10 September 2008
Tony Burke with ABC Stateline journalist Kathy McLeish at Wyuna near Emerald, Queensland.
Kathy: What factors lead to the national review of the drought policy?
Tony: Essentially climate change has given us no choice. We took to the election a commitment that would actually conduct this sort of review. And the problem's simple - if we do nothing, where would the current policy limits put us? And we don’t know when we’ll come out of the current drought, but I haven’t met anyone who thinks we’ll be waiting 20 to 25 years before we get the next one. And yet the current policy settings say that it’s only a drought, you’re only getting any form of government assistance if it’s a one in 20 to 25 year event. Now, this drought no doubt is that. Whether the next drought will be that or not, most people would say that would be a bit of a stretch. So we were compelled to say the climate's changed, we need to make sure the policy keeps up to date with it.
Kathy: And the end of the drought isn’t necessarily the end of the hardship either, is it?
Tony: Oh, not at all. And the further north you go in the country, the more you see serious hardship coming from a whole lot of other ways. I mean, the whole rural sector’s battling under very high input prices. What’s happened with fertiliser prices in the last 12 months and in the last five years is extraordinary. You add to that the fuel impact, the cost of chemical, as well as the ongoing problem - not of the cost of labour, but just trying to find labour, when you’re trying to compete with the mines for workers.
Kathy: Part of this review is a social [inaudible]. What kind of story do the interim findings of that tell you?
Tony: It’s been a chance to get beyond what the official government advice will always bring forward, and to get a sense of where people have been falling within the cracks. We’ve known that there’s been, that we haven’t got the policy settings right. You can’t get the sort of mental health challenges and difficulties for families that have been experienced in rural Australia and say we’ve got the policy right. So there was clearly a need to be able to improve it. What Peter Kenny and his group have come back with is examples of where services overlap, sometimes getting in the way of each other at the different levels of government. At every level, people are trying to do the right thing and trying to be helpful. But the lack of coordination creating a whole lot of problems of itself. And added to that the problem where so much at the moment is designed to wait until people hit the most difficult time imaginable, and then rush in and help. Rather then doing the preparation work in advance of the hardship, to maybe put the hardship off when it otherwise would have come.
Kathy: There’s been a- this review has involved a great deal of public public consultation so far. Is that a major key for you?
Tony: Oh, more than 1,000 people have turned up to public meetings across the length and breadth of Australia. And meetings which basically the politicians have stayed out of, and it’s been an opportunity for an expert panel, which includes people who have - a couple of them have previously been politicians on each side of Australian politics - but a whole lot of experts in different areas of policy to be able to sit down with people and just ask one question, and that’s tell us your story. Tell us what’s happened for you.
Kathy: How much confidence do you have that these changes can be such [inaudible] you know change to the to the system?
Tony: The most important thing in going through a change like this, is to give a guarantee to people who are- who are not up- who are not out of drought yet. And that’s to give- to make the guarantee clear that the policy changes that could come out of this, and we’re still waiting for final reports, but the policy changes that could come out of this are about how we deal with the next drought. For people currently receiving EC assistance, that support in its precise current form, remains for them under the old rules that were there, agreed with bipartisan support with the previous government as well.
Tony Burke with ABC Stateline journalist Kathy McLeish at Wyuna near Emerald, Queensland.
Kathy: What factors lead to the national review of the drought policy?
Tony: Essentially climate change has given us no choice. We took to the election a commitment that would actually conduct this sort of review. And the problem's simple - if we do nothing, where would the current policy limits put us? And we don’t know when we’ll come out of the current drought, but I haven’t met anyone who thinks we’ll be waiting 20 to 25 years before we get the next one. And yet the current policy settings say that it’s only a drought, you’re only getting any form of government assistance if it’s a one in 20 to 25 year event. Now, this drought no doubt is that. Whether the next drought will be that or not, most people would say that would be a bit of a stretch. So we were compelled to say the climate's changed, we need to make sure the policy keeps up to date with it.
Kathy: And the end of the drought isn’t necessarily the end of the hardship either, is it?
Tony: Oh, not at all. And the further north you go in the country, the more you see serious hardship coming from a whole lot of other ways. I mean, the whole rural sector’s battling under very high input prices. What’s happened with fertiliser prices in the last 12 months and in the last five years is extraordinary. You add to that the fuel impact, the cost of chemical, as well as the ongoing problem - not of the cost of labour, but just trying to find labour, when you’re trying to compete with the mines for workers.
Kathy: Part of this review is a social [inaudible]. What kind of story do the interim findings of that tell you?
Tony: It’s been a chance to get beyond what the official government advice will always bring forward, and to get a sense of where people have been falling within the cracks. We’ve known that there’s been, that we haven’t got the policy settings right. You can’t get the sort of mental health challenges and difficulties for families that have been experienced in rural Australia and say we’ve got the policy right. So there was clearly a need to be able to improve it. What Peter Kenny and his group have come back with is examples of where services overlap, sometimes getting in the way of each other at the different levels of government. At every level, people are trying to do the right thing and trying to be helpful. But the lack of coordination creating a whole lot of problems of itself. And added to that the problem where so much at the moment is designed to wait until people hit the most difficult time imaginable, and then rush in and help. Rather then doing the preparation work in advance of the hardship, to maybe put the hardship off when it otherwise would have come.
Kathy: There’s been a- this review has involved a great deal of public public consultation so far. Is that a major key for you?
Tony: Oh, more than 1,000 people have turned up to public meetings across the length and breadth of Australia. And meetings which basically the politicians have stayed out of, and it’s been an opportunity for an expert panel, which includes people who have - a couple of them have previously been politicians on each side of Australian politics - but a whole lot of experts in different areas of policy to be able to sit down with people and just ask one question, and that’s tell us your story. Tell us what’s happened for you.
Kathy: How much confidence do you have that these changes can be such [inaudible] you know change to the to the system?
Tony: The most important thing in going through a change like this, is to give a guarantee to people who are- who are not up- who are not out of drought yet. And that’s to give- to make the guarantee clear that the policy changes that could come out of this, and we’re still waiting for final reports, but the policy changes that could come out of this are about how we deal with the next drought. For people currently receiving EC assistance, that support in its precise current form, remains for them under the old rules that were there, agreed with bipartisan support with the previous government as well.