I was working for the WA Minister for Agriculture Ken Baston back in 2010, during the last big drought and, like Jackie Jarvis with the current dry, he had to deal with calls from industry for the Government to do something.

At the time, as Chief of Staff, I asked the Department what the State’s legislated responsibilities were when it came to dry seasons and the advice that came back was pretty simple – ‘soils and animal welfare’, that’s it. Farmers were on their own when it came to subsidies for fodder or transport.

In fact, that had been the policy since the late 1990s when the former Court Liberal National government moved to weaning farmers off turning to the State for support when the rains did not come.

The following ALP State government followed the same policy as both sides of politics concluded if farmers can’t handle a drought, then they should sell out to the neighbours as they are always looking for more land.

The policy position was to limit the Minister for Agriculture’s responsibilities to encouraging preparation not emergency response.

Outside of that, the legislation focused on stopping the State blowing away (particularly the pastoral estate which is Crown land) and to make sure farmers are feeding or destroying stock, not letting them suffer.

It was very different to the position taken by the Eastern States who continued to write cheques to farmers when drought was declared.

Baston was happy to hold the line during the 2010 drought as, being a former pastoralist and member of both the PGA and WAFarmers, he knew a thing or two about droughts, having suffered through more than his fair share and followed the debate about industry subsidies for decades.

His position was that the Government is not there to fund fodder for when it does not rain, just as it is not there to share in the profits over and above normal tax when it’s a bumper year.

As Minister for Agriculture, he liked to remind farmers that he was not the Minister for Trade, Mental Health, Water, Treasury, Finance, Fire and Emergency Services or Small Business.  He could not do much to help when times were tough.  If incomes fell low then there was always social security to turn to, to keep food on the table, but the government was not there to put fodder in the paddock.

But, as the 2010 drought dragged on and the feed and water ran out, the Premier got involved and came up with a bizarre scheme of offering grants of up to $25,000 for those farmers who were being forced by the banks to walk off and take the Greyhound bus to Perth. 

It was a dumb policy and unsurprisingly no one took it up.  They also offered drought infrastructure loans of up to $400,000 but I think they were so bureaucratic that the rains had long since returned by the time they became available.

That was I thought the last nail in the coffin for State drought support with even the McGowan and MacTiernan team holding firm during the two year Great Southern dry and not offering matching funding to the Federal $25 per cent, $25,000 water infrastructure concessional grant.

But it seems the State government is back in the drought game with the recent announcement by the Jacky Jarvis of $5000 grants and $25,000 loans.

Knowing a thing or two about the complexity of administering these sorts of things, I can almost guarantee DPIRD will rack up many hours and millions of dollars, not to mention years, administering this new policy. 

I just hope Treasury has covered this cost otherwise something will have to be cut, no doubt biosecurity or research or something important that would help with long term profitability. 

I suspect the move to wave $8m around is in part driven by the fact it’s an election year and in part because the Federal Government has made it almost impossible to get a buyer for low score stock having done its best to drive away the export ships.

While we have had some rain in parts of the SW last week, my advice to the current minister is to explain if this is the new drought policy and what can we expect in the future or is this a once off.

Out of interest, why did the northern wheatbelt miss out last year?  What’s the new criteria for grants and loans? Is it decile 1, 2 or 3, for how many months, is the price of fodder and stock in the saleyards part of the equation?

Now if we are back in the drought assistance era can I point the State government to the NSW policy which is clearly set out under their Rural Assistance Authority.

It’s a fabulous one stop web site that has grant scheme after grant scheme offering everything from large loans, rebates to fodder and transport subsidies.

Now that the government coffers are open, let the flood begin.

I have no doubt that if the Hon Ken Baston was still in the job, he would be telling farmers they are on their own as he well knows that $5000 does not save the farm when the rains don’t come.

As for the costs of administering loans of $25,000, it is a distraction for the department whose core business is soils and animal welfare.

In fact he would have been bashing down the doors in Canberra saying pull the mad proposal to ban live exports as farmers need those boats more than ever when it’s dry.

To her credit, Minister Javis has repeatedly called for the trade to continue and for the summer moratorium to be shortened.

So good luck to the government managing expectations going forward for whatever part of the State remains dry.

The cash won’t replace the rain, but it will fund a few bales of hay or a Bali holiday.