John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Food Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to bring to the parliament's attention that the Rural Financial Counselling Service of Australia is still alive and well and with a job to do. We do not only have droughts in Western Australia. Whereas the physical drought in most of eastern Australia has gone away—one hopes for a long time—the recent harvest certainly exacerbated the problem for some of those who already had suffered 10 years of drought. While it was amazing how much of the grain et cetera in the harvest was able to be rescued and that prices held up, some people actually did not get their crop up or it totally exacerbated their already precarious position.

The Rural Financial Counselling Service—particularly the Central West service which looks after most of New South Wales—has a much bigger case load than it had 12 months ago. It has gone up by some 30 per cent. While only last month I congratulated the federal government and the minister for recommitting to it, there has been in effect a 33 per cent drop in funding for the next four years. That means, for this particular region, that funding has gone from $2.5 million to $1.7 million, which in effect means some counselling services will have to be closed at a time when they have a higher case load than they had before.

While making that point, the Central West Rural Financial Counselling Service should be very careful about closing offices simply because they are outside the major towns, like in Dubbo et cetera. Remember that the further away people are quite often the bigger their problems. I believe that, while the state government has some responsibility here—and there is a shortfall before their budget money comes due in September—the federal government could and should look at making up the shortfall, particularly in this region where the case load is as heavy as it is. This is a situation where a lot of people thought they would get out of trouble this harvest but, after the huge cost of putting in and maintaining the crop and trying to strip a very big harvest, they were unable to do so. Very quickly, I would like to acknowledge a recent loss in the Central West—Graham Blatch, who did more for agriculture in his profession and in his heart than almost anybody I know. (Time expired)