SARA:
Just to begin with, before we get to drought, I want to ask you about AWB, what's the message that you're giving AWB about their performance and their future.
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm concerned about the current situation. We're not going to make decisions about the single desk until after we've received the Cole report. There are issues that I want to raise with, and have raised with AWB, concerning the current wheat crop. And we're still in discussion and in those circumstances I can't say more except to emphasise that the first obligation of all of us, including AWB International, is the welfare of the individual wheat grower because that's our core commitment. It's my main concern. It's difficult enough for wheat growers at the moment and if they think that they missing out on a better price because of current arrangements, then you can understand their sense of frustration.
SARA:
And you share some of those concerns?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I've listened to what the wheat growers have had to say and I'm in discussion with AWB. I don't want to say any more at the moment.
SARA:
Well let's talk about the drought, which seems to grabbing the headlines well and truly at the moment. I guess a lot of primary producers want to know where you're coming from and where the Government's coming from. What's your aim with the kind of assistance that you're putting together at the moment?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's very simple, to help them through this terrible drought.
SARA:
And what do you think is the most effective assistance for...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the most effective assistance is to help them keep food on the table and to meet normal living expenses, to help them with interest rate subsidies. The Exceptional Circumstances assistance is very basic but it's very important. It's got nothing to do with paying people to stay on the land, that's a ludicrous charge, it's not that sort of money. Nobody can help a drought and somebody has got to help these people, and it's the Government's responsibility, the nation's responsibility, to do so. And I want them to know that we will help them through the drought. Now I've announced an extension EC circumstances, the Cabinet this week will be looking at some other measures, they're all designed to maintain sensible support for farmers through this very difficult drought. And that's our simple aim and I want the rural community to know that we are on their side, it's not their fault. Our farmers are very efficient, they're not highly protected by world standards, quite the reverse, and the least we can do as a country is to help them through their current plight.
SARA:
What about some of the bigger picture issues, Prime Minister, rural Australia is not just made up of primary producers, a lot of towns are doing it very tough at the moment, what kind of assistance possibilities could there be for some of the towns that are not doing so well?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well one of the reasons the towns don't do well is that the farmers don't have any money because of the drought and if you do put some money in the pockets of farmers, it does help to sustain those towns. We are looking at this issue but the dividing line between who you help and who you don't help, and once you start going beyond the farmers, is quite hard, and it's an issue we're looking at. And we're also looking at measures to encourage farmers to future proof themselves as best they can against another drought.
SARA:
What do you mean by that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well perhaps some additional help in relation to dams and other measures which will help farmers in dealing with a future drought, to perhaps diminish its impact. I mean it will rain again, I know many farmers don't think that's likely at the moment, and I can understand why, but it will rain again. And one of the best things we can do for the future is to help them better utilise the rain when it does come.
SARA:
And what about, getting back to the towns also, what sort of measures could be put in place so that those towns can also revitalise when it rains, when businesses have contracted at the moment and there's not a lot of staff around to keep the businesses going in a lot of towns as well?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there is a measure that's already there called Drought Force, whereby if people have to be put off because of the impact of the drought, they can return with the benefit of the unemployment benefit and go back to the person that they were previously working for without having to go through some of the hoops that other people in that situation have to go through. And we're looking at some other ways of making sure that rural communities don't lose people to other parts of Australia. It's a bigger threat now because of the pull effect of the resource sector of the economy in Western Australia and in Queensland, and it's far more enticing now for people who might be made redundant or put off in a rural area to say, well this is not for me any more, I'll go west young man and make my fortune in the Pilbara. Now we've got to worry about that and we are looking at different ways of perhaps further increasing that programme that's already there.
SARA:
Do you any plans to hit the road?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, I've got to go to the Pacific Islands Forum tomorrow and as soon as I get back from that I intend to visit some drought-affected areas and over the next few weeks I'll be doing quite a bit of that. It's very important that I get out to rural communities. I do it very regularly but it's especially important at the present time.
SARA:
What about the whole model of assistance that's in place at the moment Mr Howard, it's based on really a one-in-25-year drought and short-term assistance, is the situation that we're in now something different to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it seems to be and one of the issues that Cabinet will look at on Tuesday is whether some of the broad criteria governing Exceptional Circumstances should be altered to recognise that droughts are more prolonged, they seem to be now, and that perhaps some of the former rules were not appropriate. We want to help, we want to be up to date with that help, and we want to recognise the changes in conditions that have rendered some old rules out of date.
