Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Senator Ludwig) to a question without notice asked by Senator McKenzie today relating to farm finance concessional loans.

If there was ever any doubt about the Labor government's issues and understanding of the regional economy and regional people, we had it on display today. We have had numerous examples: live cattle, the impact of the carbon tax on our food production systems, the dairy industry et cetera. Two months ago, with no consultation with the states, the government announced—like it has done right throughout its history—packages that have financial implications for others and about which it had not sought to actually consult with them before going about the announcement. The government announced the concessional loans at 4.5 per cent. You saw from the minister's answers today, and it could be seen from the evidence given in estimates, that he had no clue what he was actually talking about. I asked the minister a question in good faith during estimates. A 4.5 per cent concessional loan is going to be a significant benefit to our farmers, to the struggling northern cattlemen right across Queensland and the Northern Territory, to the dairy farmers in western Victoria, to the fruit growers in central Victoria and to the WA sheep and wheat farmers, who are all struggling with the realities of farming in this nation. They need this concessional loan. But the 1.5 per cent difference between what the government is setting it at and what the government is lending it out at adds up to $100,000 a year. That money could be going into farmers' pockets if it was not going into consolidated revenue, as was the evidence that was given.

Senator Wong, Treasurer Swan and Prime Minister Gillard are always very keen to quote that revenue is down. But this takes the cake in terms of a new revenue measure, the $6.3 million that will be raised per annum if this differential of 1.5 per cent is applied. As I found out, they have not done the modelling on the administration costs. My understanding is that the typical amount that is allowed for this is around the one per cent mark. But they could not even confirm that during estimates.

This is basically taking money that should be going to farmers and putting it into consolidated revenue. It is actually burdening the states even more, who right now are working very hard at paying back ALP government debt. I might say that there are a few who are working extremely hard and extremely well at that. Victoria was left with $7.9 billion and New South Wales was left with $9.2 billion. They are doing a damn good job of paying it back, but it requires that they stick to their budgets. It requires carefully considered and strategic planning for contingencies. But for this federal government and its poor decision-making you cannot plan.

You cannot plan for the contingency of Joe Ludwig standing up one day and announcing that you are going to have to find additional money in your budget for the administration of the farm concessional loans program and then going on a PR campaign with struggling farmers groups to apply the pressure. We should not have been surprised. That is out of the ALP playbook of the moment in how to treat our states. We can see that if we look at the health funding issues from last year and the Gonski negotiations that we are watching play out right now. Then there is environmental regulation: the Prime Minister stood up and said, 'We're going to streamline all this environmental legislation and work cooperatively with the states.' We all breathed a sigh of relief. Kevin said he was going to end the blame game.