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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
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Bills

Appropriation Bill 2018

Estimates Committees

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (11:01): I bring up the report of Estimates Committee A and move:

That the report be received.

Motion carried.

Mr TRELOAR: I bring up the minutes of proceedings of Estimates Committee A and move:

That the minutes of proceedings be incorporated in the Votes and Proceedings.

Motion carried.

Mr DULUK (Waite) (11:02): I bring up the report of Estimates Committee B and move:

That the report be received.

Motion carried.

Mr DULUK: I bring up the minutes of proceedings of Estimates Committee B and move:

That the minutes of proceedings be incorporated in the Votes and Proceedings.

Motion carried.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General) (11:02): I move:

That the proposed expenditures referred to Estimates Committees A and B be agreed to.

I rise to make a contribution and to, firstly, thank our newly minted Chairs of the estimates committees for 2018. The members have tabled their minutes of proceedings.

Ms Bedford interjecting:

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: I also commend one of our former chairs of estimates committees for her service in previous years—not every year, but some years. It is a new government in South Australia and a new budget, the first budget of the new government and a new procedure for those of us on this side of the house to learn.

I have always been a supporter of the estimates initiative, first introduced in its current form, I understand, by the Tonkin Liberal government. It was a measure by which that government felt there needed to be a capacity for a committee of the parliament to tease out and explore the initiatives of the government of the day in their budget and be able to ask questions about it to explore and have the opportunity to have more information, particularly if there was a change of direction or a new initiative that was being promoted, so that the parliament, via this venue of a committee, would be fully informed.

It is fair to say that our estimates, certainly in the last 16 years I have been in the parliament, has had a diminution in its operation from what was the initial objective. Some would say—and I am one of them—that to have an estimates program as we do, for example, in the federal parliament, which senior members of the public sector attend and are available to provide that detail, in some ways is a process that becomes more informative to the committee in being able to provide that information.

But, in South Australia, the minister of the day presenting to each of the committees with their advisers is the structure that we have and it was a new one for us but one we embraced, firstly, because we are very proud as a government of the new budget and of the commitment we made in the lead-up to the election to make provision in the budget for those commitments, to honour those and keep our promises to the people of South Australia.

The work done is considerable and this time we have been able to see the extraordinary amount of work undertaken—from the chief executive in the department across to every area of the operation of the departments. That is actually a very good disciplinary tool, I think, for the public sector, but it is a lot of hard work and a lot of extra work. It requires a lot of meetings and a lot of crosschecking to ensure that they are fully briefed so that their advice enables the minister who may be attending at a committee to respond as fulsomely as possible.

Certainly, in the past I have been critical of former governments failing to provide information to the committee from one year to the next when a time of a number of weeks is imposed. In my experience, that was honoured more in the breach than in the observance. I would like to place on record the commitment of this government to ensure that, as we have with questions on notice, in as timely a manner as we can, this information will be provided when we have undertaken to do so. Obviously, a number of issues were taken on notice during the course of estimates, and the officers of a number of the ministers are currently undertaking that work.

It is good discipline, it is hard work and it is there to enable the committee to receive that information and report to this parliament so that we as a parliament are informed as to what has been spent, what is proposed to be spent and what the initiatives are. It is disappointing, to have read the transcript in the Premier's and Treasurer's portfolios, for example, and then, when I presented to the committee as Attorney-General on the following Monday, to find that a large bulk of the questions in relation to the matters raised by the opposition members had very little to do with the budget. There may have been some rather circumvented attachment in some rather tenuous way and, notwithstanding that, I think the Chairs were very generous in allowing a number of questions to progress.

Let us be clear: the new government is there to provide information and to provide that support in our responsibility to the parliament. We have, as a new government, an obligation to expect that questions will be asked about what we are proposing and that we both present our arguments for it and that we are fulsome in our response about it. We do have a responsibility to turn up and be available to answer questions, just as we do in question time.

What we do not take responsibility for is the conduct and behaviour of those who ask questions when they do not get the answer they want, and if ever there was a demonstration of the behaviour in the early part of estimates, it was done by several of the members of the opposition, in particular the member for West Torrens. He was like some kind of rabies-ridden canine frothing at the mouth when he did not get the answers that he wanted, and that is not our responsibility.

