24 February 2009

House of Representatives

Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry—Tony Burke
Member for Corangamite (ALP)—Darren Cheeseman

Subject: Victorian bushfires

Mr CHEESEMAN (2.02 pm)—My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Minister, how is the government helping farmers in bushfire affected Victoria to get their businesses back up and running?

Mr BURKE—Thanks very much Mr Speaker. I thank the member for Corangamite for the question. It is some months since the member for Corangamite and I visited areas in Colac, including the dairy farm belonging to Mark and Sam Billing. Last week my office was in contact with the family. I spoke to Sam. Mark was doing what so many farmers had done—he had started off fighting some of the local fires and, by the time my office spoke to him, he had gone across to Gippsland to help with fighting the fires there.

Many farmers around the country have seen that same story and, just as farmers were involved in fighting the fires, they are also part of the grieving and will be a vital part of the recovery. Last Wednesday and Thursday I visited properties in the electorates of McMillan and Gippsland together with the local members and with Simon Ramsay of the VFF. There has been a constant story across so many of the farms that have been affected by the fires. No farmer, realistically, can insure everything on the property— if you did, you would run into loss even in a good year. And the constant story has been that, if anything has been saved on a farm, it is likely to have been the bits that were insured, as though the fire was almost going after the sections of the properties that were not insured.

We visited Brian and Julie Witchell’s apple orchard in Labertouche. To get a sense of the heat, things that were not flammable at all, like their metal packing shed, had melted to the ground. On apple trees which had not actually been seared by the flames, the apples themselves had cooked till they looked more like passionfruits But there on the other side of the hill, in the areas that fortunately had not been affected by the fires, you had that sign of optimism with the volunteer workforce.

Both there and the following day on a Gormandale dairy farm, an army of volunteers—be it on the apple orchard restaking trees or on the dairy farm helping with removing fencing. But the point made yesterday by the member for McEwen was well made and well taken—that, important as the volunteer effort is, long-term recovery needs to be built on jobs. With that in mind, the money that is available immediately—the $5,000 upfront payment and then the $25,000 for farms and businesses—allows people to at least begin the process of rebuilding on these properties. The concessional loans of up to $200,000 at a 3.2 per cent interest rate (so below the cash rate) allow people to go a step further.

Also, the Landcare-style work is of extraordinary importance. I referred to this in the House when I last stood here but, having seen both some of the forestry areas and the farms where there is no sign that there was ever any undergrowth there at all, ironically, in the areas where the fires have now been extinguished, the worst thing that could happen now would be a massive downpour, which would simply remove the soil and carry it directly to the river.

I also, when I last stood here, referred to the electorate of Gippsland and the two areas which had come out of EC in September of last year. I said that I would speak to the Victorian minister about getting a request for those to come back in. That request came from the Victorian Government, and interim EC assistance is now available in both the Macalister Irrigation District and Latrobe. There is also, and it gives you a sense of the resilience of some of the people involved, the member for Gippsland and I as we drove through some of the areas, I think it was in Traralgon, saw a sign out the front of an area where properties had been completely levelled that the owners had put up themselves.It said: ‘Renovator’s delight, large skylight, charcoal interior, alfresco dining’. The member for Gippsland and I went to see the owner, who was cleaning up, and asked him if he had put the sign up. He responded, ‘No, my wife put that up. She has got a better sense of humour than me at the moment’. There are huge challenges ahead, but there is some extraordinary resilience from some incredible Australians who will be leading that recovery.