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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-09-03 Daily Xml
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Bills

Drought Response and Recovery Coordinator Bill

Second Reading

Mr TELFER (Flinders) (10:33): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I rise to speak on this bill that has been brought forward from the Legislative Council, and this Drought Response and Recovery Coordinator Bill is important. I want to encourage the government to give this serious consideration because I think there is an opportunity here for there to be a quality, constructive and nonpartisan solution for what I see as a significant challenge for not just regional South Australia but South Australia as a whole.

Our whole economy is built on what is driven by regional parts of our community and the contributors that bring in those export dollars. What we are facing in regional areas are some of the most challenging times that we have seen for a long time. Just because it rains in some parts of the state at the moment does not mean that there are not drought conditions being faced right around different parts of our state.

I was out west, at Streaky Bay and surrounds, only a few days ago and saw the challenges being faced right now by landowners, like the drift they are facing with their soil being blown away, with a very little amount of ground cover trying to hold it together. The year-on-year challenges that drought conditions bring are not just to regional farming businesses but to regional communities as a whole.

This legislation has been brought with an aim to try to create models that work, not based on the opinion of someone who is not facing the reality of drought every day. These people walk out their back door day after day and they have a heavy load on their shoulders when they know that there is not anything they can do within their own capacity to confront these conditions and do anything about it.

Financially, they are facing the challenge of trying to source and pay for fodder, and they are facing the challenge of having to resow areas where, as I said, the winds have come through and cut through the topsoil and they have suffered damage there. Every single day, people are facing the challenge of management of livestock and the elements of that we do not want to talk about; that is, having to actually make the hard decision of when to dispose of livestock, and not all livestock can just be sent off to the abattoir. Sadly, the heavy burden that is carried by farmers is that they have to do that disposal themselves.

These are real situations being faced by people in our community and regional South Australia right now because of the drought conditions. It was only earlier in the year when it seemed like right across the state these drought conditions were being faced. I was personally frustrated that there was not an understanding at the ministerial decision-making level of the actual total impact of what was being faced by regional South Australia.

The current drought package has been designed to support farmers who are not doing too bad financially and can afford the initial outlay for infrastructure; that is, the one-for-one grants or the like where, if you spend a bunch of money, you can get some money from the government. Well, not everyone has got that initial capital to be able to outlay. Then there are those who are doing it so tough that they qualify for the Farm Household Allowance. We know that, of the nearly 9,000 farming businesses in South Australia, less than 10 per cent actually qualified for that Farm Household Allowance. That means there is a whole significant swathe of South Australian regional farming businesses that were not able to qualify for any of those support mechanisms that the government decided eventually they would fund.

What we are seeing is a continual degradation of regional communities because of the challenges that they are facing with drought. When the rhetoric comes from government, whether it is at a state or federal level, like, 'We have the RIC loans in place to be able to support farmers'—well, the RIC loans, the so-called low-interest loans, the interest rate for those loans is over 5 per cent. For a farming business that is able to source capital, already 5 per cent is not competitive for them. For those who are not able to, this is a challenging situation where they might be desperate enough to have to take up the 5.18 per cent or whatever the current interest rate is.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that I and the shadow minister, the Hon. Nicola Centofanti, wrote to the body managing the RIC loans at the national level, because they had actually proposed to increase the interest rate for those so-called low-interest loans. They were going to increase it. It was at just about the same time that the Reserve Bank was decreasing interest rates that that entity, thinking it was a way to be able to support farmers, was actually considering and had been planning to increase it. Thankfully, they decided no, they were not going to increase it, but they certainly did not decrease the interest rate.

At a time when farmers are at their most vulnerable financially, the solution from government and the entity that has been set up is an interest rate of over 5 per cent for their support. There need to be greater supports for farmers with low or even no-interest loans, because we know that there is the capacity within farming businesses to be able to rebound when the drought conditions move on, and inevitably they will. However, we know that unless there are these mechanisms in place for them to find that support they are not going to survive, and we are going to end up with lesser communities because of it.

