DROUGHT —
SOUTHERN RANGELANDS
1276. Hon
COLIN de GRUSSA to the Minister for Agriculture and Food:
I
refer to the minister's comments in The West Australian today
regarding the critical drought situation in the southern rangelands.
(1) What
infrastructure developments, if any, is the government considering to provide
the southern rangelands more stable and long-term water supplies into the
future?
(2) How does the
Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development plan to transition
pastoralists to carbon farming in a timely fashion, given the lack of rainfall
in this region?
(3) Will the minister introduce
legislation to enable any carbon farming plans in Western Australia?
(4) Will there be
state-funded programs to incentivise destocking?
(5) Has the
minister planned for the animal welfare risks associated with destocking weak
animals; and, if yes, please table that plan?
Hon
ALANNAH MacTIERNAN replied:
I thank the member for the question.
(1)–(5) Water
supply in those pastoral regions is generally the responsibility of the
pastoral operations, but the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation
has been undertaking aerial surveys to help identify where better water is. Of
course, we also are seeking from the federal government engagement on the
program to look at how we can strengthen the southern rangelands more
generally, and that will be about not only water. That has to be about
regeneration.
The member seems to be a bit
concerned about us going down the path of carbon farming. Indeed, the
pastoralists very much want to take this path forward. We are working to
achieve that and, hopefully, at some point we will be able to have in place a regime
that will allow those pastoralists in the southern rangelands to engage in
carbon farming through human-induced regeneration. It is hard work to get it done.
I understand it could not be done under the previous government, but,
hopefully, we will get there.
Is there a program to incentivise
destocking? We have to look at this issue. Reducing stock is part of the
practice of pastoralism. When we have a dry season, we move our stock to
somewhere else. That has to be an essential part of management of our farming
systems. Do we need to do something more than that, something more radical?
Possibly we do, and again we are seeking to develop a long-term response, because this is not a short-term problem. This has
been getting worse and worse. If we had been monitoring the rangelands
over the previous government's term in government, it probably would
have become more evident that this is becoming an increasingly difficult
problem.
As I said in answers to earlier
questions, we have definitely had our officers going out there into those most
at-risk stations, talking about destocking and stock being fit to transport.
Our advice is that there are only a couple of properties where the animals are
too weak to be moved, that it has been left to that point. We are certainly supporting the farmers in making
sure that they understand that and can manage that task.
Quite clearly, a very low percentage
of our farmers is applying for the federal household assistance scheme, which
can add $100 000 a year to income. I think that will go a long way to helping
some of these marginal stations survive.