Ag minister announces drought hardship loan

Julie Collins announced new drought support measures while at Willunga.

Transcript

00:00What we're announcing today is what we said we would do and that is respond to the Regional

00:03Investment Corporation review that was done by Dr Wendy Crake and I thank her for that review

00:08and what we're announcing today as an outcome of that review and also the drought forum that was

00:14held here in South Australia just a few months ago is that we'll be having two new products

00:18that will be available in the first half of next year through the Regional Investment Corporation

00:23and those two new products are a drought hardship loan which will be for day-to-day expenses for

00:29farmers that have had repeated years of drought because we certainly heard feedback that farmers

00:34are doing a lot in terms of their own resilience but what they need is support at the end of that

00:38after they've had a couple of really tough years so it'll be loans of up to $250,000 over five years

00:44and importantly the first two years there'll be no repayments so essentially a repayment holiday

00:50up to two years for those loans particularly for the drought hardship loan and then of course

00:57it's delivering on the Prime Minister's commitment that the Prime Minister made in relation to a new

01:01product under the Regional Investment Corporation and that will be in relation to the heatwave

01:07algal bloom and that again is a new product that will be available in the first half of next year that

01:13will be available to wild catch fishes and to aquaculture so marine farming as well and that product

01:21again is up to $250,000 and will be available in the first half of next year we would like to make

01:27these available a bit faster but there are some regulatory things that we need to do but importantly

01:33we're working as quickly as we can with the Regional Investment Corporation to be able to do that

01:37and of course people would be aware that we did announce and the Prime Minister did announce an extra

01:42billion dollars so that loans can continue past the 30th of June next year the other important thing that

01:48I'd like to announce today as well is is that we are holding interest rates the interest rate of 5.18%

01:55through the Regional Investment Corporation was due to be reassessed in February and according to the

02:01methodology and formula which we've inherited that would have gone up again so we're going to keep it

02:06at that rate for a further six months because we know here in South Australia and indeed in parts of

02:12Victoria and New South Wales we do have a range of farmers still doing it very tough indeed and what we

02:18want to do is support them through that so we're making that announcement and we have responded

02:24in terms of the 32 recommendations and the six findings from Dr Craig's review into the Regional

02:30Investment Corporation we are agreeing and noting all of them there is not any that we are saying

02:36we do not agree with we have of course left ourselves a bit of room in terms of a couple of those

02:42recommendations for future reform in relation to the Regional Investment Corporation going forward

02:48so I'm pleased to take any questions that you might have Minister given farmers the main thing

02:53they've been asking for is really no or very low interest rates do you feel like this goes far enough

02:58to meeting the needs of those farmers that really are still doing it tough well this is about cash flow

03:03for farmers the important thing we heard from farmers was in relation to cash flow we also know from

03:08Dr Craig's review into the Regional Investment Corporation that last time different loan products

03:14were made available there was actually a huge influx and what that actually meant was farmers did not

03:19get that day-to-day support that they needed in a timely way so the way that we've done this loan we

03:25think will actually work better for those farmers who are in distress that do need that day-to-day support

03:32obviously there is a process to go through but we think that it will overcome some of those long

03:37processing and approval times that were a result of other decisions that were made at the time