Mr PICTON: Point of order, Mr Speaker: I believe it is a longstanding tradition of the parliament that it is unparliamentary language to refer to any member as an animal.

The SPEAKER: Would the Deputy Premier like to withdraw the reference to members being referred to as animals, please?

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: I am happy to move on and apologise in relation to—

The SPEAKER: And withdraw please.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: And withdraw—but the behaviour and conduct of the member for West Torrens, in my view, were symptomatic of his behaviour on a number of occasions. But it is not our responsibility, and we will not take responsibility for the outrage that he feigns when he does not get the answers that he wants. His one and only, like some sort of one-trick pony, modus operandi in relation to this is to keep asking the same question over and over again.

The purpose of estimates is to deal with the budget proposals, the appropriation of money and to inform the parliament. If it is the opposition members' wont to continue to just waste the time of the committee by repeating the same questions over and over again, then I feel that is quite insulting to the committee and that ought not happen. But if that is the process in which they seem to operate and in some way think that that might be clever or helpful to them, I do not know. My first impression, after I read the first three days of estimates, was that clearly the opposition thought the budget was fantastic because they hardly had any questions about it.

There were a number of areas of change of direction which I think would have been reasonable for them to ask about. They went out initially after the budget was announced on a rampage of objection to the proposed open for tender of the management of the Remand Centre, armed with all sorts of protests and outlining to the public their outrage that this should occur. It all fell in a heap, of course, within a few days after the most disgraceful behaviour was captured on screen by one member of the union treating one of their fellow employees in a despicable way.

I do not know what has happened in relation to that conduct but I will say this: we do not put up with bullying and intimidation in the law, we do not put up with bullying and intimidation in the workplace and we do not put up with bullying and intimidation in our schools. Some people need to learn that there is a way of conveying in a civilised manner the objections or concerns they have without acting in such a disgraceful way. The consequence, though, of that behaviour—and I think the disturbing reaction from the public, that is, the offence they took to the way this was managed—was that the issue just disappeared.

The Leader of the Opposition disappeared and we were left with no clear or strong agenda of informed critique of a budget which I think the public and stakeholders should expect a grown-up opposition to have in relation to public expenditure. But that was sadly missing. I think the people of South Australia deserve better. Fortunately, there were members of the committee, particularly on the government side, who made inquiries in relation to new initiatives and that information was able to be provided.

I have a rather unique situation in my portfolio, namely, that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is the head of the Courts Administration Authority. It is a unique model Australia-wide. There is another jurisdiction that has a similar one, but it is one where the head of the department, the head of the courts, is the Chief Justice. He makes time, an hour each time, to come to the estimates as the head of that department—supported by Ms Julie-Anne Burgess, who is the most senior executive officer in that department, together with a number of their financial advisers and others—to answer questions about the court.

To find in the course of that matter continuing questions in relation to some historical matter, which was neither the subject of the committee nor that of the Chief Justice as he was appearing, I think was rude to those senior members who attended and made themselves available. Fortunately, he was able to outline a new initiative in relation to the ECMS, which is currently being rolled out in the probate division of the Supreme Court, about which there is important information that the public needs to know. He had the opportunity to explore that as a result of questions from the government.

Mr Picton: No, I asked him about that.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: I was going to acknowledge you. Initially, questions were asked by the member for Kaurna, who I think started with the death duties quote, which is nice to be reminded of. We, of course, went on to ask the Chief Justice to outline the program. He did have an opportunity to advise the committee of an update in respect of what I would call an interim development of our superior courts at both the Sir Samuel Way Building and at 1 Gouger Street to upgrade facilities for our criminal courts in the former and our civil courts in the latter.

The estimates process continued. I find it very interesting to hear of matters that have been reported by my colleagues as ministers in the government. In reading their contribution to the estimates committees, I congratulate them on their presentation in the face of some mischievous conduct by some members of the committee. They presented in a respectful manner, as they should, to a committee of this parliament, which deserves a lot better from the members of the opposition. Let us hope that that behaviour improves next year.

The SPEAKER: I believe that the deputy leader was the lead speaker. The member for Giles.

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (11:18): Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to speak on the estimates committees and the Appropriation Bill. In doing that, I would like to—

The SPEAKER: You are not the lead speaker?