As I said at the opening, there is an opportunity for there to be a nonpartisan, proactive, constructive support mechanism actually built into legislation that is able to have support from both parties of government, and I certainly invite the government to consider this. I was disappointed, but probably not surprised, at some of the amendments that got baked into this bill by the Greens in the upper house, the way they tried to hijack this legislation and make it something more of an activist mechanism than a proactive and constructive drought mechanism.

I encourage the government to consider this. I think we should be peeling those back, we should be putting something forward that both Liberal and Labor can agree on. It needs to be above party politics because, in the end, it is about the long-term financial sustainability of regional communities, of regional businesses, and allowing people to keep farming. This is trying to enable them to be able to put a crop in next season.

I have been hearing stories from right across South Australia, and especially within my patch, of heartbroken farmers who have done everything right in their planning, have done everything right in their delivery, whether it is at Streaky Bay or up at Ceduna. I was speaking to someone only a few days ago up there who does not know where to turn next. They have had three years in a row of low to no income in their farming businesses. These are not hobby farmers, these are substantial farming businesses that have had long-term financial sustainability for decades that are now facing conditions with high inputs and high risk. What happens with low rainfall is that basically they need to deal with having zero or very low income.

These are farmers, some of whom are out in the Far West, who put a crop in living in hope, living in faith, that it will rain. Well, the rains did not come out there—and what little rain has come has been so late that the crops have not been able to be established to get up and going. I hear the same stories from a lot of farmers through the Mallee and beyond, and the Mid North is exactly the same. There are areas there that are once again facing—not just for the first time—cumulative years of low or no income.

This legislation we are debating, the Drought Response and Recovery Coordinator Bill, really does try to provide more certainty around a framework, because it should not be a year-to-year thing, where it is dependent on the electoral cycle and which colour government is in place. We should have certainty around the drought supports that are able to be delivered for regional South Australia. I understand that there different aspects that are obviously state versus federal. That is fine; we understand that at this level, but farmers do not understand it on the ground. That is why both levels, state and federal, need to have an understanding of what is actually going to work. As I said, I have been frustrated with the press release and media cycle response to drought rather than the practical, sustainable outcomes that we should be driving as decision-makers.

The work that has been done on delivering some of the fodder and support for livestock farmers around South Australia is really significant, and I commend the organisations, the charities, and those philanthropic donors that have put their hand in their pocket—some small and some bigger organisations—to help farmers get through some of the most challenging times. We had a fantastic event out in Streaky Bay a couple of months ago where, while there was no hay available for people to be able to buy, there were pellets that were locally produced that were sponsored by the Lions Club. There are a couple of Lions Clubs here in Adelaide that put their hands in their pockets, recognising the whole-of-state impact that the drought is having.

The Streaky Bay community—and beyond, as this is a big, wide community right across the West Coast—came together. It was not just about the fodder or the pellets, as it was on the day, that were able to be supplied to these people; it was about actually meeting together, having boots on the ground, having people understand the individual stories, and having the opportunity for people to be able to talk one on one. I talked to that many farmers that day—and continue to—who have not had an outlet. They have not had the opportunity to be able to actually speak to people about how things are going.

I thank the drought coordinator, Alex Zimmermann. At the time, he had only just been appointed and he made it all the way out to Streaky Bay. I thank Rural Business Support, who do amazing work. Each individual farming business situation is different. You cannot look over a fence and look at a piece of equipment or a piece of infrastructure or a crop and know the financial situation that is being faced by that farmer. We know that as regional people. We know that there are different levels of financial gearing. Some people might be in significant levels of debt, or they might have equipment but it is on significant financial machinery loans. Each individual business is different, and this is why that Rural Business Support framework is really important.

If you are a farmer who is facing those challenging drought conditions and those challenging financial situations, I encourage you: do not feel that you are alone. Take up the opportunity to be able to find those supports that Rural Business Support do in a confidential way. They can point you in the right direction, they can help with restructuring advice and they can have a look at each individual business's financial situation. As I said, on that day at Streaky Bay it was really prominent, but every day since then there have been people coming to me and saying, 'This is the challenge that we are facing.'

