Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about the agricultural white paper, which the government is embarking upon. The process started with an agriculture green paper, which will turn into a white paper. At the moment, there are consultations going on with regard to the agriculture green paper. This process will set up agriculture policy in this nation for the next decade. It will be a very important document.

One of the key things that the government wants to look at as part of this process is drought relief. Currently, the system of drought relief in this country is broken. It is not delivering to farmers as it should be. It is not delivering the certainty that they need when it comes to their planning how they will deal with drought in the future. One of the key opportunities that we have is making our approach to drought proactive rather than reactive. This is a once-in-a-hundred-year opportunity to change the way we deal with drought and other types of disaster in this country.

One of the things that I am very keen on the government's progressing as part of this approach is multiperil crop insurance, which is something that is now in place in the United States and is starting to take place commercially in Australia. But there are still difficulties with the way this is being rolled out in this country. Farming organisations and financial institutions are looking at the idea of multiperil crop insurance. They think that it is the right way for us to look at revolutionising the way we look at drought in this country. It is something that I wholeheartedly support. Multiperil crop insurance enables farmers to be proactive in planning for disasters and perils. They can say, 'We can look at how we can get some income certainty going forward and prepare for disasters.' It is an approach that means that the farmer is in control of their own destiny. That is something we should welcome, because we all know that at some stage in the next decade our farming communities will be hit by peril. We have to make sure that we arm them with the tools to be able to deal with that. Multiperil crop insurance gives them that armoury. We as a government should be looking at ways to ensure that farmers can take multiperil crop insurance on board and use it as an effective tool to deal with drought. (Time expired)