Mr HUGHES: No, I am not the leader speaker.

The SPEAKER: You never know.

Mr HUGHES: I would like to commend the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development for the way that he courteously answered my wideranging questions and did not waste time with lengthy opening statements or government questions.

I was elected in 2014. In 2014, during my first estimates committee hearing, people would express concern about the direction that estimates had gone in. It seemed to be almost universal that there was a view that we could improve estimates. There is probably a whole range of ways that we could do that. The important thing is to ensure that there is a significant degree of accountability when it comes to both the budget process and wider governance issues.

It is my personal view that, maybe in a bipartisan fashion, as a chamber we should start to look at how we can improve these processes. There are other examples interstate. There are examples at a federal level that we could draw upon. I think it is always a good thing that systems be given the opportunity to evolve and improve. Having said that, though, I do restate that, at least in our estimates session, the minister attempted where possible to answer the questions that were put to him and, certainly at the time, there was a wider range of questions that I asked.

Alas, we ran out of time to cover all of them, but there were some issues of concern that did arise during the estimates process when questioning the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development. One of those areas of concern was the drought that is affecting parts of South Australia. Communities in the Mallee, Eastern Eyre Peninsula, especially the north-eastern Eyre Peninsula, and the northern pastoral regions have all been waiting for months to hear the minister indicate that they are being impacted by drought.

Leading up to estimates, we finally got an acknowledgement to those areas that are indeed doing it hard. So it did take a long time for minister Whetstone to declare what our farmers already knew. One does wonder why the minister waited until the morning of estimates to make the announcement of a declaration—and I use the word 'declaration' in a particular way—in relation to the areas of the state that were being affected, particularly when he went on to concede during the estimates committee process that the Marshall Liberal government has not directly helped farmers or affected communities financially in any way at all. There has been an enhancement of some services that were in place, but it is worth quoting directly from the minister:

So, as far as the state government is putting measures in place, we are prioritising health and wellbeing. There are contingencies within government budgets to look at support. We are having those conversations—

and this is what I want to emphasise—

but, to date, there have been no budget measures initiated to financially help those in the dry.

Given the circumstances that farmers and some communities in our state have been facing, to get that acknowledgement that there are no budget measures initiated to financially help those in the dry is deeply disappointing.

We have all heard the minister constantly say how much the regions matter, but one must seriously question how much the regions matter to the Marshall Liberal government when, on the same day, the minister declares parts of South Australia in drought and then admits there is no direct funding to help them. I acknowledge that the drought picture in South Australia is complex. The shift in probability is concerning when it comes to the El Niño effect. I think it is now a 70 per cent probability that we might well slip into El Niño. Let us hope that does not happen because, if it did, the consequences for the state, and for significant parts of the state, will be potentially dire.

During the estimates, the minister also made mention that the national drought coordinator, Major General Stephen Day, would be visiting parts of regional South Australia in the very near future. The day after estimates, on 25September, the drought coordinator did indeed visit Adelaide, but he did not leave the CBD. During estimates, the minister said, and I quote:

It is somewhat disappointing that tomorrow he is only coming to Adelaide, but I can assure you that we have it pencilled that he will be here next week. The idea of him coming tomorrow is to give him an understanding of the logistics and what time he will need to come back to South Australia and travel regional South Australia extensively to get a better understanding of where he can put the commonwealth government support, particularly the commonwealth's community drought program.

I might be wrong, but I do not think he has revisited at this stage. It is essential that the coordinator does revisit South Australia and does visit those regions that are being affected. I know there are many drought-affected farmers who would greatly appreciate the chance to speak to the drought coordinator, without having to travel to Adelaide. After all, the drought is not in the city—it is in the regions—and the Marshall Liberal government must do everything it can to ensure that Major General Day visits drought-affected communities as soon as possible.

I did have a conversation with the drought coordinator, and he had some very worthwhile things to say—and I do not want to be too hard on the state government. The coordinator indicated that it is important that he listens, that there is extensive planning and that we avoid a kneejerk reaction. At a state level, there is what appears to me to be a slowness of the reaction that has been forthcoming when it comes to the state government providing tangible support for drought-affected communities. Those communities are sick of words, and some of them feel as though they are being ignored by the state and federal Liberal governments.

