Drought Assistance

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley—Leader of the Opposition) (14:18): My question is to the Premier. Will the government exempt all farming businesses facing ongoing drought conditions from the ESL increase? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA: On FIVEaa radio yesterday a farmer named Tom from Spalding, in relation to the increase in ESL fees, said:

It’s a real kick in the guts…what we paid last year was $3,000 in ESL…another price increase on top of no income. I’m a volunteer for CFS and SES, I have been for 25 years, I’m on the land here with my brother, he’s the same, and we’re just getting taxed more for something we volunteer to provide to our community.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:19): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. As a government, of course, we have demonstrated that we do want to provide tax relief for the men and women who are working the land in the primary production sector, and of course that has been reflected in the $70 million package that we announced around drought relief as a government, which is a very substantial package, particularly when you compare it to what other jurisdictions are doing who are facing drought conditions not too dissimilar from our own.

Contained within that package there is relief from fees and charges that we apply as a state government. Motor vehicle registrations are an example of that, and we have also made differences around ESL, provided you meet the qualifications around the commonwealth test, which is a net asset test of $5 million or thereabouts. So we have demonstrated our commitment.

More specifically, in regard to the leader's question around abolishing ESL for volunteers, this is an area of policy that I know has been considered by us when we were in government in the past and I suspect was considered under the former government as well. The challenge with removing ESL for volunteers is it then changes the nature of volunteering per se. This is a challenge that I think there has been consistency across the aisle around how we think about it.

We are keen to provide tax relief to people suffering drought conditions and we have drawn a line about how we apply that, but it's not just tax and fee and charges relief. Obviously, we are making a lot of other investments as well: investment in on-farm drought infrastructure; investing in the culling of pests where we are seeing a greater number of them appear in areas because of the drought, which has a big impact on primary production; eID tags and the contribution that we are making to that effort; obviously mental health—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: No, but we are relieving people of fees. Relieving people of fees is a biosecurity measure. We know that people in the primary production sector, particularly livestock, understand the challenge that we've got in terms of biosecurity, which is really important to preserve businesses. There's the mental health support, the investments in rural financial counselling and the investments that we are making in community infrastructure.

All of these things we have developed in conjunction with industry. I want to take this opportunity again to express my gratitude towards Grain Producers South Australia, Primary Producers South Australia, the Dairy Industry Association, the wine industry, Livestock SA and all of those organisations that helped to formulate that package. We have made it clear that we want to continue to work with them.

We don't see it as being a case of we have developed one package, job done. We have developed another one and we don't see that as being job done either. We want to continue to engage. We are always looking for opportunities to provide assistance where we can, but completely abolishing all ESL for all volunteers, I understand that consistently governments, of both political persuasions, have erred on not doing that because it would change the nature of volunteering.