There is opportunity for government to be doing more, absolutely. We want to be making sure we are putting in a framework that supports businesses that have long-term sustainability so that we actually ensure that farming businesses continue to flourish in South Australia in some of the most productive areas right around the state and also those communities that contribute so much to our state's bottom line. The budgets of both state and federal governments are based on what activity happens within regional South Australia, and having this Drought Response and Recovery Coordinator framework within this bill is really positive.

Once again, I want to encourage the government to be proactive and to know that the opposition is open to be able to work to get a long-term sustainable model in place for drought support and make it nonpartisan. We are happy to have those conversations and try to pare back some of the ill-conceived aspects which have been woven in, I believe, by the upper house.

Let's actually have a bill which regional communities can be confident in, which farming businesses can be confident in, and through which we as decision-makers can proudly say we are putting in place a framework which is going to mean that regional communities going through some of the most challenging drought conditions have those supports in place so that they are sustainable not just now, not just in the medium term but in the long term. As a regional MP, I think that is something which is incredibly important.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (10:47): I would like to make a contribution on an issue that has been in the face of South Australia for a couple of years now, but no more so than for our primary producers. They have been through the wringer over the last two years. I think what we have seen is that a lot of South Australia has been regarded as marginal country and that there is a significant amount of the state that I think has what we would call reliable rainfall—they have fairly reliable seasons. But what we have seen this year on the back of a very, very dry year last year has been a very late start. I think what we are encountering at the moment has gone a bit back to the future, where we are coming back to more of a traditional start.

Once upon a time, we saw farmers sowing their crops into June, waiting for that opening rain. A lot of grain growers in particular have always waited for the rain before they sow a seed. But with modern-day practices, with no-till and some of the newer crops—growing much higher return crops, which has a level of risk in it—they are seeding earlier.

It is not unusual now to see a lot of primary producers who are sowing dry and putting their crops in on the faith that they will get the rain—then they will get a start, should they not have the subsoil that they are looking for. But I think we have to look much further and much broader and be very realistic about what our farming families, our farmers and primary producers are experiencing.

Government does have a role to play, but so do our regional communities. It is about understanding and promoting governments to do better when it comes to times of hardship. We have seen the current South Australian government and federal government come to the fore to support what I would call the majority of their base, which might be some of those industries that they have long supported and supported at the drop of a hat.

We look at the steel industry, we look at manufacturing and we have seen a significant support package put in place without the blink of an eye, and fair enough. But I would like to think that our primary sector is just as important—in my way of thinking, more important than any other sector. It is renewable, and it employs a significant part of the population in South Australia. Whether it is a service sector or at the coalface of that primary production, we have seen this government being quite tardy in coming to the fore with those support packages.

Really, what we are seeing this year is very much a cut and paste of what the former government did, with myself as the primary industries minister, in putting a support package forward to actually address the short-term needs and obviously look to implement practices which I would call droughtproofing, which would be a longer term strategy to support our primary sector.

We all know that the primary sector has long been challenged with variable seasons, commodity prices, a lot of technology, but if we look further afield, I am not here to point the finger at the government that they should fix all, but I think they do have important roles to play, whether it is investing in R&D, looking at seed trials, more drought-tolerant types of crops, or making sure that we look at what has worked over the course of time.

As the member for Flinders has quite rightly put it, some of the support packages that we on this side, the opposition, would like to see in a bipartisan manner would be to look at the RIC loans. Yes, we look at the infrastructure programs that help droughtproof our farms to help safeguard our livestock, but it is more important than just safeguarding livestock; it is more about protecting our breeding stock. It is about protecting something that has taken decades, in most instances, where primary producers are breeding bloodlines of livestock that give better returns for their clip and better returns for their meat products.

Breeding those animals specifically for food production is of paramount importance. Not only does it put food on the table, three meals a day, but it is also a serious driver in our economy. We know that some of the big business in South Australia is underpinned by agriculture. It is underpinned by those who have taken a leap of faith to continue to invest to make sure that every dollar invested in a farming enterprise is money that has a multiplier return.