During estimates the minister did not provide a satisfactory response when I questioned him about why the federal Liberal government provided millions of dollars in drought assistance funding for 60 councils in New South Wales and Queensland, while South Australia missed out and missed out entirely. The minister did not stand up to his federal colleagues and fight for South Australian councils to receive the same money as those interstate. We are talking about those councils in the drought-affected areas, which, as we know, is not all of South Australia.

What we have in South Australia is a government that wants to set up a task force and wants to provide counselling—and I have no problem with that—but there is also an element of lip service. Farmers want direct help now, and regional communities that have been impacted want direct help now, and I agree that that has to be thought through. There is an argument that sometimes, when it comes to long-term policy in relation to the drought, often the worst time to do it is during the drought itself.

We have some major challenges as a nation. When it comes to drought and other extreme weather events, a lot of the problem relates back to the nonsense taking place at a federal level. A lot of farmers know that the climate is changing, and a lot of farmers know that the climate is changing because of human impact on the atmosphere. Still at a federal level, we have the National Party with a strange language essentially denying this, but a lot of farmers know that we are facing what will be increasingly difficult circumstances in Australia, in a country that already has a variable climate.

If we do not fully address, both at a national level and at a global level, some of the issues that have been raised by the recent international report and we do not seriously mitigate those issues, significant sections of South Australia will, in the coming years, no longer be farming regions. They will be under enormous pressure.

Another thing I was concerned to hear during estimates was that the minister had no awareness about what was happening to the Bureau of Meteorology in South Australia. I asked minister this very specific question:

As the primary industries minister, and given the importance of the bureau to primary industries—agriculture, horticulture, aquaculture, the broader commercial fishing industries—have you had any discussions with your federal colleagues about [the threats to the bureau]?

The direct quote from the minister is:

…I would share the concerns if there was a lack of ability for the Bureau of Meteorology to give us the relevant data that we need. There has been no mention to me—I have not received a brief from any government department or official, state or federal—that there will be a reduction in services from the Bureau of Meteorology.

What is happening to the bureau is extremely serious for South Australia. The Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development should have been involved in a discussion and advised about what is happening to the bureau. He should have had some understanding of the situation, but the minister appeared to be behind the eight ball. We do need to reverse the cuts that are happening here in South Australia. These are significant cuts of highly specialised, qualified staff at the bureau. The Marshall Liberal government need to act very quickly, and they need to pull their heads out of the clouds.

Under the proposed changes, weather forecasting will no longer be undertaken in large measure in South Australia. This will have an impact on 22 meteorologists, who are experienced forecasters in this state. Meteorologists provide a whole range of warnings that assist industry and the general community. My concern that is that we are going to see a reduction in the quality of that service. It is understood that the bureau intend to replace the work that they do with a combination of automation and forecasting from Melbourne and Brisbane, which could potentially result in less accurate reports. Certainly, it will lead to a reduction in the level of localised knowledge. We need some immediate response from the government on these cutbacks.

We are facing an increase in extreme weather events, and to lose up to 22 positions in this state is very serious. As I have said, these are people with very specialised local knowledge, and the complexity of the regions in South Australia requires specialised knowledge. In relation to the fishing industry alone, we have a very complex coastline, with open ocean and two inverse estuaries. We have over 5,000 kilometres of coastline, so it is a concern that the minister does not share my concern when it comes to what is happening to the bureau in South Australia.

The Liberals have a general pea-and-thimble approach to funding regional initiatives. I will take the Murray cod restocking initiative as one example, but I will get to some better pea-and-thimble approaches in a minute. When it comes to Murray cod, it is not a pea-and-thimble approach: it is actually a direct cut. There is nothing complicated about it.

In estimates, I asked the minister—who, as we all know, is the member for Chaffey and who has that fine, great river running through his electorate—what consultation was done with the state's 277,000 recreational fishers and RecFish SA before the decision was made not to provide ongoing funding for the Murray cod restocking program. The minister told me that, although the program provides an opportunity for tourism and for a healthier river environment, the Treasurer was not of a mind to fund this particular program. To quote him directly:

My call on those stocking programs was that there needed to be a monitoring program so that we can actually see the work that is being done.

