TRANSCRIPT: RADIO INTERVIEW WITH 2LF’S RICHARD SPENCE – 17 July 2024
Subjects: Harvest Trail service, water buybacks, Margaret House, Lambing Flat Young Fellowship of Australian Writers’ writing competition
E&OE
STARTS 8.10AM
RICHARD SPENCE
Good morning. It is 8.10 as I welcome to the phone the Federal Member for Riverina, the Nationals’ Michael McCormack. Good morning, Michael.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Good morning, Richard.
RICHARD SPENCE
Now you were actually in town in Young earlier this week. We’ll go into that a little later this morning. But let’s get into the big issues of the day. The Harvest Trail service is being axed by the Government. What will it mean to farming communities in the region?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
What this means, it just makes it more difficult for farmers to be able to find workers. And whether those farmers are in grain, whether they’re in horticulture, whether they’re in stock, they need workers, they need labourers. And it’s so difficult to find good people to pick the fruit, to help with the harvest and help sow crops, et cetera, handle cattle and sheep and what Labor has done by this decision is seizing the Harvest Trailer Services and Harvest Trail Information service from the 30th of June, so it’s gone.
It will save the Government somewhere in the order of $47.3 million, $11.1 million per year ongoing, but what it was doing, it was connecting farmers with those vital labourers, it was connecting them with prospective farm workers. And that information service has just been scrapped. It was online, it was phone, it was a reliable, a credible source of information regarding fair, safe and legal work arrangements. It would do the connections. It would support farmers and workers through the Fair Work Ombudsman as well as health and safety authorities, if need be. It was just a good service. It was being well used by farmers across the nation. And it was very dependable. The labourers knew that and, they utilised it greatly, but unfortunately, it’s now gone.
RICHARD SPENCE
So does the justification just purely means savings for the government or there’s a redirection elsewhere?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
No, no, no, it’s just penny pinching. And when you couple that with the changes to the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme, the minimum requirement number of hours that the farmers were going to be forced to pay, even if the farmers’ workers were sitting around idle because of weather or other factors so, you know, and I advocated very strongly against that, having to pay workers up to 30 hours minimum a week. It just wasn’t going to work with the seasonal farm work, et cetera. So Labor has made it, they spread it out over a month, but the changes were put in place. It cost 10 per cent of the labour force. It cost 10 per cent of the farmers using the PALM scheme and Labor finally – kicking, dragging, being brought to the table, they screamed blue murder – but we got them to change it, but they only changed for a year. So, if you couple the PALM scheme changes that are now going to take place in 12 months’ time at any rate, you take the harvest trail services, information cuts – all of that into account – it’s just another blow to rural and regional communities, but particularly our farmers. And at the end of the day, they put the food and fibre into the economy, which helps feed us and helps clothe us.
RICHARD SPENCE
So what does that actually mean for the farmers if they can’t get that direct access to employees? Will it impact the productivity? Will it impact their profits?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, it will do all that because they’ve then got to get off their tractors, they’ve got to get out of their orchards and they’ve got to go and find workers themselves. They’ve got to use other means and ways of doing it. And it’s not always easy. And I know a lot of farmers use backpacker services and that’s, very much a word-of-mouth service. If you do the right thing by the workers, their friends come back the following year et cetera. But it just means it’s more onerous on farmers because they’ve got to find the workers and then they’ve got to go through all the processes of knowing that that worker is up to scratch, up to speed. And then the farm worker finally does arrive and they don’t turn out because the farmer hasn’t got that credible, reliable information about them, then it just makes it more difficult; they’ve got to go back to square one. All of these things are onerous on farmers. It just means more time, more time away from doing what they should be doing and that is growing the world’s best produce. We know our farmers in the South West Slopes and across the Riverina region do just that.
RICHARD SPENCE
Yeah, they certainly do. Is there any chance of it being reinstated in a new form in the future? Was there any consultation or due diligence done before this decision was made?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Look, we’ll fight hard for it leading up to the next Budget, who knows when the election is going to be? It could be as early as December, it could be March next. It has to be held by May next year. But, this won’t be put back in place before then, but we’ll fight hard. When we are formulating policies as well, I’m sure we’ll make sure that information services and connecting the dots between labourers and farmers are put back into place because the farmers need it.