Obviously, the importance of looking after the wellbeing of our primary producers cannot be overstated. As an example, last Friday, I was at a hay drop in Paruna, which is in the Mallee in the great electorate of Chaffey. I got there bright and early and a lot of those trucks or those road trains were laden with vetch hay. They were there to support growers who are doing it tough, particularly in the Mallee and surrounding areas.

All of that hay had come from New South Wales. That was a good gesture, a leap of faith by the Rapid Relief Team, a Christian philanthropic organisation that have done an outstanding job. I have been to their drops at Mannum, Jamestown and now at Paruna. They brought not just the hay; they brought some level of support, whether it be that conversation or whether it be a farmer speaking to government agencies or to support agencies. They brought simple things like breakfast. They brought a nice cup of coffee.

It got farmers out of their kitchens into their truck to come down, pick up a load of hay and also have that conversation. There were a couple of farmers I spoke to. One in particular, was a young farmer trying to make it work. He had not been out of his house for two weeks. In that two-week period, there had been threatened rain; it never eventuated. But what did eventuate was that every time he opened the blind his country was blowing away. We have had horrendous winds this year, with no rain, particularly affecting those light Mallee soils. It just typified what it seems to be—that the end game is that we see a lot of the paddock up against fences, a lot of those paddocks covering the highways. That is the harsh reality of dealing with primary production in those light Mallee soils.

What we talked about—and I talked to a couple of a couple of growers who were looking for support—was that it is not about lining their pockets with gold; it is just about providing them with a level of certainty that they will have support to fight another day, to be able to plant a crop for another year, making sure that they continue with the great work that they are doing.

I will mention some of some of the ideas that I have just jotted down. Obviously we were very, very proud to lift the GM moratorium back in 2019-20. I think it was a great initiative to allow for more drought-tolerant and salt-tolerant seed to be planted, and some of the results I saw come out of that initiative have been truly outstanding. Other ideas include water infrastructure upgrades to help protect and sustain livestock on farm, making sure that we do have an opportunity to bank fodder, making sure we have an opportunity to bank seed. The seed used for growing seed is something I think that has been long overlooked.

I think the government's role in terms of more promotion of research and development needs to be addressed. As I said, there are drought-resistant plants. Using carbon credits is another way to diversify. But currently it is hand to mouth, and that really is not looking at the long term. So a fodder program, the hay drops and the water for fodder are great initiatives, but I think there is always more to be done. I think the government need to be more flexible. They need to reduce the red tape. I am looking forward to be able to contribute more ideas to the government on behalf of the opposition to help our farmers get through another tough year.

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (10:58): It gives me great pleasure to speak on a topic and a drought response and recovery piece of legislation that to my understanding has been brought forward from the other place and from the opposition and particularly the Hon. Nicola Centofanti. This whole process is close to home. Not only my electorate but many thousands of businesses in South Australia that depend on regional South Australia are affected by the seasonal climatic variations that we are subject to and also the ups and downs in commodity prices.

To understand where we have landed in the last couple of years, I am going to highlight what we are facing and what we have been through, which is nothing less than extraordinarily serious. We saw a 70 per cent correction of commodity prices in beef, lamb and mutton in June 2023. We saw a dry period extending from Perth, Western Australia, right through to Melbourne, Victoria, a span that includes South Australia. We have seen the dry period continue on through 2023, leading into 2024 and going now into 2025. Recently, June may be okay, July has been good, August has been good, and we have our fingers crossed for a good September and late spring rains.

I am alluding here to some of the safer rainfall areas between Perth and Melbourne on the southern edges of Australia, which depend on a Mediterranean climate that is normally quite consistent. Yes, we can have dry periods and, yes, we can miss out on the odd season, but we have had nearly two to three years of extraordinarily low rainfalls that have broken records, on the back of a commodity price which I do need to explain.

The commodity price collapse that occurred in 2023 is not really a government fault. It is probably a success of stock producers in the country as a whole overproducing in the capacity of our processors to meet the demand of a sell-off. This was exacerbated by processors—meatworks and killing works that obviously deal with lamb, mutton and beef—that could not cope with the influx that occurred in 2023 due to a sell-off. It has nothing to do with live sheep out of Western Australia either, because that trade has not closed, and it definitely was not yet closed in 2023.

