Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Friday we pulled together farmers and interested people looking at what more we could do after interim EC was declared in the area of south Gippsland and surrounds, particularly the shires of South Gippsland and Baw Baw. We found to our distress, out of that meeting, that many farms were suffering losses of between $150,000 and $250,000—some up to $300,000 for the year. The availability of water was difficult—in one area alone $16,000 a month was being spent to bring in 1½ megalitres of water. The pasture availability was at crisis point, and, if I am struggling, it was very difficult to actually sit at the meeting and talk to the farmers and those gathered around about the difficulties they are facing in what is normally one of the most precipitant areas in Victoria.

Whilst the government has been generous—some $17 million a week on drought payments to farmers—I have today called on the government to look very closely at full EC for this area of South Gippsland and surrounds. These people are in distress. They are competing unfairly with those who have been declared. I am pleading with this House to consider those people who are under an enormous amount of stress in South Gippsland.