Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

in reply—May I thank all members who contributed to the debate. I think it is important to acknowledge, as I acknowledged in my remarks on Thursday when I moved that the bill be read a second time, that the idea of the Farm Household Support Amendment (Additional Drought Assistance Measures) Bill 2008 is one that began before the change of government, and it was given bipartisan support by us when we were in opposition. The payments have already commenced being made to the people affected, but the legislative basis for those payments is yet to be made, although hopefully in a few moments we will be a little bit further along that path.

Some very serious issues were raised by the member for Calare while I was here in the chamber, and by the member for Farrer—I was outside of the chamber but managed to catch a good deal of her speech from my office. They each referred to some of the EC areas that are coming up for renewal. They are right to raise the concern about the genuine need of people to be given certainty as early as possible. That has been taken on board. In private conversations with the member for Calare I have explained to him my determination to act as quickly as possible on that.

I should inform the House that the process for all renewals and reassessment of EC areas is unchanged from what happened under the previous government. The members of the National Rural Advisory Council who make the recommendations to me are all people who were appointees of the previous government, doing the same work that was being done under the previous government. There is always a tension here, I would remind the House, between the desire to make sure that we give people certainty as early as possible and to leave the NRAC assessment to late enough in the piece so that they can make as accurate an assessment as possible. I would hate to think that we had NRAC do their surveys so early that people were then recommended to come out of exceptional circumstances assistance when, by the time the date has actually ticked over, had the assessment been made later they would have been made eligible. So there is a tension there in sorting that out, but I want to assure the House that within those parameters we are acting to give certainty to people at the earliest possible opportunity. With that in mind, I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

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