The thing that has occurred here and that is different from any other time is that meatworks and processors would put on the second and third shift normally through visa workers. These visa workers were not accessible after COVID and still are not accessible after COVID like they used to be. Even if the visa workers were accessible, they would struggle to house those visa workers in and around the towns that the meatworks operate in. You cannot just bring in 500 or 400 workers and put on another shift, because you have to put them somewhere, and that is not available anymore like it used to be.

So we saw this collapse where we nearly went back to the days when some stock was basically being euthanased because the value of the animal was not worth putting on a truck to pay the transport costs in 2023. The other extraordinary part about that collapse is that it took six months to see any change on the supermarket shelf from December 2023. We saw only a 12 per cent reduction in price by then, after producers had seen a 70 per cent collapse.

The other thing that has happened since is we have seen it gradually increase to where we are in 2025, where we are seeing record prices for lamb and nearly record prices for mutton. I have to say that beef sits at around 70 to 80 per cent of decile points over the last five or ten years, which is nothing to be scoffed at and very much appreciated.

Giving some context of what that collapse means and where we have landed, we saw dry cows selling between $2,700 to $3,000 a head. Within two or three months, they were only worth $1,000 a head in June 2023. We have probably seen that corrected, and we are back to about $2,000. I can tell you from experience as a producer that we sold some steers into a feedlot. We had normally been receiving around $1,300 to $1,400 around that collapse. In the last week, we have just received $2,400 a head on those animals. That is good money.

What is going wrong, and what are we doing here? We are going to bring in a coordinator. It worries me when we are bringing in a drought coordinator that it is not a full-time position. It actually says here that we are going to impose a coordinator when it is dry, when it gets tough. I wonder who that will be. I wonder what the expertise of that coordinator will be. I wonder how that person will get traction in any government.

The ironic thing about this debate here is that, really, the drought and any sort of large response is a federal government issue, not a state government issue. I praise the state government going from around $18 million initially. I think they might have lifted it to $40 million or $50 million, and they went up to about $70 million worth of help. A lot of the help that $70 million represented was mental health and the like with what has been out in the community across the spectrum in the two to three years that we have been suffering in the regions. No doubt resilience is being tested to the absolute utmost.

Talking about water, infrastructure and spend, the government is going to give us a 50 per cent subsidy to help with expenditure. You are talking about producers who are on the bones of their knees. To give you a little bit of insight, McBrides are a large business with 11 properties in South Australia/Victoria, shearing some 300,000 sheep a year, and we were budgeting losses over the last one to two years. On top of that, just recently—in March, April, May 2025—we were feeding out 400 tonnes of grain costing $160,000 a week to keep six properties in the south of this state alive and functioning. We talked to the member Chaffey about the value of breeding stock, the key flock nucleus and so forth—just keeping those properties alive. Those costs are absolutely losses on top of losses.

So what I would say that I think is lost in this debate and where the answers lie is that it comes back to resilience, the taxation system and the federal government having a responsibility, somehow, in trying to negate what are the ups and downs that we know we have always survived. In the pastoral region, where McBrides have five pastoral properties—and they average 175 millimetre rainfall; some years they get it, sometimes they do not, sometimes they get more—they are still in drought today. No doubt we have neighbours up there, we have families up there and they are still looking for rain that actually turns the pastoral country around. They have had five millimetres, 10 millimetres, I am hearing of some in the 20s and 30s in some isolated areas, which they have very much welcomed, but it is not widespread. In general, the pastoral regions are very much suffering in South Australia still.

The other matter I want touch on is the FMD system. FMD stands for farm management deposits. It is a federal government initiative. Some businesses can do it, depending on the structure of their business. Family trust companies can do this, but I do not believe partnerships can. FMD is where an individual farmer, wife and children can lay down up to $800,000 worth of funds in the good times, and they can roll those funds out in the dry times.