SARA:
When the drought is affecting so many sectors, if assistance is being given to primary producers, is there a risk that that can exacerbate the old divisions between city and country, that farmers are being treated as something special?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't think so because they're not. I mean we still give massive assistance in this county to the motor manufacturing industry, even though the levels of tariffs in that area have come down. We provide a lot of other assistance, we have given general assistance to relieve fuel prices, I mean...mind you that's gone to everybody, but you just have to look at the quantum of the help. We subsidise our farmers less than the Americans do, the Europeans do, or the Japanese do so therefore people who say that we are mollycoddling them and we're being unrealistic, don't know the facts and they are being very insensitive to the plight of their fellow Australians.
SARA:
Talking to people particularly out in western New South Wales, they're also expressing a concern about the way the assistance is put together, that there is a lot of uncertainty for them, they don't know even within a week to go, if Exceptional Circumstances will be extended. Those kind of issues, of smoothing the way and giving farmers a bit of certainty, how seriously are you looking at that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well very seriously and we have started to do so. The announcement I made earlier this week of the extension of Exceptional Circumstances in a large number of areas in New South Wales and elsewhere, they're in relation to declarations that don't run out until November. And what we have said, halfway through October, we're going to extend your EC circumstances until March of 2008. Now that gives those people a lot of certainty and it also gives them a longer period of the declaration, 18 months rather than 12 months, and we're going to try and do this with all areas so that people know a little earlier precisely what their situation is going to be. I agree, if you've got to wait from the last day, the last week, now that's grim, that's not acceptable and that's why we have moved to deal with these things earlier.
SARA:
I wanted to ask you too, what's triggered this now? The drought's been around for quite a while. Some of the graziers who have been in it for many years are happy that it's getting attention, but they're kind of scratching their heads as to why it's come to a head now. What was it that made you decide that more action was needed now?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh Sally, we've always taken action on drought. I announced major changes to the EC circumstances a year ago. So it's just not right to say we've only discovered the drought. I mean we've put $1.2 billion into drought assistance over the last five years. It's just not right to say that. We have certainly focussed very heavily on this drought recently because everybody was rather hoping against hope that it might rain and that's a normal human reaction. But when we got to a point, and I'm not a farmer, but my farmer friends tell me there was still a, sort of, a last hope until a little while ago, that rain, if it had come, might have saved the situation a bit and I suppose people live in hope. But we have been on the ball in relation to the drought constantly and if you look back over the last five years and generally the last 10 years we have been very active with drought help.
SARA:
I want to ask you about water. What do you think about transferring some of the water from the bush into the city when many cities are short of water at the moment?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't think it should be done in a way that disadvantages rural communities. What that does is to underline the necessity to have a proper trading system in relation to water. Water is a precious asset and I hold to the view very strongly that it's a very valuable asset. And farmers who have it and have an entitlement to it shouldn't lose it without proper compensation.
SARA:
Does rural Australia use more than its share of water in your view?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it certainly uses a lot and I think we could always find ways of improving our practices. I think that farmers would admit that. Farmers are very good conservationists on the whole, but we're all victims of believing water costs nothing and would be there in ever-abundant quantities whenever we needed it. Now we are all guilty of that. I'm guilty of that, you are, farmers are, everybody is. Now that's all changing and we'll never go back to those days and that means that we have to guard it preciously. We have to establish a proper trading system, and we have to find different solutions to different parts of the country. There's no one silver bullet, there's no one big project that is going to irrigate this arid country. That's a pipedream, no pun intended.
SARA:
You were talking earlier about getting some provisions in order so that when the rains come, farmers are in a position to take advantage. What about in a bigger sense, with the infrastructure, the ageing infrastructure for water in many states? How important is it to address that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh I think it's very important. I mean it's not something that I directly control, but large dams and other projects, I don't just mean dams; but they're the symbol really of water...still the symbol of water infrastructure. But that is very important. Now some of the states, to be fair, are tackling that, and there's a greater awareness by states now, but the process is very slow. The Federation moves at a less than glacial pace when it comes to solving these problems. That is one of the drawbacks of a Federal system. The Federal system has wonderful assets, but it has enormous drawbacks. When you're trying to get collaborative action from divided power, it's very slow and it can be very frustrating.
SARA:
So just finally, what's the message that you want to deliver about how important it is to keep the rural sector going and keep people on the land, even in these extraordinary circumstances?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we need you. You're part of our country, you contribute massively to our wealth and you also contribute greatly to our identity and Australia would not be the same without you. And that's why we're going to help you stay.
SARA:
Mr Howard, thanks for joining us on Landline.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]