Drought funding: Tony Abbott to tour affected areas as NSW calls for aid
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Version 0 of 1. Tony Abbott is planning to tour drought-affected areas this weekend after calls for him to visit rural communities to understand the issues on the ground before cabinet consideration of assistance. Abbott is expected to visit northern New South Wales and western Queensland, which are coming into the third year of low rainfalls, as the NSW government doubled its assistance for drought-affected farmers and called on the prime minister to release the Commonwealth commitment. “While the NSW government has expanded its assistance measures, there is a clear need for the Commonwealth to now put forward a comprehensive package to assist primary producers to respond to this drought,” the NSW deputy premier, Andrew Stoner, said. Abbott will tour with the agriculture minister, Barnaby Joyce, who has been pushing for increased drought funding. Federal assistance has yet to be finalised and it is expected any large-scale drought package would face tough resistance from some Liberal ministers. After Joyce discussed assistance in a recent drought tour, the treasurer, Joe Hockey, foreshadowed the “end of the age of entitlements”. The National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) is preparing to release a package of drought policies on Thursday for consideration by the government. It is believed to include lowering the current rate of 4.5% on concessional loans for business restructure, funding for mental health services and a Newstart-style payment to allow farmers to keep their employees in work. The NFF’s chief executive, Matt Linnegar, welcomed the prime minister’s tour, “even just for a couple of days, if he can get a feel for how tough the conditions are it will be worthwhile”. The NSW package, worth $14.6m, expands the previously announced temporary emergency support measures to an additional 20 local government areas (LGAs) and the far west “unincorporated area” in the top corner of the state. The assistance includes up to $20,000 per producer in the form of transport assistance, up to $30,000 per producer for emergency water infrastructure grants and the waiving of Western Lands lease payments, Local Land Services rates and Wild Dog Destruction board rates for 12 months. The package is backdated to 1 January 2014 for all areas, apart from the transport assistance for Bourke, Brewarrina and Walgett LGAs which is backdated to 1 July 2013. The temporary emergency assistance package will be expanded to include the LGAs of: Armidale; Bogan; Central Darling; Cobar; Coonamble; Gilgandra; Glen Innes; Gunnedah; Guyra; Gwydir; Inverell; Moree Plains; Narrabri; Tamworth Regional; Tenterfield; Uralla; Walcha; Warren; and Warrumbungle, as well as Broken Hill and the far west unincorporated area. This follows assistance announced in January by the Queensland premier, Campbell Newman, amounting to $31m in the financial year. Two thirds of Queensland has been drought declared since late last year. At the same time, the NSW senator Bill Heffernan said he warned the Coalition party room last August to prepare a full drought policy as the dry conditions continued to take hold in northern Australia. Heffernan was also critical of farming organisations for not pushing harder to finish drought reforms and have policies in place. Linnegar rejected the criticism, saying the NFF had been working solidly on drought reform for at least two years and had put solutions to the previous and the current governments. “Bill must have been suffering from a bit of attention deprivation, his comments are totally inaccurate,” Linnegar said. |