The problem with that system is that the money then has to go back to individuals and, as soon as you top them up over $180,000 a year, they are in the top tax bracket and they start losing 50¢ in the dollar that they will have to pay tax on in the year after. They are in recovery mode and they are not going to be flush with funds. So that is the ultimate in the scrutiny of a FMD system that really does work, but it does not because it is in dribs and drabs. When I talk about large moneys of businesses, and that planting a crop costs $1 million—some of these business have between $1 million to $5 million in chemicals—the FMD system does not really go that far when things are really bad in larger family businesses. They do not have to be that large to get up to those sorts of costs.

All I would say in this chamber is that state politics has a role to play. I think that the state government has done all that they possibly can in regard to mental health, resilience and backing up. I saw voluntary hay load drops and getting the spectacle on the toughness of what was out there—that connection, that connectivity—which then goes back to the praise and the support that farmers and regional people are looking for. All I can say is if the coordinator can coordinate all that, well, good luck to him.

Mr BASHAM (Finniss) (11:08): I am pleased to rise to speak to this bill, but very sad to rise to speak about drought. As someone who has farmed for many years, we farmed in a very high rainfall area at Mount Compass, and there are two or probably three particular eras that come very much to mind as far as drought goes for our farming business that was based at Mount Compass.

We were on that farm for over 40 years, and I can only remember three times when we actually fed hay—supplementary feeding—to our cows during the month of June, and twice we fed into July. That is a real indicator of how reliable the rainfall is on Fleurieu Peninsula around your part of the world, Mr Speaker—the Lower Fleurieu—and my part of the world, around Mount Compass in particular.

It is a real struggle for those dairy farmers, because it is a particular cohort of farmers who are farming with their breeding stock as their stocking rate. Usually they do not have any surplus stock sitting there that they can destock. When circumstances get really tough for them, it gets really tough. I very much reflect on my personal experiences of the Millennium Drought: it was a huge challenge for the dairy industry in South Australia, and it was when I was president of the South Australian Dairyfarmers' Association.

One of the things I did that I am most proud of during my time in that role was getting all of the dairy regions of South Australia drought declared under the old system. It is something that had never occurred for a single dairy region in South Australia previous to that, and to get them all declared was amazing. The old system was broken. The challenge was that you needed two failed seasons in a row. Queensland got that all the time because they have two seasons in one year, whereas in South Australia we need two consecutive years to have failure—a really hard threshold to get over.

When we have those sorts of seasons, it really hits hard, and we are going through that right now. We have had two absolute failures in our seasons through our farming areas, and it has been really quite sad to see the pressure. Personally, I know that pressure. Interestingly, back in the Millennium Drought, one of the criteria for being eligible for the funding was that you had to own the farm for, I think, two years before you were able to apply. My wife and I had only taken over 18 months before from my parents, so we were not eligible. It was me personally fighting for the rest of the industry, but I was one of the few dairy farmers who could not apply.

That pressure sits there, and it puts pressure on your business not just for the drought years but for a number of years after that that it takes to recover. To try to build up funds in the dairy industry is also really challenging. It is a very high turnover business, so a lot of money goes out and a lot of money comes in on a very regular basis. For example, destocking is not an option because you take your milking cows off and there goes all your income. You still have some expenses; yes, you might save on feed expenses, but you will lose other things, so there is no ability to recover. To go and then try to purchase cows from elsewhere to re-establish is really difficult after a drought.

With this drought that we have gone through, I attended a dinner back in June held in the Encounter Bay Football Club. The Minister for Primary Industries was there, and it was a nice dinner to get together with farmers who were really quite stressed at the time; part of the need is to support those farmers and, through the stress of it all, to know that they are not alone, that they are not the only ones suffering. It is a huge challenge for a dairy farm.

We were milking through that Millennium Drought somewhere between 400 and 450 cows. The amount of feed I needed to be able to buy on a weekly basis was 50 tonnes of hay to supplement what would have normally been there in grass—50 tonnes of hay, to put in people's minds, is 2½ semi loads a week. When you look at that, how does a business make that work? The milk income that would have been coming in would not have even gone close to just covering the hay bill. In the circumstances we have been in this year, even worse than what I went through with the Millennium Drought, the problem was that South Australia ran out of hay. Hay was coming in from interstate, from far and wide. It was coming from WA and Queensland, which is where we ended up trying to source fodder.

