Much ado about nothing

Much ado about nothing …

I’m a glass half full person most of the time – sometimes irritatingly so, I have been told. I’ve looked hard to find good things in this week’s federal budget for agriculture – but it is a challenging task.

One plus is that this might be the last time we have to sit through the Treasurer’s delivery of a speech in which he manages to mangle the English language by emphasising the wrong words in every sentence. Now, I know that his appalling delivery has little to do with the content of his speech, but, my goodness, it makes it very difficult to listen to him. He should be used to public speaking. Doesn’t he go through his speech beforehand with a pencil to underline the important words?

Having said that, there was little in the budget for Tasmanian farmers – yet again. Many of the initiatives announced were in fact re-announcements. Importantly, in many cases, the funds were pilfered from other existing programs, watering down the capacity to deliver on the original objectives. Robbing Peter to pay Paul, in other words.

The government seems to have a blind spot for research, which is one of my hobby horses. Without adequate research, agriculture cannot progress, cannot meet its potential in providing food security. There is no new money for research in the Budget; and the $238.2 million ongoing funding is inadequate if the government is serious about farmers maximising their opportunities in the so-called Asian century.

Funding for the forest peace deal is an example of robbing Peter to pay Paul. The Biodiversity Fund was established with great fanfare in a previous budget to promote reforestation, revegetation and other carbon store initiatives. It was part of the federal government’s commitment to supporting farmers in the vitally important work they do to protect and conserve environmental values. Funding for this program has been cut from $946 million over six years to $1 billion over eight years. The snaffled money will be funnelled into ‘‘other government priorities’’, including the recently finalised Tasmanian forestry agreement.

Nearly $100 million in federal funds has been committed under this agreement to supposedly compensate the forest industry. This money will come from the Biodiversity Fund and the Caring for Our Country program. It includes $60 million to regional sawmillers, haulage and harvest contractors and government purchases of wood supply contracts.

There is a further $3.5 million (with matching state funding, a total of $7 million) going to the parties who negotiated the peace deal, now to be members of a special council, whose task it will be to mark their own homework in terms of the durability of the agreement. I mean, they are hardly going to find fault, are they? And key groups, like the private foresters, are still locked out of this process.

The $99.4 million in farm household support under the new drought policy assistance package is another case of smoke and mirrors. The funds were already committed to the Caring for our Country program which now will now have $141.5 million less over five years to invest in the things it was designed to do.

Farmers will also cop it in the neck from the government’s decision to cut $3.9 billion from the assistance it provides to industries affected by the carbon tax. Those beneficiaries included agricultural processors. So if they get less compensation, they will obviously seek to reduce their payments to suppliers.

There’s $25 million for a National Produce Monitoring System, which we’re told will mean consumers can have confidence in our food. However, it will only be testing locally grown produce; and not anything imported. That doesn’t instill me with confidence, especially as I suspect later down the track industry will be expected to fund the program.

There’s a further $669 million over five years for regional Natural Resource Management (NRM) groups and Landcare through Caring for Our Country program. In our view, at least some of that money would be better directed through farmers’ organisations to ensure linkages between environmental outcomes and farm practices.

There are some positives, too.

There is a welcome extension of funding for Rural Alive and Well, with a further $1 million committed over 2 years. An Innovation and Investment Fund for the Tasmanian plantation timber industry will be established, with funding of $15.8 million over three years, to help the industry transition to a greater reliance on plantation resources. As the only place plantations can go is on agricultural land, we assume that there will be some role for us in this program. There’s an allocation of $8 million over the next three years to complete a study already underway, investigating the “appropriate ongoing solutions” for the use of timber residues, or waste products. Again, that will have a direct impact on the private forests sector.

So, overall, there is no evidence of long-term strategic plan for agriculture; and no funding of a vision towards further food security or economic opportunities.

In other words, much ado about nothing.