Grievance Debate

Drought Assistance

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (15:11): I rise today to speak about the drought that is impacting right across South Australia, apart from the far north-east of the state. This is a drought that is unprecedented in human records, right down to when Europeans came to this state. Farmers right across this state are crying out for realistic support after the drought they had last year, and it is not looking too flash this year. I raised this in the house last year, along with my colleagues, and am again raising it this year—the impacts of the drought.

Last year farmers were coming into spring and looking at the forecast from the Bureau of Meteorology, and they were making decisions, putting out urea and liquid nitrogen thinking the rain was coming. But, guess what? In most cases it did not, and we had a severe lack of rainfall but not only that, we had multiple cold days in October with severe frost—stem frost in wheat crops and other crops right across the board.

A lot of these crops had to be cut for hay. I have never seen 80-foot windrows being utilised before so that straw could be put into bales. It was a really dire situation coming out of last year, and very little income was coming in for the massive input costs that farmers had to put into their crops, and not just that, but that lack of rain coming into this year, and preparing for this year's seeding program. In some cases it has been going for two months even in farms near me where people decided early, two months ago, that they needed to get going and get on with the seeding program and sowing dry.

We have had massive winds coming across farmland across this state, taking away the topsoil. But not just that, we have people trying to manage their stock, trying to hang on to their stock so that they can get a wool check down the track so that they can sell their lambs. Talking about lambs, I looked at them at home the other day. The bloke who leases my place has lambs dropping on the little feed that is left. It is just bean stubble, which is essentially just beans laying on the surface of the ground or under the ground. They are really scratching for tucker. In some places there is not even that amount of feed.

People have sold pregnant ewes knowing that they have nothing to feed them. Then, if they do need to get feed in, a lot of it has to come from interstate. I know the price of hay in Western Australia now is $300 a tonne, and it is $250 a tonne to get that here. I know of people who are importing hay from Western Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory.

I know the member for Chaffey spoke yesterday about the impost of $167 an hour for PIRSA to inspect that hay. Thankfully, with intervention from this side of the house, those fees have been waived back to late last year. Yes, there has been some funding for farmers across this state, but half of the $18 million for the original grant program was already there for Rural Business Support and the great work they do, and I acknowledge the next $55 million.

The issue with these programs is that farmers have to spend money they do not have for drought infrastructure, whether it is tanks or equipment to put in more pipework or pumps to access water. What farmers really need is low or no-interest loans, and they need the Malinauskas Labor government to declare drought so that everyone is well aware of what is going on out there.

I want to give a breakdown of some of the low-interest loan programs around different states. The New South Wales Rural Assistance Authority offers the Drought Ready and Resilient Fund, which provides low-interest loans up to $250,000. In Western Australia, the Western Australian government has introduced a drought relief package that includes $4 million in interest-free loans for farmers. In south-west Victoria, which is affected like us, they can access increased amounts under the On-Farm Drought Infrastructure Grant Program, which provides financial support for drought assistance programs.

Yes, in South Australia some farmers can access the Regional Investment Corporation, which is a federal fund, for cheaper loans, but they are still 5.18 per cent and it is too dear. It is too expensive. Farmers want a hand up, not a handout. They went to get money either at no interest or extremely low interest so that they can survive not just last year's devastating season but this year, which is looking nearly as bad.