The Albanese Labor Government can’t hide their hypocrisy as they extend the Coalition-era Future Drought Fund (FDF), pretending it is new support, Member for Mallee Dr Anne Webster says.
In fact, Labor voted against the program that Prime Minister Albanese and Agriculture Minister Murray Watt’s announced they would extend at Beef2024 this week in Rockhampton, Queensland.
The Government is extending via $519 million over eight years for the second phase of the FDF.
“The Prime Minister has some hide with this embarrassing about-face,” Dr Webster said.
“Labor voted against these programs in February 2019, but as they desperately scratched around for something to announce at Beef Week, they continued a needed and worthwhile Coalition-era initiative. A lot of these programs were already put in place when Leader of The Nationals David Littleproud was Agriculture Minister.”
Programs in Mallee previously funded under the FDF included the Victoria Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub of which the Mallee Regional Innovation Centre is a partner.
Dr Webster said if Labor truly supported farmers, they would reverse damaging policies that will make it harder to produce the food and fibre Australia needs.
“Before hitting copy-paste on Coalition policy, Labor should scrap their unwelcome fresh food biosecurity tax instead of shaking down farmers to pay for the risks imposed by foreign importers,” Dr Webster said.
“Labor could halt reinstating water buybacks that rip water out of our irrigation communities just to appease environmentalist Green voters in the cities. They could even stop railroading farming communities with wind turbines, solar panels and transmission lines that have no social licence and destroy our prime Agricultural land.”