❓ A WA parliamentary question addresses the federal government's drought funding allocation, criticising its exclusion of the southern rangelands and questioning the WA Minister's response. The Minister defends the state's approach and highlights flaws in the federal funding model.
AnsweredQoN 31Legislative Council
QuestionView source ↗
DROUGHT —
SOUTHERN RANGELANDS
31. Hon ROBIN SCOTT to the Minister for Agriculture and Food:
I refer to the federal government's
snub of the Western Australian southern rangelands in the recent drought
funding allocations.
(1) When did the
minister find out that the federal government would not be providing
drought-affected areas with much needed funding?
(2) What action
has the minister taken to try to address this terrible oversight by the federal
government?
(3) Does the
minister acknowledge that as long as she refuses to acknowledge that there is a
drought in WA, no meaningful assistance will be provided to drought-affected
farmers and pastoralists?
SOUTHERN RANGELANDS
31. Hon ROBIN SCOTT to the Minister for Agriculture and Food:
I refer to the federal government's
snub of the Western Australian southern rangelands in the recent drought
funding allocations.
(1) When did the
minister find out that the federal government would not be providing
drought-affected areas with much needed funding?
(2) What action
has the minister taken to try to address this terrible oversight by the federal
government?
(3) Does the
minister acknowledge that as long as she refuses to acknowledge that there is a
drought in WA, no meaningful assistance will be provided to drought-affected
farmers and pastoralists?
AnswerView source ↗
I thank the member for the question.
(1)–(3) I
have explained before how we have moved away from the concept of a declaration
of drought. I will give the member a copy of the maps that show exactly what
the rainfall position has been over the last four
years. That having been said, we completely and utterly understand that 2019
was a horror year across the state. I
think the important insight that needs to come with that is that most of these
assistance measures are available based on actual need. I have
personally written to every pastoralist explaining how they can access things
such as the household assistance scheme and the concessional loan regime.
Hon Robin
Scott : Have you actually spoken to the pastoralists?
Hon
ALANNAH MacTIERNAN : Yes, I had a meeting
in L eonora and I speak to groups of
pastoralists quite often. I convened a meeting in Leonora in November and I am
in dialogue with them, as is the department. The department has done 120 visits
in the last six months. We are absolutely very conscious that this has been a difficult
time. We are very pleased to note that over the last week six weeks, we have
had two sets of rain episodes that have gone some way to helping many of those
areas. I presume that what the member referenced in parts (1) and (2) was the
quite bizarre announcement by Minister Littleproud that finally—we had
been agitating for this—some Western Australian local governments
should have been included in the grant schemes for local governments. He seemed
to say that he was addressing this issue, but as we have said before, people
were very puzzled that some of the most challenged areas such as Laverton,
Yalgoo and Wiluna were not included whereas Busselton, Bridgetown and Albany
were.
The chronic problem we have is that
the metric that has been drawn up works for the eastern states. This happens
with governments of both persuasions. I have seen it happen with Labor
governments, too. They devise a national scheme, whether it is for drought or
solar rebates, and it is all designed around the metrics of the eastern states
and it does not work over here. I presume that the formula that was drawn up
made sense given the weather patterns and
climates of the eastern states, but it was completely ludicrous here. I do not
want to suggest that the areas around Busselton have not had lower than
average rainfall—they have—but because they are relatively high
rainfall areas, the impact was not as great as the same level of decline in low
rainfall areas.
Minister
Kelly and I wrote a joint letter to Minister Littleproud pointing out that we
thought that the calculation system is fundamentally wrong with clear errors in
it. For example, one of the reasons that Laverton missed out was because it has mining activity, so it is not reliant
substantially on the income generally from farming. Our argument was that that
would also apply to Busselton where tourism and hospitality are major economic
drivers in the region. We think that was silly. As I said, looking forward we
are very keen to get access to the future drought fund and develop a series of
projects that will really start addressing how we build long-term resilience
into our farming systems.
(1)–(3) I
have explained before how we have moved away from the concept of a declaration
of drought. I will give the member a copy of the maps that show exactly what
the rainfall position has been over the last four
years. That having been said, we completely and utterly understand that 2019
was a horror year across the state. I
think the important insight that needs to come with that is that most of these
assistance measures are available based on actual need. I have
personally written to every pastoralist explaining how they can access things
such as the household assistance scheme and the concessional loan regime.
Hon Robin
Scott : Have you actually spoken to the pastoralists?
Hon
ALANNAH MacTIERNAN : Yes, I had a meeting
in L eonora and I speak to groups of
pastoralists quite often. I convened a meeting in Leonora in November and I am
in dialogue with them, as is the department. The department has done 120 visits
in the last six months. We are absolutely very conscious that this has been a difficult
time. We are very pleased to note that over the last week six weeks, we have
had two sets of rain episodes that have gone some way to helping many of those
areas. I presume that what the member referenced in parts (1) and (2) was the
quite bizarre announcement by Minister Littleproud that finally—we had
been agitating for this—some Western Australian local governments
should have been included in the grant schemes for local governments. He seemed
to say that he was addressing this issue, but as we have said before, people
were very puzzled that some of the most challenged areas such as Laverton,
Yalgoo and Wiluna were not included whereas Busselton, Bridgetown and Albany
were.
The chronic problem we have is that
the metric that has been drawn up works for the eastern states. This happens
with governments of both persuasions. I have seen it happen with Labor
governments, too. They devise a national scheme, whether it is for drought or
solar rebates, and it is all designed around the metrics of the eastern states
and it does not work over here. I presume that the formula that was drawn up
made sense given the weather patterns and
climates of the eastern states, but it was completely ludicrous here. I do not
want to suggest that the areas around Busselton have not had lower than
average rainfall—they have—but because they are relatively high
rainfall areas, the impact was not as great as the same level of decline in low
rainfall areas.
Minister
Kelly and I wrote a joint letter to Minister Littleproud pointing out that we
thought that the calculation system is fundamentally wrong with clear errors in
it. For example, one of the reasons that Laverton missed out was because it has mining activity, so it is not reliant
substantially on the income generally from farming. Our argument was that that
would also apply to Busselton where tourism and hospitality are major economic
drivers in the region. We think that was silly. As I said, looking forward we
are very keen to get access to the future drought fund and develop a series of
projects that will really start addressing how we build long-term resilience
into our farming systems.
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