Farmer support expedited to avoid “cruel” delays

The changes come after a series of regional roundtable forums held last December led by Victorian Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie, to gather feedback from farmers about their frustrations, amid the dairy crisis, at delays in receiving FHA payments

Federal Agriculture and Water Resources Minister Barnaby Joyce said the Coalition had listened to the concerns of those farmers in moving to make new improvements to enhance the delivery of FHA support payments.

Mr Joyce said the government wanted to ensure the FHA program continued to meet its intent of supporting farmers in hardship to get back on their feet.

“We have moved to help speed up the payment of FHA and more accurately treat farm assets for eligibility,” he said.

“We have introduced amendments to the Farm Household Support Act 2014 to more precisely define the farm assets used in the running of their business, such as water assets and shares in a farming cooperatives, when assessing eligibility.

“The amendments address the issue of such assets, necessary for the operation of the farm enterprise, falling within the definition of non-farm asset, which has stricter assets limits and can prevent some rightfully eligible farm businesses from receiving payment.”

Mr Joyce said he acted in December with an immediate solution, bringing in a minister’s rule which enabled up to $1.1 million in net water assets to be exempted from the FHA assets test.

He said as farm assets under the legislation, they would be properly treated in the same light as land, equipment and machinery that are needed to run a farm business when determining eligibility.

The legislation also removes the requirement to serve an Ordinary Waiting Period or Liquid Assets Waiting Period before people can receive payment, he said.

“This will mean farmers in need can receive payments at the earliest possible opportunity.

“The government has listened to the concerns of farmers through the dairy roundtable process, who had to wait too long to receive payment.

“We have acted where we could in the legislation, and work is continuing to improve the efficiency of FHA application process by the Department of Human Services.”

Mr Joyce said before the Coalition introduced the FHA in 2014, there was no support payment generally available to farmers in hardship outside of the exceptional circumstances.

But he said the exceptional circumstances program was “abolished by the former Labor Government which let farmers starve if their businesses were in temporary hardship”.

More than 7000 claims have been granted since the FHA was introduced, giving farmers access to one-on-one case support, activity supplements and income support, his statement said.

South Australian rural Liberal MP Tony Pasin said any measure which expedited the receipt of the FHA drought assistance payment for farmers in finical stress was “a very good thing”.

Mr Pasin said farmers in his electorate of Barker had been on FHA due to drought and now because of last year’s dairy crisis and would welcome added relief.

“One of the great frustrations is sometimes you’re waiting six, eight, twelve or sixteen weeks to get on FHA which is an emergency payment measure and that delay in effect it's cruel so anything we can do to avoid that delay, I’m in support of,” he said.

Mr Pasin said it should be remembered that FHA was an interim measure for three years, intended to give farmers some breathing space to make “rationale, non-emotive decisions about their asset and their enterprise”.

“I think three years is a reasonable time-frame within which to do that,” he said.

He said Rural Financial Counselling Service also provided support via well-trained field-officers, “responsible for ensuring farmers have the financial tools to make appropriate decisions”.

“They engage with the farm sector and individual business enterprises from very early doors,” he said.

“I’m confident that through those processes, farmers receive very strong financial advice so they don’t present to the cliff in 36-months’ time, only to realise that the support and assistance coming to them, is coming to an end.”

The FHA program provides Centrelink support payments of $528.70 per fortnight for singles and $477.40 per person, for couples.

Recent figures provided by the government say that at as of June 30 last year approximately 1634 farmers had entered their third year of FHA support and if they continued receiving payments, their entitlements would lapse between July 1 and December 31, this year.