RURAL Western Australia has received its own version of an economic stimulus, with the State Government last week announcing a $5 million Dry Season Assistance Package for communities in 100 drought-affected shires.
Ironically, light rain fell as Premier Colin Barnett and Agriculture and Food Minister, Terry Redman, announced the package at Parliament House last week.
The package is designed to give rural communities an initial boost, given the agricultural sector stands to lose $3 billion as a result of the season.
Mr Barnett said the loss would have a severe economic impact, and the assistance package was the first phase of measures to help rural communities cope.
"For a big part of the State, it has been the worst season they've ever had, and this is having a significant impact not just on farmers, but also on rural communities and businesses," Mr Barnett said.
Mr Barnett said an important measure in the assistance package was $1m for the installation of high-volume water tanks at standpipes, which would ensure there was a ready supply of water available in case of bushfires and for emergency stock and domestic supplies.
He said all Government services would be maintained in affected areas.
"That means essential services like small schools will remain open, school buses will continue to run, and police, health and allied services will continue," he said.
"People grappling with the dry season have enough on their plate without worrying about losing services in their town, so it's very important for the Government to give them that security."
Mr Barnett said he had also directed all government ministers and their agencies to look at capital works, maintenance and other initiatives that could be brought forward to provide an economic boost to drought-affected areas.
Mr Redman said the measures were an initial response to help address some of the critical issues confronting rural communities.
"The grants acknowledge and support our farming and rural communities not only in the short term to deal with this very challenging season, but also to ensure their longer-term survival," he said.
"One of the first actions of the taskforce - to be chaired by the director general of the Agriculture and Food Department - will be to visit drought-affected areas, because the worst affected areas will be targeted first."
The taskforce is due to meet again on November 22.
The measures outlined in the package were all recommendations of the Dry Season Advisory Committee (DSAC), which also determined the $5m funding figure.
Mr Redman said the $5m figure was the estimated cost of the initial response and he realised this was not a quick race, but a marathon.
He said he did not sell short the challenges and hurdles faced by rural communities or the broader community, especially when the agriculture sector contributed $8b gross value to the economy.
"This is unlikely to be a one-off and we will continue to monitor the situation as it progresses," Mr Redman said.
"We're in this for the long term."
DSAC chairman, Dexter Davies, said the initial response to the funding announcement had been mainly positive, although there had also been comments that the funding was not enough and that the committee should be doing other things to help.
But Mr Davies said it was about promoting the longevity of rural communities, rather than looking for the quick fix.
He said the DSAC had been looking at what was currently being done to help farmers and communities, and identifying the gaps where they didn't think normal government programs were initially adequate.
One of the issues they saw was the water flow for emergency carting of water, which was why $1m was made available.
"It's a simple calculation done around the number of water points by roughly what the tanks cost and costs to install them, if everybody takes them up," Mr Dexter said.
"That's been put in place now, before they actually run out of water, so they are there to deal with any problem rather than after the event and after the bushfire season.
"It's difficult dealing with drought, but we've left no stone unturned to try and get this out there as soon as we can."
With regards to the community service grants, Mr Davies said $20,000 had been allocated for 100 shires, which could be applied for through the Rural Business Development Corporation, which administered all assistance packages for the State.
He said criteria and applications had already been made up for most of the funding available in the package and they were trying to make the funds available as soon as possible, while also being mindful of not cutting corners.
"This is about encouraging community events to maintain resilience, social activity and wellbeing of the community, especially through harvest when people are going to be doing it pretty tough," Mr Davies said.
"We're well aware we need to get this done and make funds available to people as soon as possible."
Social Support Service Grants to the tune of $1m have been made available for support organisations such as AgCare, AngliCare and the Salvation Army.
Mr Davies said they had identified the resources of those sorts of organisations had been run down, and they wanted to ensure the groups were in a position to adequately help the people reaching out.
The rural financial counselling service received a boost of $200,000, which will be used to fund two additional counsellors.
Mr Davies said the service unfortunately had an increase in clientele over the years, and DSAC felt they were doing a fantastic job, which could be strengthened with the addition of two more staff.
"It's usually funded 90 per cent by the Federal Government and 10pc by the State Government, but it's a bit of a long process to do that," he said.
"To make sure we have those extra people on the ground when we need them, we've made that money available to make sure they get there in the quickest time possible."
An initial $500,000 has been allocated to assist small businesses, which will be administered through Small Business Development Corporations.
Mr Davies said small businesses could be eligible for up to $1500 business/planning support funding through that process.
"We don't know whether that's enough, but it is enough to get it started and we'll monitor to see if they need more," he said.
As for further funding assistance that may become available, Mr Davies could not say much, but he did allude to the fact that shires could see more funding announcements coming their way.
He said there was likely to be another way of impact, which included maintaining and retaining labour in areas where, for instance, dwindling stock numbers began to impact abattoirs.
"We don't know what the answer to that is but we need to work through some strategies of what those effects will be," he said.
"We need to work our way through the impacts of the next stage of this and identify the resources required.
"There's no silver bullet to fix all this, but there are things we know from experience that are the right things to do and those are things we've done so far.
"People are under a lot of stress, and the expectations are enormous, but we need to remain focused on identifying the issues that are important and putting things in place as timely as possible to make a difference."
