19 February 2009
DAFF09/84T

Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry, Tony Burke interviewed by Fran Kelly, Radio National Breakfast

E&OE

SUBJECTS: Victorian fires, Queensland and NSW floods, $51 million assistance package, effect on consumers

FRAN KELLY: Federal Agricultural Minister Tony Burke is in Victoria right now, taking stock of the situation in the bushfire zone.  He'll be heading up to Queensland sometime soon.

Tony Burke, welcome to Breakfast.

TONY BURKE: G'day Fran.

FRAN KELLY: Minister, what specific problems are you seeing in Victoria as you move through the bushfire region? 

TONY BURKE: Fencing has been an overwhelming example. There's significant stock losses, but not as bad in Victoria as what it might have been in terms of the stock losses [in Queensland].

But extraordinary damage to permanent plantings.  People often don't think of the trees themselves as being an asset. But for plenty of farmers, it will be five years before the new trees that they plant in their place will be in full production again.

So while they're still in the beginnings of assessing the damage, in many ways, because obviously the human cost has been so great, it's difficult to turn to the costs of your business while you're still counting loved ones.

FRAN KELLY: Sure.  What about it's a wine growing region down there too.  What about vineyards - I know a lot of the grapes were damaged.

TONY BURKE: A lot were taken out. And for ones that weren't, there'll be significant smoke damage.  So they still don't know what will happen to the quality for many of those vineyards.

Certainly, in the Yarra Valley - I was talking to Fran Bailey about it yesterday - we still don't have a full assessment there, because there's still fires burning in the Yarra Valley as well,.

But one of the situations there is the tourism operators, which is a big part of that local economy, that is still running. They're very keen to try to get that part of their local economy up and running immediately as well.

FRAN KELLY: And will there be help for those producers in the Victorian region - will there be help under Federal Government programs like natural disaster relief? Or will some of these perhaps be eligible under the taskforce reconstruction money, or even the bushfire appeal money?

TONY BURKE: There'll be a series of different measures.  Yesterday, we went the next stage with some of the direct business grants, to allow people to get moving quickly with fencing and with some of the work that needs to be done just to be able to start the business off again.

So that work will happen.  And the other work that's really important is being done in terms of revegetation. 

Very quickly after a fire, if the rain that comes in its place is too heavy, you can find massive damage to the farms through erosion. Erosion and weeds can cause unheard of damage, and compound what people are already dealing with.

So the revegetation work, through Caring for our Country, we've allocated all of the unspent money for this financial year to bushfires in Victoria so that we can try to minimise the damage that happens over the next few weeks after erosion. 

FRAN KELLY: And Minister, what about Queensland?  Perhaps an even bigger issue is the large swathe of Queensland that's under water.  There's also damage to areas in northern Australia and NSW from floods.  I guess we're talking here about sugar, dairy and beef, bananas as well. 
What's the extent of the damage there, as you're aware of, so far? 

TONY BURKE: In terms of damage to agriculture as an industry, the Queensland damage is actually far more expensive than in Victoria.  Because of the size of this flood, up until now, fodder drops weren't possible.

We're talking about a flood the size of South Australia. And so it's been very difficult for a long time to get helicopters in dropping off fodder, so that the stock that has moved to higher ground can live. 

So those fodder drops are starting now after a request from Anna Bligh to Kevin Rudd. That's now happening.

But there will, in the interim, have been extraordinary losses to the beef industry because the cattle that made it to higher ground would have found there's been no vegetation for them. 

FRAN KELLY: What does this mean for consumers?  I guess it means shortage of some goods, even price hikes.

TONY BURKE: There's no doubt you'll end up with an impact on price.  You can't have this sort of change in supply without it being a knock-on impact.

There is a way consumers can obviously help, particularly with the fruit and veggie industry, and that's in not being too fussy when we're dealing with blemished fruit at the shops.

If we're willing to be a bit more tolerant than we sometimes are, that allows the retailers to continue to purchase from these farmers, and means that what they produce can still make its way to market. 

FRAN KELLY: Tony Burke, we don't have time to do it now, but I guess there's a longer discussion to be had about our agricultural production, and if we are seeing permanent weather changes in relation to climate change.

Thanks very much for joining us.

TONY BURKE: Thanks Fran.

ENDS