Drought Assistance

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (15:09): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Primary Industries on the topic of drought.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD: Members would probably be aware that the ABC News article titled 'SA farmer still waiting on drought relief payments months after applying', published on 16 April this year, outlined a story of South Australian farmer Michael Kowald from the Adelaide Hills and shared his experience of waiting nearly three months without a response after applying for a fairly modest $5,000 drought infrastructure grant in January.

The delay has further stalled his project to restore a bore for a livestock water facility, exacerbating challenges during severe drought conditions that of course initiated his application in the first place. The state government has acknowledged that processing delays have occurred and pledged to resolve all applications within 30 days from that time. That 30 days has now elapsed.

My question to the minister is: can the minister now confirm that the government has honoured its commitment, that being that all applications from January through to March at the very least have been assessed and applicants informed about whether or not they have been deemed eligible or not?

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (15:11): I thank the honourable member for his question. The short answer is that, according to my advice, yes I can. All of the backlog has been worked through and I am advised that the 30-day commitment that the Premier made on the day that we announced this $73 million package for drought support is being met. The only caveat I would put on that is, of course, that is if all of the information has been provided. If the department is still waiting on further information then obviously the 30 days cannot commence until that extra information is available.

But PIRSA has been able to streamline the application process. Members will recall that we opened up a second tier of drought assistance funding in terms of infrastructure grants so that those who wished to invest in larger projects could apply for projects up to $20,000. Those who had already applied for the $5,000 grant were, according to my advice, communicated with to see if they would like to change that to an application for the higher grant or whether they would like to continue with the original grant amount that they had requested.

Further, PIRSA was able to I think more than quadruple the size of the processing team compared to when it was first established and, due to that, the backlog has been cleared, according to my advice.