Question Without Notice No. 262 asked in the Legislative Council on 21 June 2017 by Hon Jim Chown
Parliament: 40 Session: 1
AGRICULTURAL REGION — DROUGHT RELIEF
262. Hon JIM CHOWN to the Minister for Agriculture and Food:
I am sure the minister is aware of the disaster that is now daily unfolding throughout the Agricultural Region—a disaster due to lack of rain. The prospect of a drought is such that we have never seen before in this part of the Western Australian agricultural area. We need to bear in mind that 80 to 90 per cent of crops are already on the ground due to technology.
(1) What relief measure programs is the government considering?
(2) Has the minister discussed commonwealth help with her federal counterpart?
(3) When can we expect the government to address the issue if it becomes an absolute drought?
Hon ALANNAH MacTIERNAN replied:
(1)–(3) I thank the member for the question. Yes, this is an extremely serious issue. Drought relief funds are provided through a commonwealth scheme. That scheme requires two consecutive years of hardship in order to trigger the availability —
Hon Jim Chown: That was the old exceptional circumstances scheme. I think the relief from the commonwealth may have been changed.
Hon ALANNAH MacTIERNAN: I am happy to check that, member. The advice I got from the relevant executive director of the Department of Agriculture and Food this week was certainly based on this idea. Certainly it is the department's understanding that two years of hardship is required. The first thing that is underway now is to chart all the areas that would have qualified for hardship last year. Most of that hardship was generated from frost incidents. We are now overlaying that with the areas that will potentially be drought affected. We have made a decision that we will wait till the first week in July to establish whether or not rain has arrived because there is still a possibility that some of the currently seeded area could survive.
Normally under the federal program, the second year of hardship cannot be established until harvest. My argument is that if the plants are dead, they are dead. Our view is that if that has been established, we would like the commonwealth to consider this matter earlier rather than requiring, as its guidelines currently do, that we wait until harvest time. We are very focused on this. We have mapped out all the areas that could make the case for two consecutive years and at the end of this month—in two weeks—we will collate those areas that meet the guideline. We will push very hard for the commonwealth to accept that it should not require us to wait until harvest to determine whether hardship has occurred.