FaB Mentors

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI (Leader of the Opposition) (14:27): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Primary Industries on the FaB mentors program.

Leave granted.

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI: The minister has often claimed that her government does understand the magnitude of the drought and that part of the assistance includes extra funding for the FaB mentors. Whilst that increase in funding is, of course, welcome, it is disturbing to hear from some of the FaB mentors in our regions that they have found it difficult to engage with farmers and growers, who they know are doing it really tough. This is because the level of stress is so high that the affected people are not really engaging with anyone.

This is made worse by FaB mentors being unable to cold-call people suspected or known to be suffering. Several years ago, FaB mentors were able to cold-call people, and we understand that is not the current practice. One FaB mentor said that he knew of grapegrowers who had not received an income for the past two years, had now suffered 100 per cent crop losses in the frost and were unlikely to get an income next year; however, he could not proactively reach out to these growers. There are numerous people in similar positions.

If the FaB mentors program is to be of value then the mentors need to be able to reach and interact with affected growers and farmers. My questions to the minister are:

1. Is there a system of check and review to assess the effectiveness of outreach being done by the FaB mentors?

2. What is the rate of engagement that FaB mentors are having across the state?

3. Can the minister confirm whether the FaB mentors are able to proactively engage with growers, or are they currently prevented from doing so?

4. If they are currently prevented from proactively engaging with growers, what is the reason for that?

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (14:29): I thank the honourable member for her question. The FaB mentors do a fantastic job. They provide a confidential triage service, which is incredibly important. When farmers or primary producers want to reach out, certainly I have been encouraging in every forum that I possibly can that they start with the family and business support mentors, the FaB mentors, because they are able to provide that service in a confidential manner. They are across what sort of support is available, both federal and state and elsewhere, and are also able to then tailor the suggestions that they give to primary producers for those particular primary producers' own circumstances.

I think it would be helpful if those opposite actually gave the credit to FaB mentors and the programs that they have been involved in, in terms of the excellent work that they do. We have seen constantly from those opposite an undermining of the FaB mentor roles, downplaying their importance, and I think that is particularly unfortunate.

In terms of the specific question about proactively cold-calling, I don't have an answer to that—I am happy to take it on notice—but I can certainly speculate that issues around privacy may mean that people don't want to have someone turning up on their doorstep unannounced. They may feel there is a stigma attached. There could be all sorts of reasons.

I acknowledge that I am speculating on that, but it does seem quite likely that that could be an explanation, if indeed what the honourable member is saying is true, which of course is yet to be validated, but I am happy to seek some additional information on that.