THE Labor Party Mildura branch has turned up the heat on the Victorian Government to fast-track financial help for drought-stricken Millewa farmers.
Branch spokesman Tony Alessi said farmers needed interest-free loans to help them get a crop in this year and to make sure they could keep their livestock alive until July next year.
“They’re down to just their breeding stock, so they need to keep them alive so they can breed them up again when it does finally rain,” Dr Alessi said.
“They worked out if everyone took up the loans in the Millewa-Carwarp area, it would be $27 million for the cropping and $6 million for the animals.
“(The government is) obviously aware of the issue, we’d just like to go the step beyond that and make sure they realise it’s time-critical.
“For the farmers to get a crop in for this season, decisions will have to be made as soon as possible.”
In State Parliament last week, Agriculture Minister Jaclyn Symes, who travelled to the Millewa earlier this month to meet farmers, said access to low-interest loans was the top issue brought to her attention.
“And that is obviously a Federal Government program which, it appears to me, is perhaps not exactly hitting the target that it needs to hit,” she said.
“I have had an informal reach out to (Federal Drought and Rural Finance Minister David Littleproud) and we will connect when our departments have had some discussions about access to those loans and making sure that there are no barriers.”
Mr Littleproud said the Rural Financial Counselling Service (RFCS) in 2018-19 assisted more than 6600 clients nationwide, of which 1900 were in Victoria.
“The RFCS North West Victoria are assisting clients in Millewa region,” he said.
“There has been around $3.4 million in loan funds approved in the Millewa region under the Farm Financial Concessional Loans Scheme, Drought Assistance Concessional Loan Scheme and through the Regional Investment Corporation (RIC)”.
Mr Littleproud said the Federal Government was “working shoulder-to-shoulder” with rural communities doing it tough through drought.
“We stand by to help at every turn,” he said.
“Our drought support includes concessional loans. We strongly encourage competitive loans for farmers in hardship.”
He said the RIC reduced its loan rate to 3.11 per cent, which represented savings of tens of thousands of dollars for many farmers.
“Through the RIC, Australian farmers can now access up to $2 million in low-interest loans, double the previous limit,” he said.
“Plus, the government has doubled the total funding available for low-interest loans in any given year to $500 million. The first five years of these loans will remain interest-only.”
