Primary Producers

Mr BASHAM (Finniss) (14:39): My question is to the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development. Can the minister update the house on how the state government is supporting primary producers to create jobs and grow the economy?

The Hon. T.J. WHETSTONE (Chaffey—Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development) (14:39): I thank the member for Finniss for his very important question. He knows only too well how important the primary sector is, particularly in his electorate of Finniss, and exactly how the dairy industry and the grains industry are playing their role in his local economy. The Marshall Liberal government is providing an enabling factor for our primary sector to achieve our 3 per cent growth. It is very important that we now put primary industries on the agenda for that 3 per cent growth and enable our sectors to have the tools and the capacity to be able to grow.

I recently announced $1.2 million from the Regional Growth Fund for a state-of-the-art localised automatic weather station to be installed throughout the Riverland and the Mallee. I note that the member for Frome is part of another Mesonet weather station network. We will now talk to one another and interconnect so that we can have the tools for farmers to understand real-time weather data and collection so that we can move forward with those tools to better understand the unpredictable weather wind patterns and the inversion layers that our farmers are facing, particularly when they are out spraying their crops.

The Regional Growth Fund that will support the weather station network is a 10-year commitment of $150 million that we are putting into regional economies to stimulate growth. The network provides real-time data, as I said, but these weather stations will give farmers the tools on their handheld devices, whether they are walking out of the house to their tractor for spraying, whether they are in their tractor about to load another tank. They will understand if there are wind shifts coming, if there are inversion layers that will impact on the volatility of some of the chemicals that are sprayed onto crops that, in fact, will impact on their neighbours. It is about giving one farmer the tools to be able to understand better their impact on their neighbour should there be a wind shift or an inversion layer coming.

In the Riverland and the Mallee, it has been noted that in recent years there has been significant damage with spray drift in the order of $254 million; that is significant. So these enabling tools that we, as the Marshall Liberal government, will put in place to help our primary producers are there not only to reduce the damage and the risk to day-to-day farming management but what it will do is give us the capacity to be more productive and use fewer chemicals, fewer tractor hours, when it comes to spraying our crops.

I might also say that the Ag Ex Alliance business will run the weather station and they will be in direct contact with the Mid North weather stations. As I understand it, the Riverland and the Murraylands will set up a network of about 30. The Mid North weather station network is in the vicinity of 40 or 42 stations. They will continue to talk and we will then continue to build that network of those weather stations to reduce the damage and reduce the risk to our primary sector.

Some of the other enabling initiatives that we as a government are putting in place is working with the grains industry to develop a blueprint at $140,000 for them to move forward. We are working with the dairy industry on their action plan, investing $7.5 million into the red meat and wool program and, of course, reviewing the pastoral act to grow our sheep and cattle numbers. It is about opening up productive lands, particularly in our pastoral country, so that we can grow our economy and grow our herds and our flock numbers, because we know #RegionsMatter.