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The drought is continuing to have a devastating impact on much of rural and regional Australia.
Without urgent Spring rain, crops are expected to fail in the coming weeks - placing further strain on an already deeply stressed farm sector.
The Commonwealth stands shoulder to shoulder with the people of rural and regional Australia as the drought continues to bite.
The Government's spending on income support and interest rate subsidies for drought-hit regions is more than $26 million a week. Since 2001 more than $2.4 billion has been spent on drought assistance.
If more is needed to ensure our regional communities and farms survive this prolonged drought it will be provided.
Our Budget is in a healthy position and this enables us to generously support those in need when natural disasters strike. It is one of the great dividends of our current prosperity.
With the drought continuing, the status of our water storages is also parlous.
The latest expert advice shows that despite some rainfall in the past months, our storages on average are in a worse state than at this time last year.
Unless there is plentiful rain in the immediate term, further contingencies will be required to maintain critical supplies in the Murray- Darling Basin.
My government has an ambitious plan to secure water supplies in the Murray-Darling Basin - the nation's food bowl - but it is being blocked by the Victorian Labor Government.
The plan outlined almost eight months ago would put more water back into the system by piping and lining leaky irrigation channels.
With the water shortage at a critical level, it is hard to understand why the state Labor Government in Victoria continues to play politics on such an important national issue.
Listen to this Release (MP3 - 1.66Mb - 108secs)