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Video A Dry Debate

Pip Courtney

The federal government is under pressure to deliver billions of dollars in drought assistance to struggling farmers .


PIP COURTNEY, PRESENTER: This story is about the crippling drought over most of Western Queensland and parts of New South Wales. As farmers become increasingly desperate, the Federal Government is under pressure to deliver billions of dollars in drought assistance. But the Government is also keen to rein in what it sees as unsustainable welfare, with the Treasurer declaring the age of entitlement is over.

In the middle of this debate about drought and dependency is Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce, who hit the road to see and hear for himself what's going on.

Historically low rainfall and searing summer temperatures have hit Queensland farmers fast and hard. The drought is now so bad, a staggering 69 per cent of the state is drought declared.

JOHN MCVEIGH, QLD AGRICULTURE MINISTER: You know, this is almost a perfect storm, this particular drought. It's gripped Queensland fairly quickly, particularly hot in the recent weeks; you know, the heatwaves that have been around the country have sort of landed on top of the developing drought. Severe water - surface water shortages, which is a bit different to previous droughts where we did at least see occasional rainfall. So this is particularly, I think, unique, this drought. Of course here we are looking down the barrel of a second failed wet season.

PIP COURTNEY: Sheep and cattle producers in the north and central-west were affected first, and when crucial summer rains failed to arrive, cotton growers in southern inland Queensland were hit too.

BEN SUTTER, QLD COTTON: During this summer there's been basically no rainfall event, no in-crop rain. So, normally the cotton growers bank on getting one or two rainfall events that will help the crop along, but there's just been nothing since - basically nothing.

PIP COURTNEY: A month out from harvest and the cotton around Dirranbandi and St George is suffering as growers run out of water. Ben Sutter says more than a third of the crop might not make it.

BEN SUTTER: As every day goes by at the moment, there's crops running out of water and there's cotton fields that won't get through to maturity and stuff that has been already ploughed in.

PIP COURTNEY: Hamish McIntyre planted 1,300 hectares of cotton, but has had to turn the taps off to 150 hectares as he's run out of water.

HAMISH MCINTYRE, ST GEORGE COTTON GROWER: We had budgeted on growing approximately 20,000 bales of cotton, our family, a year, and this year, I'll be very happy if we grow sort of 12,000 to 13,000.

DONNA STEWART, BALONNE SHIRE MAYOR: Normally this time of the year there'd be ski boats going up and down and people really enjoying themselves, canoes and kids jumping off the trees into the river and just generally enjoying water sports.

PIP COURTNEY: Farmers aren't the only ones running out of water; so has the Balonne River. Mayor Donna Stewart's never seen it this low.

And this is the town water supply as well?

DONNA STEWART: This is the town water supply. Yeah, this is what we pump out of it.

PIP COURTNEY: Looks pretty prim.

DONNA STEWART: Yeah, it doesn't look too good, does it?

PIP COURTNEY: Donna Stewart's been surprised by the speed and severity of this drought, now hitting a region that was fighting floods just two years ago. She's hearing more stories of desperation than ever before.

DONNA STEWART: They're financially and physically and mentally running on empty. Yeah, nothing left. I think something's got to be done immediately and I'm hoping that's the message that we can spend back through to Barnaby to Canberra that there's got to be measures in place immediately to put some family payments in and then put some long-term plans in that we don't have to be going to the Government all the time. No-one wants to go to the Government for handouts.

PIP COURTNEY: Sadly, that story is state-wide. Queensland rural lobby group AgForce says 70 per cent of drought-affected producers rate this drought as more financially severe than previous droughts.

Queensland's Agriculture Minister, John McVeigh, has overseen a record drought spend of $31 million. He fears farmers will need more help soon.

JOHN MCVEIGH: We've seen a cyclone now just in recent days not deliver, it seems, the rain that we'd hoped for throughout the western parts of the state. Reports of further cyclones forming. We need to see how the normal period of a wet season ends up in - by the end of say, February, obviously, and then we can look at more.

PIP COURTNEY: The Federal Government's been sympathetic, with Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce visiting, listening and fighting for millions in drought aid. He's watched with dismay as the dry has crossed the border into NSW.

BARNABY JOYCE, AGRICULTURE MINISTER: Same there: no water, no feed, no money, the bank's unhappy, can't pay for the groceries, what are you going to do? ... People start losing hope and that causes a real sort of emotional crisis with people. There's only one cure in the end and that's rain. The role that we have is to listen and then to go into bat to try and come up with programs that mitigate and deal with the issues.

PIP COURTNEY: While assistance ranges from cash to fodder transport subsidies to counselling, Barnaby Joyce worries farmers are self-assessing or deciding they won't qualify.