RICHARD SPENCE
And another concern impacting our local producers is the Government’s water buybacks scheme. How is that going to impact our local communities and farmers?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, that’s a great mystery at the moment. And in the Budget it was marked NFP, not for publication the amount of money that was going to be spent on buybacks. And as Perin Davey and Steph Cooke, the shadow ministers for water at a Federal and State level respectively, have both said it’s all very much up in the air and the difficulty there is, because we don’t know how much water is going to be brought back or, indeed, where it’s going to be brought back from. It does place great uncertainty over those river communities which rely for their local economy on irrigation, on farmers, because they are huge producing food parcels for this nation and others besides. And when you have that Sword of Damocles hanging over those communities just waiting to drop, the farmers do all right out of this because, at the end of the day, they sell their water for a higher price than they would normally, because when the Commonwealth comes with a very big cheque book, the price of water gets distorted.
But it’s not good for the hairdresser, the café, the local garage or the local school – they lose students out of the school and then the teacher numbers go down. So it has a huge effect on local communities, on local population numbers. And we’ve just seen with New South Wales losing a Federal seat in the Parliament, the fact that when you have populations declining as compared to other states in Australia, it has an effect right across the board.
RICHARD SPENCE
And you mentioned there that farmers will get a fair price for selling their water. But on the flip side, they need a certain amount of water to operate their farms and get their products out. Is there any provision or planning for more infrastructure for water storage for the times of drought when that comes about? Because we are a land of droughts and floods, we’ve known that for a long time.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
As soon as the Labor governments came both at State and Federal level, they knocked on the head Wyangala Dam – that’s the local water infrastructure project that was being pushed and promoted. They knocked it on the head the Dungowan up on the Peel, at Tamworth. Labor is not interested in water infrastructure. They’re not even interested in extending the wall at Warragamba, which we know when it gets a bit heavy, the rainfall up near Sydney way those communities are very much placed at risk. And then we had Rose Jackson who said that well, we’re not going to build more water infrastructure, we’ll just build better roads so that people of Forbes and West Wyalong can escape quicker. I mean, that’s the attitude coming out of Macquarie Street. And when you’ve got that sort of attitude by city-centric politicians, heaven help people in regional communities.
RICHARD SPENCE
I find that extraordinary.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
I’d love to build more water infrastructure, but the Commonwealth can’t build it without the say so of the states. So you have to have that Federal-State arrangements put in place as part of the Federation and it is so difficult to get everybody on board.
RICHARD SPENCE
I find it extraordinary, Michael, that they are reluctant to build more dams and water catchment infrastructure, yet they’re so vocal about climate change and the extreme weather, the climate of drought and floods yet they are reluctant to build these dams. It’s extraordinary.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
And then we’re told that we’re going to have to rely on having more uncertain weather in the future and yet and they want to put most of our energy power sources coming from solar, coming from wind, coming from those very sources that they then say are going to be more unreliable now. The Sun is always going to shine, of course, but when you don’t have the battery storage capacity or technology in place at the moment, it does place a big risk on our energy system. It does place a big challenge to our grid. You know, everything in balance. that’s why The Nationals and through the Coalition are pushing nuclear. That’s why we’re saying that this should be very much a national, rational discussion. Let’s have the discussion and let’s see where that takes us.
RICHARD SPENCE
Yeah. And that’s, a discussion for another time, especially with transmission lines taking over farming land as well. Now, as I mentioned earlier, you were in Young earlier this week for a couple of different reasons. The Margaret House refuge, firstly and Young Crisis Accommodation Centre. What’s going on with that?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
When we talk of city-centric policies and we talk of city-centric views and we’ve got Margaret House, which has been bringing refuge to women in crisis for many, many years in Young and right across the South West Slopes community. It’s the only facility, probably within an hour, an hour-and-a-half’s drive of Young, for such a thing. And they’ve applied for money, up to around $4 million, not quite, but, you know, a good slice of money from the Federal Government. They’ve got the location, they’ve got the plans, they’re getting a development application through, they put the application in the Safe Places Inclusion round to fund what would be a construction of six new units in Young and were knocked back because they didn’t put in place what the public transport arrangements were. That was the main reason.