My understanding is that fodder that would normally have cost in today's terms somewhere between $200 and $250 a tonne delivered on farm was costing approximately $1,000 a tonne delivered on farm. So, in my circumstance, that is $50,000 a week just in fodder. We are talking $200,000 a month that a farmer has to find from his milk cheque that would not even be that, but also still pay his staff, still pay himself and still pay all those other bills.

Again, it is a really challenging environment, and attending that dinner was certainly something that moved me. It made me dig my hand into my pocket. My wife and I actually decided to bid on an auction item. It was a Tonka toy truck, a large one, probably valued at maybe $100 max. It was going up—it was about $190, I think it was—and I put in a bid for $5,000 and, surprisingly, I won with a bid of $5,000, but it was very much about me making a donation to that farming community to make sure people were not feeling as alone as they can.

Moving towards drought preparedness is certainly an important move, but I also think it is something that we have to understand is really challenging as well. Farmers do not have spare money at the moment to invest in preparedness, so to have those programs put on the table actually puts more mental stress on people's minds because they have to weigh up: 'Do I actually do this? Do I have to find the money from elsewhere? Do I not pay that bill to the feed supplier, to the fodder supplier, and instead I go and try to prepare for the next drought when I am in one?' It is a real challenge and a really awkward situation for farmers to deal with.

To me, I think it is great that we work towards that preparedness and try to underpin the strength of our industry, but I think there are some real challenges there. I think also the world has very much changed, particularly in the banking world. Historically, farmers would have been able to go to their bank at reasonably short notice and find some extra money through an increase in overdraft, or some extra borrowings, to actually make sure their business had the cash flow to survive. Probably since the banking royal commission we have not seen that same flexibility available to farmers. To go to the bank when you are actually making significant losses and ask them to lend you more money, their willingness to lend that money in those circumstances is really tough.

To have a piece of legislation that tries to help those farmers through that difficult time—as you are actually looking to save your business, to make sure it does not fold, to make sure that you are there for the future generations and to supply the food Australia and the world needs—is so important. I think it is really important that we work to make sure pieces of legislation like this pass this place so farmers actually have the support they need, particularly financially but also very much for their mental needs.

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (11:18): I rise proudly to speak in support of the bill and with, I think, a healthy dose of humility as a participant with fairly rose-coloured glasses towards the old primary industries. I was not born and raised on a farm and my family connection to farming, primarily in Western Australia, has been episodic to the point where I have always looked at it as the greatest way of life that there is.

I spent a short time at WA's perhaps smallest primary school, took weeks off to shear and returned for holiday breaks throughout my primary and senior schooling, and it remains: an aspiration to farming being the highest calling in many ways. I will say that, perhaps, to illustrate the rose-coloured glasses approach to what I know are the real-life, day-to-day mundane struggles of farming families and communities throughout our state and our nation.

To get a few things straight, we are debating this bill in circumstances, as we do in this parliament, not where we deal with the necessary social supports for vulnerable communities, vulnerable children, those in need. In circumstances of drought, yes, that is where our families and communities on the farms find themselves. But these are families and communities who are contributing to our state's single largest export—about half our exports. They contribute enormously to our state's revenue. Their products are woven into the carpet in this chamber. They are families and communities who are at the foundation of what we take pride and joy in celebrating about what makes us South Australian.

As we come to this debate, in this week of the Royal Adelaide Show, at a time when those families and communities are coming to town, as they have done for many decades, to show off the world's best produce, we bear in mind that this is the strength of our state. This is at the heart and soul and at the core of what is successful about our state. It has been so from the very beginning, it still is so and will be so for the decades and centuries to come.

I say that emphasising one more thing, in the celebrated memory of that great man of South Australian politics, Bert Kelly, the long-time member for Wakefield—

The Hon. N.D. Champion: He was a great man.

Mr TEAGUE: —who led the charge federally—and we have had a contribution from the member for MacKillop—preceded in Wakefield by the member for MacKillop's grandfather, Philip McBride, who also did that area proud. But I focus on Bert Kelly, because he described himself as—

The Hon. N.D. Champion: The modest member.

