PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull said as he stood in Trangie on Monday, a place he described as the “heartland of Australia”, that agriculture is the ultimate renewable industry in Australia.
It needs some renewing now, sooner rather than later.
He said ag was growing at an enormous pace and “there has never been greater opportunity for Australian agriculture”.
For most regions of NSW the current drought has not been an overnight phenomenon.
It has crept upon us, revealing itself day after day, week after week, month after month of significantly below average rainfall. That it is dry is no news to Australian farmers. It seems as if our politicians have been a bit slow off the mark, because only now are they travelling inland on “discovery tours” to determine what they might best do to help.
Subsidised access for feed to keep livestock upright would be a beginning.
Exploration of the most economical means of shipping fodder to whatever region of Australia is in drought at any time would be a worthy effort.
Deputy Prime Minister and Nationals leader Michael McCormack was more circumspect than the PM, who at least called the drought for what it was.
Mr McCormack went as far as saying: “We are in the potential grip of a drought.”
The Bureau of Meteorology released its seasonal climate outlook last Thursday and its forecasts were grim. It predicted a drier than average winter in the southeast mainland of Australia, including NSW and Victoria, extending into southern Queensland and across South Australia.
As truckloads of fodder and grain pump into NSW from the south and talk turns to shipping hay from Western Australia’s Ord River region in a bid to keep cattle and sheep alive, one must question why we are not better prepared as a continent.
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Not everywhere is in drought and irrigated regions are still producing quality feed.
Why is it that every time dought occurs on the world’s driest continent, everyone bar farmers treats the event as an unexpected phenomenon?
The amount of government money being poured into the mining and renewable energy production industries is mind boggling.
Yet farmers are told they must become more resilient.
That’s not good enough.
