Well thank you very much John, to Trevor and Margaret and Anthony Smith, thank you very much for the hospitality that you've extended to us. Mark and I, madam mayor and your fellows from the various shires, have come here today essentially to listen. You are probably aware of the announcements that we have made over the past week or so and I'd be very happy to answer any questions on those and to hear of other matters that you think might be looked at. But essentially this is a time when we've come to do a minimum of talking and a maximum of listening. I do want to assure you that the Government and the whole country cares about you, wants to help you through this terrible drought. The nation is wealthy enough to afford to help its farmers through this terrible drought, and that is the essential message I bring to you. We are a fortunate, prosperous, wealthy nation in aggregate, there are parts of the nation that, through no fault of their own, are missing out on that and the farm sector is one. The Australian farm sector is one of the least protected and subsidised in the world and I won't regale you with the comparative figures, you are probably as well aware of them as I am, and it is therefore very important at a time like this, that the Government and the community be ready to help.
I do think it's a sign of the seriousness of the drought that country communities are pulling together as never before. I had some remarks made to me about that a moment ago, about how different components of a country town are pulling together because they see this as a common threat and a common challenge, and I'd like to think that the whole nation is very much behind you. We cannot afford to lose our farm sector, we cannot see it fall below a critical mass. I've said that on many occasions in Canberra, and I repeat it here this morning. I am very committed to the maintenance of a viable farm sector. I do not believe that the country would survive the loss of that, and the nation would change its character permanently. Now, they're words, and we have to try and match those words with reasonable action. No government can do everything that people would like and not every suggestion that's put to the Government is sensible of implementation. But many of them are and I do hope that out of our gathering today, we'll have an opportunity of hearing what you've got to say and taking on board some further suggestions about how we might respond.
John mentioned the issue of the water bills that you're continuing to get minus the water from the New South Wales Government. Needless to say we think that's quite outrageous. There was a well publicised case of Mr Pat Kennedy who got $100,000 in interest rate subsidies from the Federal Government and $75,000 of that was whisked away to pay for the state water bills and he's still, of course, waiting on the water allocation. Now we all know that there has to be fundamental changes in water policy, but we certainly don't think it's a fair crack of the whip to have a situation where there is no allocation but you've still got to pay for it. That doesn't pass any kind of pub test in the bush or in the city and I think we'll be needing to put as much pressure on the State Government as we possibly can in order to bring about some amelioration of that.
But I wanted to emphasise very quickly, and I'll finish on this, that one of our aims has been to liberalise the Exceptional Circumstances proposal so that not only do we have more rationality in relation to the areas, that we've removed the distinction that was made previously between different forms of agriculture so that all productive activities are included. And by extending the period to 18 months and also I hope in the future, making decisions about extensions of Exceptional Circumstances well in advance of the expiry of the current declaration, that those three actions combined, will remove some of the concern legitimately felt in the nation about the operation of the EC system.
But my friends, my fellow Australians, we are here to assure you of our support, to assure you of our commitment to help the farm sector through this terrible drought and to listen to ideas and proposals and criticisms and observations that any of you would like to make to us. Thank you.
[ends]