the farmers in my community.