Welfare no solution for drought-affected farmers
More than 250 Gippsland farming families are accessing dole-like government payments but hundreds more are either not eligible or are refusing to take “hand-outs” as they battle to keep their farms as calls for more greater help grow louder.
More than 250 Gippsland farming families are accessing dole-like government payments as calls for greater help for drought-stricken communities grow louder.
But hundreds more are either ineligible or refusing to take “hand-outs” as they battle to keep their farms afloat amid a record dry spell.
Struggling dairy-farming communities across the state were boosted on Monday after supermarket giant Woolworths announced it was ending its contentious $1-a-litre milk price.
DROUGHT-HIT GIPPSLAND FARMERS CRY OUT FOR SUPPORT
PICTURE SPECIAL: DROUGHT IN SOUTHEAST VICTORIA
It had added 10 per cent to the price of marked two and three-litre products — permanent across all of its home brand milk — and deliver higher prices to more than 450 dairy farmers who supplied the supermarket’s private-label product.
One drought-affected farmer, who said he was “fed-up with everything and everyone”, told the Herald Sun the federal government’s household farm allowance was “a total slap in the face”.
“We don’t want welfare or hand-outs. We need help investing in water, help trucking in hay, help with our rates,” he said.
“You spend all the time filing out forms and on the phone to Centrelink. It’s just a hassle.”
Wellington Shire councillor Malcolm Hole said on Monday local councils would be willing to waive municipal rates for scorched areas — which stretched from Heyfield, Stradbroke, Giffard to Orbost — if the Victorian Government gave the nod.
Mr Hole said it could get worse before its gets better, with the drought draining nearby Glenmaggie Reservoir to below 44 per cent capacity.
“The state government has the power to waive the rates and that’s what the farmers are asking for,” he said.
“We need a spark before things get worse. There will be a huge flow-on effect to local shops and businesses if nothing is done soon. It is already biting.”
Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said about 240 farmers were working with the Rural Financial Counselling Service, with another 250 claiming the Farm Household Allowance.
He said the allowance was a “safety net” for household expenses for farmers in hardship, with many in northern NSW and Queensland having relied on it to keep them going through an eight-year drought.
Nationals state member for Gippsland East, Tim Bull, said farmers were in “desperate need of assistance”.
“Council rates relief would put money back in the pockets of farmers who are struggling to make ends meet, and help them pay other bills in their local communities,” Mr Bull said.
Victorian cabinet minister Jacinta Allan said there needed to be “a range of options”.
“We are looking at what more can be done to support these communities that are clearly going through a really tough and difficult time,” Ms Allan said.
HARD TO LEAVE IT BEHIND
Megan Harrison admits leaving the farm was tough.
But university in the big smoke called, and it was a chance she couldn’t knock back.
“I’ve helped Dad out for a long time and I guess he’ll miss me around the farm,” she says. “It was hard, and probably hard for them, too.”
The 18-year-old La Trobe University student is in Melbourne studying dietetics. She worries about her parents, Steve and Lisa, at home in Giffard.
But she knows they’ll make it through.
“Dad’s always saying ‘Every day is a day closer to rain’. But you see how tough it is,” she says.
“Mum knows she can’t help out Dad on the farm as much, but she enjoys organising all the social events, which are pretty important to take people’s minds off it.
“I do worry about Dad a bit. It’s a 24-7 thing — he never gets away from it because of the work.”
Megan says she’s constantly surprised at the ignorance of outsiders about what the community is going through — and not just in Melbourne.
“Even in Sale they don’t know what’s really going on,” she says.
“They know there’s a drought, but that’s about it. I don’t think they really know how tough it is.
“We have dust storms just blowing away the paddocks.
“It will rain again, but it can’t come soon enough. I just hope governments can help out.”
Originally published as Welfare no solution for drought-affected farmers
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