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

There will be a time when farmers turn to the cost to their business and move forward with respect to their business. Understandably, they are all dealing with the human tragedy in advance of dealing with the business cost. It is hard to focus on counting your lost stock when the nation is still counting your lost friends. Notwithstanding that, the government has been working to assess precisely what sort of damage we are talking about with respect to the farmers and forestry workers in Victoria. Stock losses, fortunately, have not been to this point as serious as we thought they might have been. Fodder loss has been extraordinary—stockpiling gone up in flames in seconds. Permanent plantings have done very badly in many areas. Dairies are now unusable in some cases. Farmers who had invested extraordinary amounts of money on better water management and on farm irrigation systems have found that, if those systems were concrete, they have cracked, and, if they were polypipe, they have melted.

Similarly, timber workers are now dealing with what was something in the order of 100,000 hectares of native forest available for production no longer being there and something in the order of 20,000 to 30,000 hectares of plantation forest no longer being available—compounding the loss of life and loss of property with a loss of future resources. Added to that has been the loss of some mills. Before assistance came from government, that direct farmer-helping-farmer support was happening on the ground. Dairy farmers whose neighbours no longer had a useful dairy understood that, although some cows might be alive, if cows currently in production were not kept in production, it would be a long time before they would come back into production. So they allowed their neighbours who used to be just over the fence—when there was a fence—to use their facilities. Similarly, there has been extraordinary work from farmers interstate—in particular, from New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania—working through systems that have immediately been put in place by the Victorian Farmers Federation, with transport costs supported by the Victorian government. A number of members from each side have already contacted my office with offers from their own farmers wanting to help out, with fodder in particular. The VFF number for those donations of fodder is 1300882833.

People around Australia are making donations, but I want to launch one extra appeal to every Australian when it comes to their role as a consumer. Australian consumers often get a bit fussy about whether their fruit and vegies have the tiniest blemish, even though it might make absolutely no difference to the flavour. If you are ever going to be fussy about your fruit and vegies, please do not do it over the next few months. If people can accept that it tastes just as good and are willing to be a bit more tolerant than they might be on other occasions, it will allow retailers to continue to buy the produce and it will allow farmers who are facing extraordinary difficulties to do their best with the produce that they have.

In addition to the work that the Prime Minister has already announced to the House, the government has moved forward with existing programs and seen where existing programs could be modified or acted on quickly in order to be of assistance. At a time when we are talking about loss of life and we have the image of buildings being destroyed, it is very easy to discard the significance of not bringing natural resource management into play very quickly. Following a fire, there is the opportunity for massive erosion and a massive influx of weeds. That can be a good deal more damaging to a property than the loss of a building. For that reason, Minister Garrett and I have extended the application deadlines on Caring for our Country, and all uncommitted funds from this financial year are now being redirected to natural resource management work in the state of Victoria.

The National Rural Advisory Council has also been responsible for a number of drought reviews. For states other than Victoria, an announcement will be made very soon as to the government’s response, but I think it is important to inform the House now as to the government’s response with respect to the state of Victoria. NRAC had conducted its reviews on drought assistance for a number of areas in Victoria which were coming up to expire in March. In every instance, they have been extended for a further 12 months. A number of areas were also due to expire in April and were not yet ready for full assessment. NRAC held an emergency meeting, and those areas, too, have been extended for a further 12 months. There are some areas in Gippsland which came out of drought assistance some months ago. When an area comes out of EC, it is not simply because the drought has ended; it is also because the recovery has begun. Arguments in some of those areas in Gippsland about the recovery having commenced that might have made sense some months ago now demand serious review. Minister Helper, the Victorian Minister for Agriculture, and I are currently in talks to make sure that we can also have a sensible outcome for those areas in Gippsland.

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