When I went to the Treasurer to look at ways in which I could implement a continuation of the stocking program, I was told that $28.6 million had to be found in budget savings—I think it could have been more than that. So there was no provision made for me to implement the stocking program. He went on to say:

I will have to negotiate with the Treasurer and the cabinet to put a budget allocation to introduce a stocking program.

This was a very worthwhile program that was just cut off at the knees. Put simply, the minister who has responsibility for fisheries has failed to provide any sort of guarantee about the Murray cod stocking program, which is in his own electorate. This program received the overwhelming backing of the River Murray councils and the community, so it is incredibly unfortunate that it has hit the wall despite very strong support.

Mr Speaker, I can assure you that recreational fishers are angry at the minister and the Liberal government because they received nothing in this federal budget. South Australia's recreational fishing community is, as I have said, made up of 277,000 people who fish our gulfs, beaches, lakes, rivers and open ocean on a regular basis and provide a much-needed economic stimulus to communities—and especially regional communities.

In the lead-up to this year's election, the Liberals released their policy, titled Representation for Recreational and Commercial Fishers, and promised to deliver key projects to improve recreational fishing. However, most of the sector has been underwhelmed by the lack of action that the state government has taken since March.

During estimates, the member for Chaffey also created a great sense of uncertainty in the recreational fishing sector by not ruling out a fishing licence for the state's fishers. I asked the minister a series of questions about recreational fishing, including about whether a licence will be introduced. He avoided answering the question specifically and instead said that he would undertake a review.

In the Liberal's pre-election policy, titled Representation for Recreational and Commercial Fishers, the Liberals promised to deliver key projects to improve recreational fishing. South Australian recreational fishers need answers now. How much will the licence be and who will pay for it? Will the occasional fisher who casts a line off the jetty pay as much as someone who takes their boat out a few times a week? The recreational fishing community was left reeling after the state budget, in which they were completely ignored, and this is yet another blow.

Despite constantly talking about how much the regions matter, the Marshall government will also not be extending the Local Government Association's Regional Youth Traineeship Program. PIRSA is the key South Australian government department created to support regional growth and boost the agricultural sector, and the cuts to PIRSA are another blow, amongst others, to farmers across the state,.

It is absolutely appalling that when some South Australian producers are experiencing the worst conditions in memory the state government is stripping back the department that provides them with programs, support, research and counselling. To make matters worse, the Marshall government is pilfering $17.7 million from the Regional Roads and Infrastructure Fund from 2019-22 to 2021-22 to fund the Liberal's promised Port Wakefield overpass and road widening project. This will whittle the amount left to spend on regional roads down to $297 million. There are lots of cuts coming for roads.

Time expired.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:38): I rise to speak to the Appropriation Bill, the reports of the committees, and I would like to acknowledge the sterling efforts of our Chairs—the Deputy Speaker (Chair of Committees), the member for Flinders, and the member for Waite. I thought they did excellent work. Obviously, they had to try to keep control amongst some feral antics from the other side—and there certainly were some feral antics. Everyone will be judged by how they behave, and people are being judged accordingly.

I would like to acknowledge the Chairs, as there was a fair bit happening at times. With the feral activity coming from the Labor opposition at one stage, the member for Flinders did the right thing and suspended the committee for five minutes. Some members on the other side thought they might cause more disruption and get another media opportunity, but the member for Flinders is a very, very wise man.

I acknowledge all our ministers, who had only been in the role for six months coming into estimates. I think they were very well prepared. I acknowledge the work that the departments did in the background when we were in opposition to the former government, and I certainly acknowledge the work they did in a year when the government changed so that we could at least put South Australia on the right track. Many hundreds of hours of work go into estimates and supporting our ministers, and I acknowledge that. No matter how much some members on the other side tried to unnerve our ministers, I think our ministers did a sterling job.

With regard to committees I was involved in, one involved the Premier. The comment was made as to why the members with me were there on the day, because we were not asking any questions, but that was the Premier's wish—so that he could rightfully take all the questions from the opposition. I applaud him for that. He quietly and methodically answered whatever questions came his way.

