Tuesday, 13 May 2025

Drought relief

Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (19:11): (1610) My adjournment matter is also for the Minister for Agriculture. As the minister might be aware, there is a drought on at the moment, and many parts of my electorate are extremely dry – in some the worst they have had on record. Last year the government dedicated a $13.5 million drought relief package. This package included $5000 for grants, which strengthened on-farm preparedness. This was a co-contribution. It was not just a straight grant; you had to pay money as well. The package included technical decision-making support, whatever that means; one-on-one advice for up to 3 hours; and a dedicated regional drought coordinator, which is just another bureaucrat.

Compare that to South Australia: $13 million for farm drought relief infrastructure; $4 million to assist charities just to transport fodder; rebates on the emergency services levy – you might want to think about that one too; $2.5 million for a mental health strategy; $1 million for rural financial counselling support; $3.5 million for supporting rural small businesses; $3.1 million to assist with culling pests and managing kangaroos; $4.5 million to support producers with electronic tagging; $1.4 million to co-invest with councils to upgrade regional standpipes and another $1.1 million just to upgrade standpipes in the Adelaide Hills; $500,000 to make bulk water available; $2 million to support sporting clubs in regional areas; and $17.4 million for future drought preparedness and resilience programs – and there are plenty more.

Those opposite love to give themselves a big pat on the back about how much they support farmers, despite their package failing into insignificance compared to the South Australian one. Then those opposite go ahead and they want to impose one of the most horrible and heinous tax regimes on rural communities this state has seen. We always hear from those opposite ‘In Victoria equality is non-negotiable’, except when it is not. Many farmers have to negotiate the difficult climatic and market conditions, whereas all those opposite want to negotiate is how much they plan to tax, tax and tax our farmers year on year, because that is what they want to do. There is no equality in the proposed changes to the fire services levy in this state – no equality whatsoever, with farmers paying a 189 per cent increase.

The action that I seek from the minister is pretty simple: provide as much support as you can to farmers and do everything you can to stop the introduction of the horrible changes to the fire services levy, which is going to decimate rural communities and push them further into the ground.