“Anybody who thinks that this is a pre-election ploy is pathetic,” a stroppy-sounding PM said yesterday while announcing an additional $714 million in drought relief.
Strictly speaking, that’s right. Population drift means that there are fewer rural regional seats nowadays – and only a handful of marginal seats in drought affected areas. But that in itself says plenty about rural and regional Australia and agriculture. Simply put, the need for bodies on the ground isn’t there any more.
Drought assistance, however, delays the dawning of this reality. It encourages primary producers whose enterprises are no longer economically viable to hang on in the hopes the rain will come. No other industry is granted this indulgence, and this is a result of political ploys and power
Less than a generation ago, the Country Party – and plenty of Liberals – argued that electoral boundaries should favour rural voters, such was the virtue of our stout yeomanry. This idiocy has been dropped, but we still seem to suffer from sentimental blind spots when it comes to the man on the land. So agricultural industries are indulged.
The government can’t make it rain, but the cashed-up Commonwealth can make it rain money. It seems to be what we want.
What we need is efficient agriculture: efficient agriculture that deliver cheaper prices; prices that remain lower even when supply shrinks because of drought. And if this means agribusiness consolidates and takes over family farms, so be it.
After all, we’ve voted with our feet and wallets in favour of chain stores that offer cost and convenience benefits over family businesses. Why should we treat farmers any differently? Why are they any better than any other industry?
So the city types who are adjudged to be inefficient get WorkChoices, AWAs, longer working hours, fewer benefits, a couple of weeks redundancy if your’re lucky, unpaid overtime etc. but the farmers get up to $150,000 to walk away. Fair? I think not.
Mr Kerr is somewhat disingenous farmers grow food that is what makes them different from chain stores. Encouraging people to leave an industry by financial incentives makes sense and has beendone with manufacturing industry before.
It’s not often that I would agree with John Howard, but on this issue I do. The problem is complex, but the reality for all those city types is we can’t run the country on cafés and property speculation either!
The sooner we stop talking about drought in the Murray Darling Basin and start thinking about the desertification of south eastern Australia the sooner we will start planning for sustainable agriculture for our population.