Mr TEAGUE: —the modest member, as the minister is right to emphasise. He was taking up that important debate in the federal parliament throughout his time, at many times arguing the merits of the free trade argument that has now finally won the day. He took up that fight really as often a lonely voice, in circumstances where there were lots of voices around the parliament, including from the Country Party, as it then was, the National Party and broader interests, that spoke up for what abides in so many parts of the world, which is a highly subsidised protection model for primary industries. We see that is still the case very much so in Europe and in other parts of the world.

Bert Kelly's success in prosecuting the argument for Australia and, in particular our primary producers to be at the forefront in a free trade environment globally, in speaking up for the benefits that would flow, has meant that over these many decades our South Australian primary producers have been at the global forefront producing the very best produce that there is to be found in food and fibre and wine and all those wonderful products, not with their hand constantly held out and not with the constant featherbed of public policy around them to provide some sort of advantage into markets—quite the contrary. They have had to suffer the slings and arrows of the global fortunes, the fluctuations in global pricing, exposure to just about every external market force that might be coming along and that is before they have to navigate the vagaries of the natural elements that are the focus of some modicum of support that might come through this mechanism for the installation of a drought response and recovery coordinator.

I highlight where we all are here in this state parliament. There has been a contribution to the debate including, relevantly, highlighting the important role of the federal government from the taxation side. I think it is well to remind us that schemes such as may be available to ameliorate the effect of the feast and famine that comes with seasons good and bad are very important core business for federal government to deal with.

What is front and centre, and remains so for state governments and for those of us here in this state parliament, is the health and security of our farming families and communities. That is what we are good at in state governments. We are good at getting around families and communities and providing supports when they need it. We have heard a bit about the mental health challenges that come along when you are not only at the helm of your family business but you are also at the helm of your family, looking to bring up children and keep them thriving at home, get them going to school to keep up the opportunities that might come for them, while bearing the financial pressure and the personal identity crisis that comes when you are under the unique combination of pressures that affect those heroic women and men at the helm of farming businesses around our state.

We talk about resilience. Sure, that is a word you can bandy about. It is for no small reason that our farming enterprises are known for being characterised by their resilience, some essential elements on display all the time, and that is particularly so in circumstances of drought. It is acutely relevant that the state parliament can legislate for the application of a coordinator in response to circumstances of drought, of those circumstances that come along, as we know, periodically, and that can therefore apply social, health and financial supports to help people through.

I just emphasise that if there is a purpose for government in relation to families and communities, it is to demonstrate that you are there for them with all the tools at your disposal to let them know that they can actually have confidence that the public institutions have their back. So we would do well—not the least in this week when our country families have come to town to show off their world-beating wares—to recognise their great work by getting on with legislating to support them via this mechanism.

Mr ODENWALDER (Elizabeth) (11:28): I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

The house divided on the motion:

Ayes 23

Noes 15

Majority 8

AYES

Bettison, Z.L. Boyer, B.I. Brown, M.E.
Champion, N.D. Clancy, N.P. Cook, N.F.
Dighton, A.E. Fulbrook, J.P. Hood, L.P.
Hughes, E.J. Hutchesson, C.L. Koutsantonis, A.
Michaels, A. Odenwalder, L.K. (teller) O'Hanlon, C.C.
Pearce, R.K. Piccolo, A. Picton, C.J.
Savvas, O.M. Stinson, J.M. Szakacs, J.K.
Thompson, E.L. Wortley, D.J.

NOES

Basham, D.K.B. Brock, G.G. Cowdrey, M.J.
Cregan, D.R. Ellis, F.J. Gardner, J.A.W.
Hurn, A.M. McBride, P.N. Patterson, S.J.R.
Pisoni, D.G. Pratt, P.K. Tarzia, V.A.
Teague, J.B. Telfer, S.J. (teller) Whetstone, T.J.

PAIRS

Mullighan, S.C. Pederick, A.S.
Malinauskas, P.B. Batty, J.A.

Motion thus carried; debate adjourned.

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