Australia’s drought relief funding should distinguish the welfare needs of farmers from issues of business sustainability in order to deliver more equitable and climate change-effective support, according to experts.
In a submission to the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into drought support, Australian National University (ANU) policy experts Dr Linda Botterill and Professor Bruch Chapman have called for an investigation into the nature and extent of poverty among Australia’s farmers and amendments to the welfare safety net to extend accessibility to farmers.
“The original intention that drought policy should only support those farmers with a long-term sustainable future in farming has been abandoned, and the welfare system is being used to subsidise farm business operations. This confuses the risk management message of the National Drought Policy,” said Dr Linda Botterill from the Research School of Social Sciences at ANU.
Dr Botterill argued that to effectively respond to advances in climate science, the Exceptional Circumstances Relief Payment would need to be removed from the National Drought Policy and replaced by a standing farm welfare program.
She added geographically based exceptional circumstances provisions were flawed, and for more equitable support, the system should focus on the individual family’s needs.
“Media images of drought-affected families are powerful in evoking public support for governments to ‘do something’,” Dr Botterill said.
“If these families are receiving welfare support on an equitable basis, governments are better placed to implement policies in a manner consistent with the original intent of the National Drought Policy.”
Professor Chapman from the Crawford School of Economics and Government at ANU said while the key strategy adopted by the Federal Government to help agricultural businesses experiencing exceptional circumstances was the interest rate subsidy, such subsidies were not compatible with the broader objectives of encouraging self-reliance.
Professor Chapman said: “We propose that the that the farm business support currently offered in the form of interest rate subsidies be replaced by an income contingent loan scheme, either based on existing exceptional circumstances declarations processes, or based on individual farm business need, decoupled from geographically-based declaration processes.
“Such loans are more consistent with the principles of the National Drought Policy.”
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