Frome Electorate

Ms PRATT (Frome) (15:19): I rise to deliver a grieve today in reflection of farming activities that are happening in my electorate and I want to start by referencing a Facebook group that I follow, called Ladies on the Land. A lovely lady from my electorate, Deb Heinjus, was sharing in two community groups that we all belong to messages of support, but also in recognition of what is happening in the farming districts.

This message, which has had thousands of likes and hundreds of comments, speaks to some of the anxiety and concern that we are feeling in our country communities. It gives ourselves permission to stop trying to find the positives when we are actually allowed to recognise the negatives at the moment, to stop reflecting on the 'at leasts' that we hear a lot, that we say to ourselves: 'At least you've got sheep to sell. At least you've got a crop to harvest. At least you've got assets away from the farm. At least you've got some water in your tank. At least your bank hasn't done such and such.'

The message that I took from that was that it is creating some sense of false positive where we must give ourselves permission to recognise the damage that both drought and frost have delivered on my communities. That is not to say there are not positives, that is not to say that we cannot look for silver linings and where a rising tide lifts all boats that we support each other, but I think it is appropriate for farming communities to reflect on the impact that drought and frost has been having on not just farming families but on the local economies.

We know that it is being reported as the worst drought in a hundred years, and the numbers do not lie. There is no end of farmers who collect their own data now to point across five, six and seven generations that this lack of rainfall was unexpected and unprecedented. My mum talks to me about 1967. She remembers that as the worst year in her memory, and many farmers have concurred. My grandpa had been breeding up his own DNA genetic breeding lines in his sheep and, with no feed, the only humane option was to sell them for slaughter. We are seeing that again on another scale.

In my own lifetime, we experienced drought, and my dad went off to New South Wales to bring back triticale wheat, looking for drought-resistant grains that were going to flourish in a South Australian climate. We have come so far in farming innovation and agronomy these days that the greatest sadness now is that farmers, of course, have not done anything wrong this year. They understand their property, they understand their soil, they work so hard to retain moisture in the soil to work to those conditions. We know that they were busy dry seeding this year and Mother Nature did not deliver.

There are concerns that have been raised about the false hope that was coming from weather projections that suggested late spring rains would come and they just never did. I think that has hit some farmers the hardest. Our duty now, not just as the local member but as a parliament, is to tune in to the industry that still delivers the greatest contribution to the Treasury coffers and make sure as a government that we are staying ahead of the problems that we are foreseeing.

I have been driving around my community to make sure that I am not only asking questions but seeing for myself what it is that we are facing. The electorate of Frome, as I have explained before, extends from the Gawler River at Two Wells to Terowie, and I cannot point to a primary producer at the moment who is not suffering. Tomato growers in Two Wells, Lewiston and Virginia have been impacted by the rugose virus, and we saw 500 people laid off. The grapegrowers in Clare Valley have been impacted yet again by frosts. There is no feed and no seed. Our farmers do not have crops to reap. Canola crops that did flower are being reaped for hay. Merino sheep are being sold for mutton—can you believe it?

Whether it is in Spalding, Jamestown, Balaklava, Burra districts, the broadacre farming districts of Balaklava, Mallala and the Adelaide Plains, farmers are really doing it tough. I call on the government to get ahead of the impact that we are going to see to small business, where there will not be any discretionary spending for the next 18 months.