He did a sterling job telling the people of South Australia how well we are managing the South Australian economy and making sure that businesses, individuals and communities thrive under the leadership of the Marshall Liberal government. Some of the committees that the Premier and I were involved in were Defence SA, Aboriginal Affairs, Arts South Australia, Veterans SA and Multicultural SA, which is a broad range that the Premier dealt with. As I said, he did a great job fending off all the questions.

PIRSA was involved, and there were obviously forestry questions. I was involved in the education estimates, and we also had early childhood development, TAFE SA and higher education, and the Department for Child Protection. The agriculture, food and wine and forestry sectors are our largest export sectors and the industry directly generated $15.8 billion in revenue in 2016-17. This rounds out to something like $25 billion annually in value-added income in finished food. Agriculture is a major wealth generator for our state, as well as the areas of food and wine and forestry.

As mentioned in estimates, grain crops are forecast to be 5.8 million tonnes, significantly less than the long-term average, which is somewhere close to eight million tonnes. It is a very tough year, but it is a year of mixed fortunes, and certainly there are areas suffering from drought conditions. There are some areas that are very dry and some that are, quite frankly, blooming. The lower South-East, through the seats of Mount Gambier and MacKillop, is looking pretty good, but once you get right up to the top end of MacKillop where it joins my seat of Hammond it starts to dry out significantly.

It has been a real struggle. The Weckert family lease my property, and you can see that on the Register of Members' Interests published today on Adelaidenow. Probably six or eight weeks ago, I took a photo of my youngest son sitting on a motorbike in the crop, and you would not have been able to tell that the year would be as dry as it has been, but it is certainly hitting now. Those crops at Coomandook had all the potential of a pretty reasonable season, almost tending toward a bumper crop at that stage but, as we have seen with a lot of the state and a lot of my electorate, whether you go through Pinnaroo, Lameroo or around Karoonda, they have really gone out.

A lot of people have said, 'That's it. We'll shut up shop on this year,' but there is a huge expense in putting those crops in, and now they have to see them go. A friend of mine from Parrakie in the Mallee said that for the first time in his 36 years of being home he has turned sheep on 700 acres of his 2,600-acre crop, and he is trying to work out whether there will be anything to harvest from the 1,900 acres that are left. So it is very dire. There are mixed fortunes but, for those who have suffered with very little rain, it is very tough.

Mind you, as has been said as recently as yesterday on the Country Hour, when you look at the tools that farmers use with no-till farming using glyphosate, that has done more for agriculture than the tractor did in replacing the horse. They use the tools not only to sew the current season's crop but, as happened on my farm this year, one paddock was pasture topped in readiness for next year so we do not have seed set. Apart from the weed bank that will build up if you do not pasture top with glyphosate (or Roundup for people who want to know the brand name), it restricts the yield if you do not spray top in a lay paddock, which is a pasture paddock, coming into the next season.

There is some debate about the use of glyphosate, but I urge people, whoever they are, whether they be politicians or commentators, to please stick to the science. I am sick of hearing stories that are quite frankly out of fantasyland. On a Four Corners program the other night, I heard the words 'possible link' and 'probable link'. Let's be real and put some science into how our agricultural systems work. If we want to go back to the bad old days of graders grading Mallee highways—and not just the Mallee but also the West Coast, and some roads have had to be graded this year because of drift—we will have real strife if we lose glyphosate, a valuable tool in our farming systems. It has revolutionised farming.

Some farmers, in a very tough year like this, have had around only 100 millilitres (four inches in the old language) with which to grow a crop. It is not a lot of water, but managing the weeds with a spray topping in, say, August, and then giving a good brownout of any summer weeds that come through using glyphosate and probably a blend of some broadleaf chemicals, conserving every drop of moisture, is a big part of the reason that we have the crops we have today. Yes, there are people turning stock on crops, but one thing that is different this year from some dry years and some conditions for stock is that stock are worth a bit of money. They are actually worth a lot of money.

Wool is worth a lot of money, but you have to be able to keep sheep in prime condition. I know there are thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of animals—probably running into the millions if you go right across the east coast of Australia—being kept in feed lot conditions or small paddock-type conditions to get them through. It is a very fine balancing act, especially for the farmers on the east coast of Australia who are probably paying in excess of $600 a tonne landed for hay on how many stock you get.

