Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee, , 5:57:45 to 6:01:52
An update on the implementation of the National Drought Agreement and support mechanisms, such as the Farm Household Allowance, for South Australian producers.
Topics: Drought and disaster support
Speakers: Speaker 34, Speaker 28, Speaker 29, Speaker 12, Speaker 1
>> Thanks, Senator Brockman. Senator Caniban, do you have more? Senator
Rustin, did you want to >> just checking if I'm in the right place? Um, I had some questions around drought support. Is that >> Y? Okay. Um, so uh just interested just to get a quick update on how the national drought um agreement is going in its implementation, but particularly as it
relates to South Australia. um as colleagues to comment, but the the work on the national drought agreement is ongoing. It's an ongoing agreement and um and we work closely, if not weekly, with our jurisdictional counterparts on um measures and activities under the national drought agreement.
>> Thanks for your question, Senator. Uh yes, so as Mr. Lo has described we do work closely with our state counterparts. We have regular meetings and working group meetings with them. Um you may be aware that we held the national drought forum in South Australia uh at late last year in September uh in GA South Australia. Uh part of that was to discuss a lot of the arrangements that we have under the national grout agreement. Uh and we had all jurisdictions that were represented at that forum. uh we I mean in my view I think it's working very well the national drought agreement it's very clear uh in terms of responsibilities and how we work in terms of drought support and mechanisms as you know the commonwealth has a number of uh support mechanisms in place and we ensure that the states through the national drought agreement are aware
of those >> so in terms of actually um the assistance to say producers can you give me an update about how the framework
been able to support them. >> Uh so that's uh through the states. Uh they provide a lot of support. But in terms of our support mechanisms, I'll just pull out the A3.
>> Courtney Brian, assistant secretary um drought policy branch. So um under the national drought agreement, we have a number of programs that the Commonwealth runs nationally. We have seen in a number of those programs an increase in relation to we assume drought conditions. So for example we have the farmhouse allowance which is our income support program. So as of December 31 last year there were 1,150 people receiving FHA in SA. That's an increase of around 480 people yearon year for that one. Okay. Um, we also have loans available under the regional investment corporation. In SA in 2025, 188 brick applications were received from SA. That's about an increase of 90 applications or 92% from >> How many of those were granted? >> Um, I believe they are the ones that
were granted. >> I said you said 188 applications we
received. >> Yeah, I'll just have to double check,
but I'm pretty sure those ones are. So that was 188 actually were approved. >> Yeah. >> And when it and that was in 2025. >> Um so when did the Commonwealth um um sort of acknowledge that South Australia was in drought? What what is the period of drought time?
>> Yep. So we no longer do drought declarations as a Commonwealth. So we just have our programs um available at all times to make sure that people can have access to it when they need. they don't need to wait for declarations. So, we have been working with SA and we're at some of their very early meetings that they had with um producers in regions across South Australia in relation to drought. So,
>> so if a farmer is seeking drought assistance is what are the requirements in order for that drought assistance for their eligibility for drought assistance? Is there a time frame on it