Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

Good. I recommend they take an active interest in the proposal we have put to the chamber.

Moving on to schedule 7, dealing with superannuation lump sums paid to a person with a terminal medical condition, this is a wonderful initiative and we support it. Schedule 8 deals with capital expenditure for the establishment of trees in carbon sink forests. There is much one can say about these matters, but this is just tidying up existing policy so I am not going to indulge in the topic. Schedule 9, dealing with the extension of the beneficiary tax offset to the equine workers hardship wage supplement payment, merely tidies up an existing problem, and schedule 10 does the same thing. We already have an adjustment assistance program for tobacco growers. It is underway for those who wish to exit all agricultural enterprises, and this is a measure to assist in that matter.

Last is the farm management deposits area, where schedule 11 to the bill amends the Farm Management Deposits scheme to align the laws with the guidelines for declaring either all primary producers in a geographical area or specified classes of primary producers within a geographical area to be in exceptional circumstances. This is actually a very intelligent technical amendment which will be of great assistance to those affected, and we certainly welcome it. I recall that in 1996, when I was first campaigning to go into the Senate, the chief policy officer for Western Australia’s Pastoralists and Graziers Association first outlined to me the proposals for the Farm Management Deposits scheme, which he was promoting. If my memory is accurate, his name was Mr Price. I was taken with the scheme and I was therefore pleased when later on the coalition government embraced and introduced it. I think it has had material benefits in equalising income for a notoriously cyclical industry, the agricultural industry. What is interesting is that I never foresaw or understood quite how much money would end up in those deposits. Again, if my memory is accurate—and perhaps the shadow minister would remind me, if it is not—I understand there is well over a billion dollars these days. So it was certainly a very significant policy.

With those brief remarks, I indicate to the government that the Australian Democrats will be supporting this bill.