When in doubt, let's start a taskforce.
It's the latest go-to by government when they hit tricky issues.
There was a taskforce for the drought, the hot button topic for 2019, but now it's raining, the taskforce's work has faded into the background.
It's just handed down findings after two years (which was that there should be a drought policy). So by the time the next drought comes around, the government might look at the recommendations.
There was a Northern Basins Programs taskforce to look at water recovery for the Murray Darling Basin, that has brought no real change.
In March, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission released its recommendations into the Murray Darling Basin water markets. Now the federal government is going to have an inquiry into the recommendations.
There is a regional youth task force and a regional housing taskforce.
There was even an Upper House inquiry looking into kangaroo management in NSW that has come out with nothing practical. Did it know there's a taskforce already looking at this?
The latest in the East Coast taskforce where agriculture ministers from NSW, Tasmania, Victoria and Queensland as well as representatives from all of the state's peak industry bodies have met to discuss the ongoing labour shortage.
NSW Farmers chief executive officer Pete Arkle aptly puts it that no "breakthroughs" to help combat the problem were reached.
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And now the government has come up with yet another great idea, another taskforce on why the banks are closing in regional communities.
This is will be a joint taskforce with the banks. These are the same banks who have closed the doors in these regional towns based on financial decisions (because aren't they in the money game after all). So they aren't likely to come to the taskforce to say they will open the banks again.
Even Blind Freddy can see rural people need access to banks to make commercial decision for their farming operations especially in one of the biggest comebacks from drought in history.
They don't need a taskforce to tell them.
A taskforce is just another excuse to make governments look like they are doing something instead of making the hard decisions.
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Journalist based on the Mid North Coast for The Land.
Journalist based on the Mid North Coast for The Land.