The one out that people have—and you want to keep your breeding stock, obviously—is that, if you have to make a decision to sell those stock, especially in tough conditions like this, there is a dollar involved, unlike in 1992 when I actually helped shoot close to 1,000 sheep that had been paid for with a scheme at $7 a head. It was very sad to have to do that. We had shorn them that week, cleaned them up and then, on Saturday, we shot them. I never want to do that again. I took some photos to forever remind myself of what that was all about.

These are tough times. I just want to note the work that minister Whetstone, the member for Chaffey, spoke about during estimates and some of the things that are going on in regard to support and assistance for our farmers in these dry times. PIRSA's Agriculture and Animal Services are always available to provide advice and assistance for livestock and other animals affected by the current dry conditions. Biosecurity SA's animal health officers are also available to provide advice and support.

I also want to reflect on the business and financial support services. Rural Financial Counselling Service has been given a $260,000 increase in funding for Rural Business Support, which is something that is absolutely vital across South Australia. I acknowledge Brett Smith as the leader there and all of his team.

They have offices in Ardrossan, Berri, Clare, Kimba, Magill, Murray Bridge, Naracoorte, Port Lincoln and Wudinna. They are doing great work and sometimes assist people with very complex forms. I tell my farmers, 'If you need to fill out these forms or you have problems filling them out, just get onto Rural Business Support.' They are more than happy to come out and fill out these forms so that they can get families onto the Family and Business Support program. That program is now available to assist primary producers affected by or concerned about the continuing dry times.

Certainly, the Farm Household Allowance is very handy for farmers. With the changes that have been announced, there is an additional farm household support allowance of up to $12,000 for couples or $7,200 for singles, and I applaud that. People I have run into have said, 'How handy is that? We can still put food on the table in these dry times.' It does have to go through an assessment process, but I again acknowledge the sterling effort that Rural Business Support are putting in for all our people suffering dry times around the state.

There is a livestock fodder register, which is absolutely serious as well. With the changing conditions and, sadly, with a year like this, compounded with many growers—I know it is happening in my area. We have had some stem frost come in. Frost is what we call the 'thief in the night'. You have a pretty handy crop and the temperature plunges overnight, usually in October, as it has, and restricts growth so that the head can shoot out properly and fill out properly. There are thousands of acres of crop across the board. I know of some at Wynarka, some out the back of Yumali, between Yumali and Meningie, and some in other places, that are being mowed down. Some are just mowing down crops that were never going to make it, that is if they were able to get low enough with the mower to get any height.

Fodder will be dear. The usual price quoted is about $300 a tonne on farm, and some are quoting further increases in that, where people are charging—it is a private market, commercial operations—$300 a tonne plus cutting, baling and raking charges. It is expensive, but it is also an opportunity for droughted farmers. I guess it is just the function of the market, and that is why we see high grain and hay prices. The amount of frosted crop being cut down will impact on the amount of grain harvested at the finish as well.

There is also additional Australian Taxation Office advice for farmers around financial hardship and depreciation of different infrastructure around the farm. Certainly, there is the legislation we passed here recently on farm debt mediation, and the Office of the Small Business Commissioner, John Chapman, and his team do fantastic work in supporting our landholders. There are farm management deposits, where farmers can deposit up to $800,000. Some people say, 'That's a lot of money.' It would be a lot less than many farmers in this day and age would spend on the inputs to one year's tax. It is helpful that farmers are able to draw that down when they run into these tough times.

We are trying to encourage business resilience in the agricultural sector. There are low-interest loans available through the federal government. There is multi-peril crop insurance, and we have recently waived the stamp duty fees on multi-peril crop insurance. There is always farm extension and technical advice for farmers along the way. In health, there are so many services that can be contacted. There is a whole range, whether it is beyondblue, mental health teams, the Rural and Remote Mental Health services or others, and we also make legal assistance readily available to our farmers.

I know I have concentrated a lot on our agriculture sector, but it is struggling so much this year. I want to acknowledge the excellent work that the Marshall Liberal government is doing in the regions alongside those being affected by the terrible weather conditions. I acknowledge the Premier, minister Whetstone (member for Chaffey) and the whole team on this side because we are so connected to the regional areas. We know what is going on because we know the regions, and we are doing all we can in our power to help.

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