BARNABY JOYCE: There are paid financial counsellors. We put the money on the table to pay these people to help you out. Go see them and make absolutely certain there are not government programs currently in place that you can help yourself with such as a farm finance package at 4.5 per cent. We've got $420 million put aside for that. We got money to get bores in and a lot of people are really happy about that because it's giving them greater coverage on their place.

PIP COURTNEY: Rowell Walton says the Government could help straight away by cutting the amount of paper work farmers must fill out to get drought aid. This is his application.

ROWELL WALTON, RURAL CRISIS MEETING ORGANISER: I find it extraordinary, to be frank with you. I mean, obviously, you know, the authorities have got to do the right thing and follow it through and make sure that we're not trying to knock them off, but I'm sure you don't have to go quite as far as this, at any rate. So I imagine for people that are in a much more stressed place than I am, it would be very, very hard. I think they would abandon it, Pip. I don't think they'd even do it. I think they'd walk away.

PIP COURTNEY: Frustration in the bush is growing. A rural crisis meeting in St George last week pulled a big crowd. The star attraction?: Barnaby Joyce, the man with the influence and hopefully the money to help.

ROWELL WALTON: He needs to do some things to fix up the human catastrophe that's unfolding right here in eastern Australia and he needs to do it next week. He cannot afford to wait. He needs to go into the cabinet and say, "Guys I'm getting a lot of pressure. This is real pressure, this is a real human catastrophe and we need to do something about it. We can't just wait by."

PIP COURTNEY: To ensure expectations weren't too high, the minister repeatedly warned he was but one of 19 in cabinet.

BARNABY JOYCE: So we've got to try and make sure that what we do here today has the capacity to influence people, not just in St George. If the noise just stops in St George, that's where the program finishes. It's got to have the capacity to resonate on 4BC, on 2GB.

PIP COURTNEY: For his consideration was a proposal for a reconstruction and development board to be run by the Reserve Bank.

MARK MCGOVERN, QUT ECONOMIST: And that is a way to build a financial solution to financial problems and sort out financial issues without involving all sorts of government interventions and all this sort of stuff. It's to set up and deliver financial packages which have got a chance of working.

PIP COURTNEY: Mark McGovern says the board would deal with what he called Australia's systemic and serious rural debt problems.

MARK MCGOVERN: They need to be addressed through a financial arrangement. And we need some sort of organisation to do that. The banks by themselves, the commercial banks aren't in the position to be able to do this sort of thing.

PIP COURTNEY: A private members bill to create the board is before Parliament.

BARNABY JOYCE: I have no major philosophical problem with that. That's - but it's - the endeavours that are required on a political format to get to that spot are immense and long-term.

PIP COURTNEY: He couldn't say yes to the development board, but Barnaby Joyce was able to say he's asked for relief payments paperwork to be simplified, and what the audience wanted to hear, that he'd fight hard for more money.

BARNABY JOYCE: I have informed people that I intend to take the next step in trying to pursue some sort of outcome with the immediate issues of drought. We've had a range of battles in the past - I suppose GrainCorp was one, where we won - but there are - this is another mighty battle and we're going have to mount up for this one as well.

PIP COURTNEY: It won't be easy, as all government programs are under financial scrutiny and Treasurer Joe Hockey says he wants to see greater efficiency and sustainability in agriculture.

JOE HOCKEY, TREASURER: The answer to the problem of debt is not to have more debt and interest rates historically now are at all-time lows. So if people are having problems coping with interest rates now, then there is a bigger systemic issue at play. Barnaby Joyce is absolutely right: we need to have a proper debate about sustainable agriculture in Australia, and importantly, you can't divorce that from water management.

PIP COURTNEY: Federal cabinet's recent decision not to give financial help to the SPC Ardmona cannery in Victoria has raised the prospect of cabinet applying its tough new "Businesses should be more self-reliant" philosophy to agriculture. But Barnaby Joyce argues agriculture is different.

BARNABY JOYCE: You can never plan for a crisis. You can't plan - you can't have a total, perfect plan for bushfires. You can't have a total, perfect plan for floods and you can't have a total, perfect plan for droughts. They're the vagaries of the weather. One of the Government's role is to help when you can't help yourself, when you've taken all reasonable means, but it's - then there's a role for government.

PIP COURTNEY: If you go back to ask for more drought relief, is cabinet going to say no?

BARNABY JOYCE: Well I can never second guess what cabinet does or doesn't do. What I can understand is the general sentiment of people who are in politics is one of empathy and one of trying to assist. And you'll find that on both sides of the political fence, and, you know, I don't think there's any points to be scored by ...

PIP COURTNEY: But it's going to be tough for you, isn't it, to get money out of cabinet?

BARNABY JOYCE: Oh, of course. Yeah. Yep, yep.

