Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Williams for his question. He is right to highlight that we are experiencing in Australia right now one of the worst droughts in our nation's history. I'd also like to recognise that much of this drought is affecting Senator Williams's part of the country in northern New South Wales, but many other parts of the country are also affected by the lack of rainfall—in some parts of the country over many years. The coalition government are focused on doing what we can to help those in a difficult situation that they find themselves in through no fault of their own. That is why we have provided substantial assistance to drought-affected families in the past few years and recently we've made further announcements which take our spending on relief for farming families to a total of $576 million.

In many parts of this country the drought has been ongoing. Many parts of western Queensland have had six or seven years of failed wet seasons in a row, and obviously that has an impact not just on the farm business but on the wider community. That's why we on 1 August took the decision to extend our farm household payment assistance from a maximum of three years to four years to recognise the length and severity of the drought. At the same time, we announced that we would boost the payment under the family household assistance by a further $190 million, providing an extra $12,000 a year for eligible households. We're also making changes to the assets test to allow more households to have access to this important relief in these hard times.

We recognise that there is increased demand under this drought and, with this additional assistance for rural financial counsellors, an extra $5 million will go to those services in these drought-affected communities.