Living Rural - www.livingrural.net

Anecdotal stories, observations,comments and discussion pieces as insights into living in Rural Australia

[ April 2008 ] [ June 2008 ]

I have just been into the ABC website / rural and been reading what Canberra is delivering – or probably more accurately not delivering to rural areas of Australia. I will list just a few – but you may want to read the rest.
I quote “Total spending on agriculture, forestry and fisheries for the next financial year is estimated just under $3 billion.. – a cut of 25% … because the Government was forced to provide more money to two disasters – drought relief and tackling the horse flu.” So that means that when Governments are saying they are helping the regions in drought times what it really means is they are taking out money from development and research programs to fund drought relief. So much for my innocent belief that they really cared and would lend an EXTRA helping hand!

Water: I quote “Rather that choosing to spend money on water saving measures on farms (and in communities) the Government will move to buy back farmer’s water for the environment.” What does this mean? Farmers will not be rewarded for finding ways of maintaining their farms and saving water at the same time, but only rewarded when they give up and leave. Perhaps I am exaggerating, but where is the incentive to fix the leaking pipes and cover the open drains? This also means that Community Water Grants are not being offered. In our town such a grant to help turn 2 bowling greens into carpet greens would have saved almost 4 million litres of water per year. Instead we have more “think tanks” being funded. We KNOW what to do, we just need help doing it!

Some of the farm business training programs have been cut and others had emphasis changed to “dealing with climate change”. Not everything one does can be angled to be associated with “dealing with climate change”. All I can say is we are going to need some pretty clever spin doctors to come up with grant applications that can bring in “climate change” issues in all innovative programs. Transition Income support for people wishing to leave the land was $97 million and will now be $14 million. So all farmers are out of drought now are they??!
Then we have the name changes. “Sustainable Regions program” – introduced to assist regions to plan their futures has been axed ($23.3 million) and “Growing Regions” – designed to assist areas such as mining regions with infrastructure in rapidly growing populations has also gone. A new programme called “Better Regions” will offset this – but save the Government $200 million. So with name changes come cuts. Regional Partnerships and Regional Maritime security fund have gone ($236million). And so will go opportunity for innovation in country towns and protection of our oceans. Good one Canberra.
School infrastructure cuts in spending, increase in fuel levies for heavy vehicles (you know those ones that bring your food to the market) and cutting out incentives for those who can afford it (with a little extra help) to put in solar panels and keep their hospital benefits – also affect us in the rural areas too.
I remind you I got this from the unbiased ABC web site – I am just reporting the facts. But perhaps you can see why we often feel forgotten and unloved in the bush!!!

Living Rural - www.livingrural.net

Living Rural - May 2008

Federal Budget 2008