September 19, 2018
Durong grazier Georgie Somerset – who will take over as General President AgForce Queensland in November – has been appointed to the Review Panel examining the Federal Government’s Farm Household Allowance (FHA) scheme.
Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said the other members of the panel are Tasmanian dairy farmer Michele Lawrence, a member of the Agricultural Industry Advisory Council; and Prof Robert Slonim, Professor of Economics at the University of Sydney and a former director of the Federal Government’s Behavioural Economics Team.
Mr Littleproud said the review, which has begun, would make sure the hardship payment was supporting farmers as well as possible and see if there were ways to improve it.
He met with the panel on Wednesday to emphasise the importance of this policy and the need to get it right.
“This has never been a set and forget policy,” Mr Littleproud said.
“It makes sense to review things and make sure they’re doing the best job they can. It’s time we got under the bonnet of the FHA and had a good look.”
The panel will run a public submission process to ensure all interested stakeholders can participate, and make recommendations to government in the first half of 2019.
“The government is also is getting on with helping farmers in hardship access the FHA now by extending the FHA from three to four years and simplifying the application form,” Mr Littleproud said.
“The assets test eligibility threshold has increased from $2.6 million to $5 million and we are paying supplementary lump sum payments of up to $12,000.
“We’ve committed more than $77 million to the RFCS program to June 2020, including $17 million to extend the 12 national RFCS providers’ contracts and a further $8.4 million to meet additional demand.”
Since the FHA began on March 1, 2014, $231.1 million in assistance had been distributed to more than 8200 farmers and their partners.