PIP COURTNEY: During his trips to Queensland and NSW, the minister was repeatedly asked to restore interest rate subsidies, a system that cost the Federal Government more than $2.5 billion during the Millennium Drought and which the Productivity Commission criticised as being ineffective and encouraging poor farming practices.

BARNABY JOYCE: I'm not going to say exactly what my intentions are because I'll be completely frank: until I've got round to enough people and talked to enough people, I don't really know where that one's going to rest.

PIP COURTNEY: A new drought policy designed to encourage farmers to be more self-reliant and better risk managers starts in July. Developed by the previous government, it includes a household support payment and improved social support services, but no interest rate subsidies.

Queensland's Agriculture Minister, John McVeigh, says it's bad timing for a major change in policy.

JOHN MCVEIGH: But you can't transition from the old scheme to a brand new scheme overnight, and I fear that's the current attempt. We need a better transition. We do need to have the assistance in place. I know that. Barnaby Joyce knows that. And I think this event will help us pull together a far better and more long-term resilient national drought policy.

PIP COURTNEY: The Prime Minister's reaction to growing pressure on the Federal Government to do more was to bring forward the start date of the new drought relief scheme.

TONY ABBOTT, PRIME MINISTER: I certainly want the farmers of Australia to understand that this is a Government which feels what they're experiencing at the moment. We know what's happening and we are moving to address it.

PIP COURTNEY: What that means for those who need immediate help in the form of cash and fodder is unclear, as is the cost. Lifeline says an indication of how bad things are is the rising suicide rate.

DERECK TUFFIELD, LIFELINE: We have high-powered rifles, it's part of the way of living and also we have insecticides out here as well. So, these are a couple of things that are available and when there is a sense of loss, financial stress, no way out, a sense of really getting to a dark spot, people are tending to say, "I can't do this anymore".

PIP COURTNEY: Mr Tuffield confirmed a shocking report of a farmer who, in recent weeks, ran out of feed for his 400 cattle and booked a truck to take them to the saleyard.

DERECK TUFFIELD: The cattle were deemed to be too emaciated to travel and so they wouldn't load them, and after he was told they wouldn't load them, he actually at that point of time decided to shoot the cattle and then unfortunately and very sadly shot himself.

PIP COURTNEY: Barnaby Joyce says stories like this are driving him to come up with both immediate help and long-term solutions.

BARNABY JOYCE: It is at the forefront of my mind. I'm extremely aware of these issues. They drive me, they worry me, they keep me awake at night worrying about how we deal with issues like this. And, as I go along, I am texting Tony Abbott and Tony Abbott is texting me back. So, there is a purpose and a reason and a mechanism of trying to do your job. Basically to - Tony says, "Well, get out there and find out what on Earth's going on," and that's exactly what we're doing.

PIP COURTNEY: The National Farmers Federation says it's not afraid to have a debate about sustainability and drought relief.

BRENT FINLAY, NFF PRESIDENT: I've never heard that in my 30 years in agriculture, (inaudible) we been propping up farmers that aren't viable. Again, even around the farm finance package, there's the viability clause in that and I notice that's up for a lot of debate at the moment. We have to try to support the strong businesses and then we have to actually be able to help people exit the industry that need to exit the industry.

PIP COURTNEY: One farmer who believes he has a viable business and has planned well is beef producer and cotton grower, Hamish McIntyre. His property at Dirranbandi received a pitiful amount of rain last year, so many of his 3,000 cattle have been sold or sent for agistment or lot feeding. The breeding herd has been moved to his second property at St George where Hamish and his staff are kept busy mixing and feeding them drought rations.

Have you prepared for this?

HAMISH MCINTYRE: Well from the point of view, yeah, we have. We decided to bail all of our pigeon pea hay, our trap crop from cotton, bale some barley and wheat straw and obviously keep the cotton seed. So - and if things had've improved, we would have sold those products. So, yes, you can say I suppose we prepared for it, but in a normal year we would have marketed all those commodities, but in this sort of situation, we're feeding into our own livestock.

PIP COURTNEY: Hamish applied for fodder freight subsidies during the last drought, but has no plans at this stage to apply for help.

Should governments pay farmers when drought's are on or should farmers be prepared and be more self-reliant?

HAMISH MCINTYRE: It's a tricky one. I mean, people can handle drought for a certain period, whether that's 12 months to two years. And then when it goes on up past two years, I mean, I think we all have a duty of care to maintain those operations. It's - if it happens every - if it's a short-term thing all the time, I think we have got to manage it ourselves. But in extreme situations when it goes on for a couple of years, where people can't be diversified, I think we all need to do our share to help them, yes.

PIP COURTNEY: And if you need help, Lifeline provides 24-hour telephone crisis support. The number is 13 11 14.