Grievance Debate

Primary Producers

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (15:16): I rise to talk about the woes of being a primary producer. South Australia's $17 billion agriculture industry is going to take a beating. South Australia's economy will be nowhere near the $15 million that it receives on an ongoing basis.

What I saw last week, after the horrific winds and dust storms on top of the drought and on top of significantly low commodity prices, was a farmer who was out in his paddocks, inspecting fences that were lying over. Those fences were lying over because the wind had blown the mallee soils away from the posts—the ferocity of that wind had seen much of his fencing lying on the ground. On top of that was the frustration of what it looks like at the moment: not only was he dealing with the fencing, dealing with the drought and dealing with the feed and the fodder for his livestock but this was exacerbated by the lack of hay supplies in South Australia.

We are competing with every other mainland Australian state in looking for hay and fodder to feed livestock. This Malinauskas government was slow off the mark, and we are on the backfoot in looking to sustain that. What this farmer has had to do is go and register as a hay importer, which attracted a one-off import fee of $125, or $198 if he wanted to bring in more than one load. Then he had to have his hay inspected by government officials before it entered South Australia, with hourly fees being charged by the inspectors. But it is good to see that the government has now waived the fee since last week. The farmer had to keep any hay in quarantine until the inspector could get there to inspect it before feeding it to his livestock.

Sadly, there was no subsidy available to assist with the cost of transport because the government's assistance does not extend past the five charitable organisations. I question whether it is even possible for the five organisations to bring enough hay to adequately support our farmers. This leaves our farmers with no choice but to source hay and pay for the delivery of it themselves, unlike other drought-affected farmers in other states. The cost to farmers in buying hay and trucking it there under their own steam is almost cost prohibitive.

The extra $2 million for rural financial counselling, announced by the Prime Minister yesterday, is welcomed, but is that what farmers really asked for? There are calls for further assistance with fodder, low-interest loans, seed banks, rate relief and equity in the emergency services levy. Speaking of the ESL, it is just another blow to farmers. The 4.2 per cent ESL increase in the upcoming budget really is a disproportionate disadvantage to the regional farmer. Currently, the $157.85 to $164.55 is what happens in the city, but just imagine if you were a farmer with more than one vehicle. Imagine a farmer with more than one licence, or imagine you are a farmer with multiple properties. The costs continue to escalate and intensify the financial pressures on those households already grappling with the cost of living and the cost of the drought. Currently, farmers are being slugged with heavy vehicle registration increases of up to 8 per cent.

As a farmer, unlike people in the city—and the Premier and the Treasurer often talk about two cars in an average family; two licensed in an average family—if you go out to a primary producer's farm he has 20 vehicles, he has equipment that has to be registered to be compliant, he has multiple licences, fees and charges that are all going to be impacted by this government's tardy understanding of what it really means to be a primary producer in the regions of South Australia. As I said, a typical household in Adelaide will have a limited impact. A primary producer, a farming family, will see significant hardship and income burden with this upcoming budget.

As I said, some of these farming operations have between 10 and 20 registrations and multiple licences just to be compliant. So my question to everyone in this chamber is: is the government really listening to what the primary producers are needing? The Prime Minister coming to South Australia yesterday was a wasted opportunity—a $2 million exercise to put more into rural financial counselling to deal with mental health. That assistance is already there in place. So what I would say is that the government need to get off the horse and get on the ground and seriously listen to what the vagaries are around government support. They have already exacerbated the cost and the hardship, and now the government need to step up and actually listen.