ON-FARM EMERGENCY WATER
INFRASTRUCTURE REBATE SCHEME
791. Mr
P.J. RUNDLE to the Minister for Water:
I refer to the state government's
$1.2 billion budget surplus and the federal government's recently
announced $50 million boost to the on-farm emergency water infrastructure rebate
scheme.
(1) Will the
state government support our $10 billion agriculture sector and commit to
matching funding, as required by the commonwealth government?
(2) When will the
state government reopen the scheme for WA farmers and begin processing previously
received applications to allow farmers to implement water-saving measures ahead
of summer?
Mr D.J.
KELLY replied:
I thank the member for the question.
(1)–(2) As
the member knows, the federal government had a scheme in place to provide
rebates to farmers to do work to encourage water saving on their properties. As
the member should know, that scheme was oversubscribed—that is, more
farmers applied for it than there was money available. We did not close the
scheme; in fact, we continued to receive and process additional applications
from farmers. We wrote to the feds and said, ''The scheme is clearly in
high demand in this state. You should tip more money in.'' In March I wrote
to the federal minister to that effect, and the response I got back was that no
more funds would be made available. We were
disappointed with that, but we did not return the applications to farmers.
I think the department has some 411 completed applications, and about another
170 applications that are yet to be completed because the farmers have to
provide more information.
A couple of days ago—I think
it was 2 October—the federal minister, Minister Pitt, quite
unexpectedly wrote to us and said, ''We're going to put another
$50 million into that scheme.'' However, there were a couple of things
in that letter that were a little bit concerning to me. He said that the
criteria may need to be revised because there has been rainfall in some parts
of Australia. There has not been significant rainfall in Western Australia, but
he said that the criteria needed to be revised.
He
also referred to farmers needing to be ''drought impacted''.
Farmers in Western Australia are experiencing a long-term drying pattern
because of climate change; it is not the classic drought scenario in which the expectation is that at some point rainfall will
return to normal, as it does after a drought. One of the reasons why
farmers in WA have missed out on a lot of federal funding is because it is not
the classic drought scenario. There were a couple
of other things that concerned me about the letter. He also asked for feedback
by the end of October, and there was a reference to matching funding, without
any details about what that might mean.
I wrote to him and said—I am
paraphrasing the letter—''Let's not mess about. There
are 411 farmers who currently have
applications that meet the old scheme. Let's get on and pay them.
Allocate $5 million of the $50 million
to WA as a start and get that money out the door to those farmers who need it.
Don't wait until the end of October; just do it.'' We
also outlined some funding that we have in the budget to assist farmers with
these issues, and we put a proposal that we think should meet the federal
government's requirements.
It is a bit difficult for us. States
on the east coast have put off their budgets; our budget, as the member knows, was delivered on 8 October, so by the time
we received his letter the budget was locked and loaded.
He
probably does not think a lot about WA and was not aware of that, but we think
we have put a reasonable proposition
to him. I suppose the question for the member for Roe is whether he supports
what we have asked that minister to do—that is, to immediately
pay those 411 farmers who have put in applications that meet the old criteria under the old scheme. That would be about $2 million
going into farmers' pockets and into communities that need that cash. Does the member support us saying,
''Allocate that money immediately! Let's not mess around.
Let's not wait until the end of October. Let's just get the
money out the door''? It would be great if the member for Roe and the
Nationals WA, instead of having a crack at us, got onto their federal
counterparts to get that money out the door to those farmers who need it.