Nearly 12 months on from the Tony Abbott’s drought tour Victorian farmers are finding themselves jumping through more hoops to secure the drought assistance promised by the Minister for Agriculture.
Back in November Barnaby Joyce announced that “help was on the way” for Victorian farmers in the form of access to the $30m drought concessional loans scheme.
Yet many farmers are facing the same impossible hurdles farmers have faced in other States under the Abbott Government’s failed drought package.
The President of the Victorian Farmers Federation, Peter Tuohey has come out today to highlight the fact that the current method used to determine eligibility is highly inequitable, labelling it “an absurd situation”.
I call on Barnaby Joyce to stand up to Tony Abbott and stop moving the goalposts on loan eligibility and to provide drought affected farmers with certainty and real assistance.
Though I am afraid that for many drought affected farming families in Victoria the goalposts will now have been moved too far.
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