The Morrison Government today showed Australian farmers that it does not take drought resilience seriously.
 
Nearly two years have passed since the Morrison Government announced its Future Drought Fund on the morning of the over-hyped Drought Summit, before anyone at the Summit had spoken. 
 
True to type, today’s $90 million announcement was full of spin and lacked any real detail. We know the funding won’t go to helping farmers directly to build resilience but it seems consultants and farming representative groups will be pleased to receive taxpayers’ money to design leadership and business planning programs.
 
Minister Littleproud will also need to explain to farmers, who pay tens of millions of dollars in research and development (R&D) levies to Research and Development Corporations (RDCs), why another $20 million needs to be provided to establish Drought Resilience Research and Adoption.
 
The Minister spent $2.7 million on a review of the current research and development corporations which found that farmers were not getting value for their levies.
 
The fact is there is too much siloing, duplication and lack of adoption with current research and development.  The Minister should have addressed the failings of the existing R&D architecture before allocating additional funding.  
 
After almost two years of spin about helping farmers, today’s announcement confirmed no money will go directly to drought affected farming families. Rather, the $90 million announced today will allegedly help build financial literacy, create an on-line data service, and improve natural resource management.  These are all worthy initiatives which should be part of any Government’s day job. 
 
Another $10 million of the $100 million promised is yet to be allocated, why we don’t know.
 
Building resilience to drought should be front-and-centre for any drought policy.  That’s what the Labor inaugural Intergovernmental Agreement on Drought Reform was focused on in 2013 before the Abbott Government put it on the go slow.