RICHARD SPENCE
Really?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
You know, public transport in Young. We all know that it’s just not there so that, because they didn’t fully explain the pick-up and drop-off points of non-existent public transport; that cost them going further in that particular round. Now, there will be further rounds, I’m sure, of Safe Places Inclusion round because all sides of government, all levels of government understand that we’ve got a crisis at the moment with women fleeing domestic violence. Anybody who read about Molly Ticehurst at Forbes there in April, losing a life at the hands of an intimate partner, the situation that happened there, he’s now before the courts, we just know how difficult it is right across the board. It’s blown out of all proportion, unfortunately, the number of women who are fleeing domestic violence, who are in this situation. And when you’ve got, a group, dedicated group such as Margaret House wanting to put in place the measures to help these women in a crisis, in a situation which is getting worse by the hour, not the day, but by the hour, and then they get knocked back because they didn’t put public transport provisions in place when there aren’t any public transport provisions, you just have to wonder. So they’ll put another application in. I’ve spoken to them about what to do there and, hopefully next round, they’ll be receiving the funding that they so desperately need to build those units in order to house women in crisis. And they do a great job, Anna Hayes and the dedicated voluntary community group. They do a wonderful job and we owe a debt of gratitude to them for doing just that, and for doing it for many, many years, very, very successfully for the women of Young.
RICHARD SPENCE
Yeah, they do a wonderful job, but it is terrible the bureaucracy knocking back such an important thing like that, not only for people fleeing domestic violence, but also just housing in general, across the state and the country is just in poor availability.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Oh, look, it is indeed it is. And when we’ve got a situation where we’re bringing in more migrants, more than 100,000 migrants each and every month, that was the number that used to come in for the whole year in the Howard-era Government and now we’re bringing them in each and every month. It does place pressure on accommodation, on rent, and not just in the cities where many of them are choosing to live. But, indeed, right across the region and right across regional Australia. And it does place pressure on infrastructure right across the country and we need to have a much better population policy than the one we have now.
RICHARD SPENCE
And now something a little bit lighter and a lot more fun. Lambing Flat Young Fellowship of Writers’ writing competition is now open. And you were here for that on Monday.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Look, I was and Jennifer Haynes and her wonderful little committee have put together the 42nd annual writing competition. the Lambing Flat Young branch of the Fellowship of Australian Writers New South Wales Incorporated. Quite a title, quite a competition. And there’s many, many categories. Very, very pleasing that South West Slopes Bank and the Young Services Club and teachers from right across Australia are supporting this, not only in kind, but also with some valuable sponsorship dollars because that’s what makes these competitions go round. But, entries are open for adult open themes, short story and poetry, multiple entries are allowed.
This has become a national competition in the 42 years it’s been held. It’s actually gone from being a good little district competition in and around Young to, Richard, it is now right across the country and, school kids and adults, too, from right across Australia, are entering this. And of course, we’ve got a fair history with good writers, with Banjo Patterson, of course, a few local links there and none other than Henry Lawson just a few short drop kicks down the road from Young. So, it’s all good. It’s a good competition. The competition has opened, the winners will be announced at the Cherry Festival later in the year. So, it’s a great thing – the pen is mightier than the sword, as we know.
RICHARD SPENCE
It certainly is. And how is your creative writing, Michael, do you pen a few poems or short stories?
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Well, I did tell the people at the launch that I won an adult writing competition when I was in Year 6 and won a shaving kit. My late father Lance at the time was very happy that I’d won that aftershave and shaving kit because I don’t think there’d be too many Year 6 kids shaving at the time. I certainly wasn’t, flat out doing it now, but it was a good thing. I very much, obviously, then later went into journalism. This competition started in 1982, that was my first full-time year of writing.
RICHARD SPENCE
OK, yes.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
I used to cover the Young Cherrypickers in Group 9 back then as the second writer to Peter Baker back in the heady days of Group 9 and the Young Cherrypickers are going well this year, aren’t they? They’re on top of the competition. I think they play Gundagai, well I know they play Gundagai this Sunday at ANZAC Park, Gundagai. So they’ll be looking to extend their lead in Group 9.
And, anyway, this writing competition is great and I encourage anybody in and around Young particularly to get a bit of those local themes, those local entries happening.
RICHARD SPENCE
Of course. All right then and the Young Cherrypickers, they’ve been on top of the ladder for the last couple of weeks in first grade, Temora Dragons second.
Thank you very much, Michael McCormack, for your time this morning.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Thanks, Richard. And Group 9 is always strong when Young and Temora, as you’ve just mentioned, are strong so when those clubs are going well you know Group 9’s going well.
RICHARD SPENCE
Of course.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
A great game this Sunday against the Tigers and may the best team win.
RICHARD SPENCE
We’ll catch up with you again next week and go the Blues tonight, of course.
MICHAEL McCORMACK
Thanks, Richard. Go the Blues!
ENDS 8.27am