Drought Concessional Loans

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (14:33): Can the minister confirm that the criteria are quite different from the other states and that people who apply for this funding program have only 12 days to apply?

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson—Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Recreation and Sport, Minister for Racing) (14:33): I haven't heard that 12-day figure before, but I am happy to look into it.

Ms Chapman interjecting:

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: I think the scheme was extended by the federal government through until the end of June, so these loans have been out there—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: These loans have been out there for a number of months now. The federal government is the government that has extended it out to 30 June so—

Mr Knoll interjecting:

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: Okay. I don't think any farmer in this state who is in duress is getting anywhere by us sitting in here, arguing the point. What I have been saying—

Mr Pederick: They are not getting anywhere.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: Well, we are helping them, but we have to do it in conjunction with the federal government. The federal minister and I have a very good working relationship and we are working on it. As I said, it's a situation that every state and territory finds itself in. The federal minister wants to put more money out there, and we all want to put more money in there. The federal minister assured us a few weeks ago in Sydney at our ministerial forum that he will get his officers to go through and have a review and see what needs to be tweaked. We all want to get more money out there, and I think—

Ms Chapman: Victoria is doing it pretty well.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: It is not doing it any better than South Australia is. We are hearing the same thing from all of the states and territories who are around the table. I was at the forum and every minister said that they would like to get more money out to the people in their states and territories, so the federal government is having a look at the process of how these approvals are being handled at this stage. We are quite happy. We are having a look at it from a state level to see if there is any way we can improve it as well.

We know that people have an issue and we are trying to get to the bottom of it to see if we can make it any better, but it is federally funded. The rules about who gets the money and how they get the money are set out by the federal government and then we administer that. We cannot go and give out money that is not in compliance with the rules that the federal government have given us or we, as a state, are then liable to pay that money back to the federal government, and that is not something that we want to do with the scarce resources and taxpayer money that we have in our state. We want to help every possible farmer we can, but we have to do it in the proper way.