Drought coordinator Pip Job: ‘It does hurt when they say we don’t care’

It rings when she scoots out of Dubbo in her Rav 4. 

It rings when she gets to Broken Hill. 

It rings in Cobar and Bourke, Orange and Bathurst, Scone, Lithgow and Coonamble. 

It rings when she’s at a farmer’s kitchen table.

It rings when she’s back on the road. 

It rings when she checks into a regional motel somewhere for the night, and when she’s off again in the morning. 

It rings with complaints, with frustration, with news of people who are desperate and angry.

It rings when she reads Facebook posts asking why government doesn't care about farmers in need. 

It rings when she’s reading headlines attacking her appointment as the state’s Drought Coordinator.

She says all she and her team can do is focus on doing - for our farmers’ sake - a job she hopes won’t be needed for much longer. 

However, a bleak spring forecast means there’ll be a few more calls to take before the Geurie grazier’s secondment is up in November. 

“When I’ve got someone on the phone… yeah there’s been a few who I would class as absolutely desperate,” Ms Job told The Land this week. 

“Very broadly, you can put the people who get in touch with me into couple of groups.

“There’s the proactive groups of people who are making positive steps. They’re making decisions and planning and looking at the light at the end of the tunnel, and working towards that. They’re saying ‘This is our situation, this is what we think is needed to resolve it’ 

“They are after incentives that are helping them run their business.”

Then there are people who, for a range of reasons, aren’t making decisions.

Related reading 

“Obviously, the concerning thing are those people who are at a point of crisis,” she said. 

“That’s where this needs to become a whole of government response, to link them to the support they need. 

“Because it is absolutely at the point where it has gone beyond farmers, and it now affecting entire regional communities.

“We need to ask ‘Do we have the health support, the mental health support, the right roads, the resources available to help these people make the hard decisions?’”  

Farmer angst has by no means eroded completely after Monday’s $500 million drought assistance top-up from government, but Ms Job said the relief had been palpable. 

“People that I’ve visited over the past 13 weeks have getting back in touch and saying thank you, thank you for hearing us,” she said. 

Of course, Ms Job has been talking drought far longer than her appointment as the state’s Drought Coordinator back in May. 

She’d been working with struggling rural and regional communities for a good year before she was elevated from her job with the Department of Primary Industry’s business and social resilience programs.

She has at least one weekly meeting with Minister for Primary Industries Niall Blair and has also met with David Littleproud and informed him on what she’s hearing about Federal initiatives. 

“That is one thing I get asked a lot, sorting out the confusion over what my role actually is, and how it works in with the Federal initiatives,” she said. 

Many have dubbed Ms Job the face of state government’s response to the big dry. 

Despite skepticism around her appointment, detractors have been quick to add it’s not an issue with her personally. 

“Expectations are an interesting thing to manage,” she said. 

“I generally try and assess what someone’s expectations are at the start of a conversation and work from that

“I can understand that, to the average person out there, they can not see the work that is being done behind the scenes. 

“And people are also stressed. When they’re stressed they’re not as rational as they otherwise would be. 

“The one line that hurts is that government and department don’t care. 

“I’ve had a couple of visits where I’ve had to get back in the car and pull myself together because you care immensely. 

She said many across the DPI and Local Lands Services teams were helping people they had known for years. 

“For those out on the ground, this is their own communities they are dealing with,” Ms Job said. 

“For some people it’s family members they are seeing struggle, or their friends, or people they have known their whole lives. 

“They live, work and invest in these towns right throughout our regions.

“It makes them great at their job but that emotive part is there and sometimes it makes it hard to switch off after work. 

“Everyone in our department is touched by it in some way.

“That’s why it’s hard sometimes when you hear on social media, that a bunch of shiny bums in Sydney are there looking down on everyone… it couldn’t be further from the truth.” 

Since the Farm Innovation Fund was topped up and expanded at the state budget four weeks ago, Ms Job said the Rural Assistance Authority had approved 274 applications for a total $12m. 

“We’re seeing the impacts of drought have a wider impact in rural communities...  employees, rural contractors… 

“Sometimes it’s the little stuff, especially if you’re in the livestock game. 

“Feeding animals is stressful but it’s a big ticket item.

“There’s a feeling among a lot of people that it could be something small to break the camel’s back. 

“It could be an unsealed road. 

“I met a lady at Come-By-Chance who drives 70km a day to meet a school bus on something that is not even an all-weather road. 

“How frustrating would something like that be every day? 

“It’s not even really a drought issue, but in these conditions a road like that does degrade quickly.”

How does her team keep positive when the forecast is so depressing? 

“It’s the same message we give to farmers. You’ve got to keep making decisions. You don’t stop making decisions.

“And you can’t self-assess. People think they’re automatically not eligible for support, or feel the application process is too hard. 

“Honestly, they’d be surprised. The state process is easy and our team is not there as a barrier. 

“Making that call is the first step.”