A drought meeting held by the Federal Member for Parkes, Mark Coulton, at Pilliga last week has done little to ease the minds of farmers who are watching livestock and crops disappear with the worsening dry conditions.
Farmers west of Narrabri are looking down the barrel of a third year of drought, and are in need of hundreds of millimetres of rain over the next few months if their businesses are to survive.
Over 80 people gathered in the Pilliga Community Centre on Thursday and made a final plea for help from the government.
Farmers travelled from Come-By-Chance, Wee Waa, Narrabri, Coonamble, Rowena, Walgett and even Queensland to ask if any more financial assistance from the government was likely, and if so, when it would come.
One of the main instigators of the meeting, Pilliga farmer Graeme McNair, had a very simple message for the Member for Parkes.
“It’s an emergency and it needs urgent action, this is a natural disaster,” he said.
“If something doesn’t happen before Christmas the livestock industry will be wiped out from Narrabri through to Lightning Ridge.
“People cannot pay their bills and their suppliers, we need financial support.
“Our state governments are going to have to come to the party because it is an imminent disaster.”
Questions and statements were strongly worded, voices were raised, and the desperation and frustration was clear.
But the Member for Parkes was unable to make any promises.
With the sun beating down outside, and not a rain cloud in sight, he simply told the room what they already knew.
“The reason we’re here today is because it hasn’t rained for three years and we’re trying to keep people on the land, so that when it does rain they’re in a position start over again,” he said.
“Government has a responsibility during a 1 in 100 year drought event, and I want you to know that this is my number one priority.
“I’m currently working on a long term policy for drought and for agriculture, but I can’t stand here and say we have an announcement pending, we may have, but we may not.
“Quite frankly until it rains it’s just going to be tough.”
Mr Coulton is pushing to make the existing Concessional Drought Loan cheaper and longer.
The uptake has been embarrassingly slow, with only 31 applications approved this year, paying $17 million to drought affected farmers out of a total $100 million available.
The loan is currently set at an interest rate of 4% per annum and is to be paid back within a five year period.
It’s only available to businesses that can prove their long term viability and pass the income-asset test.
The approval process can take up to eight weeks to complete, and has attracted widespread criticism for involving mountains of tedious paperwork.
Mr Coulton asked the audience whether a concessional loan over a 10 year period at an interest rate of 3% per annum would be more helpful, and his question was met with a resounding ‘yes’.
He hopes to have a decision by Christmas, but said it would be a difficult measure to get through cabinet considering the government was already carrying a 300 billion dollar debt.
This answer did not sit well with farmers in attendance.
Walgett farmer Cameron Rowntree said the government would go further into debt if the farming sector was not kept afloat.
“People are going to have to walk off their farms and when they walk off their farm, they’re going to go onto Centrelink payments, and then your debt is going to blow out,” he said.
“For every dollar you invest in farming there is a return, if you get people through this tough time, they will repay it and they will provide jobs.
“So you can go back and tell Joe and Barnaby, that there is a time to invest and a time to reap the rewards, and right now is the time to invest.”
Young Come-By-Chance farmer, Joshua Borowski, gleaned little hope from the meeting.
“There has been a prolonged attempt to put us off by bringing up old material and promises, and no hard financial assistance, such as a 10 year 3% loan,” he said.
“The message I could gather here was keep calm and carry on and it will all be over soon, but at what loss?
“We need some serious change in the government’s attitude towards agriculture; parents are telling their children not to come back to the farm because there’s no future in it.
“We seem to be just sitting ducks out here, and it’s almost as if they don’t want us here, that’s the sort of feeling we’re getting.”
Farmers also emphasised the need to reintroduce State Government drought subsidies for livestock and fodder transport, which finished at the end of the 2013-14 financial year.
Mark Coulton said he was working to reintroduce the fodder and livestock freight subsidies.
Various political representatives in attendance were also reminded that assistance would need to continue even after the drought breaks, allowing time for people to buy new stock and grow crops.
While the minister for Agriculture Barnaby Joyce was unable to attend, one of his advisors was in attendance.