Dear Hasbeen, the dole shouldn't be available to people who have businesses that they are still running. It's there for you when you don't have a source of income. If my business can't make a go of it, I sell-up what I can and look for a job, and if I can't get one, then I get the dole. So, let the farmers sell-up before they access dole funds, or borrow and hope things turn-up, like the rest of us do.

I also find it hard to define a road as a subsidy. The Ipswich Motorway brings traffic into Brisbane from all the rural areas west of Ipswich as well as commuters, transports from interstate and goods from the industrial areas. If you want to look for roads that don't earn their keep you'd be more likely to find some in rural ones than busy arterials in metropolitan areas.

Here, here, Hasbeen!

It’s a simple little world you live in GrahamY. Just what do you think will happen to these displaced farmers? Move them into the city and put them on the dole?

Don’t try and confuse people by calling it farm subsidies. The US, and European countries have subsidies. Australia is one of the few countries that doesn’t prop up its farmers. Drought Relief, is the same amount as the dole, nothing more, and only available for a rather short, specified amount of time. Not easy to get either, unlike the dole.

‘feather bedded’ ‘bad farmers’ It’s a drought for gods sake. Our barley crop this year has failed because of drought, does that make me a bad farmer? Our property is in one of the most fertile areas of NSW, definitely not marginal. I some how could have managed that better?

PF
I understand you feelings but why is your situation different to workers who no longer have jobs in manufacturing industries?

They were good workers, could not have done their work any better yet still had no work through no fault of their own.

Why should farmers be treated differently and yes they are being given favourable treatment. Payment equivalent to the dole, fair enough. $10,000 off farm income not included in income test, interest rates subsidies.

When you consider that 80% of Australia’s agricultural production is exported and that agriculture uses 67% of the nations water maybe we have to consider a radical change in our agricultural practices.

Yes Steve, and those workers walk away with their paid entitlements and go on the dole until something else comes along. No waiting period even if you did get a nice redundancy package. They could sit on the dole for 12 months or more, what time frame is the farmer given for his assistance?

No responsibilities either for the industry they were employed in. Just walk out and leave the mess for the receivers to deal with. I little different for a farmer don’t you think?

You forgot to mention that funds from any sales of livestock must me deposited into term deposits, or farm management plans.

We are talking about a drought here that will end. Our farming land hasn’t been nuked or something and no longer workable. Farmers have gone through years of this without assistance. Things have to be pretty rough for a farmer to be given the drought subsidy for what, 6 months?

PF, if my business wasn't strong enough to carry me for $10,000 a year for a year or two it's not a business worth hanging on to.

And I wouldn't be using the Europeans as models of how to manage farming. They're the ones who've created the various rural commodity lakes and mountains, and make it hard for honest farmers who don't look for community subsidies to make a living, including many Australian farmers, not to mention those in the third world.

"No waiting period even if you did get a nice redundancy package. They could sit on the dole for 12 months or more, what time frame is the farmer given for his assistance?"

Totally untrue:

You usually do not get paid for the first week of Newstart Allowance. This is called the 'ordinary waiting period'. Other waiting periods apply if you:

are a newly arrived resident
have a reasonable money available to you (liquid assets)
have been doing seasonal, intermittent or contract work, or
have moved to an area where you have less chance of finding work, or
have received or are entitled to receive leave or redundancy payments from an employer.

All I am saying is where is the fairness, if you are not a farmer you cannot get ANY payment until you have NO money and you have liquidated all of your assets.

Farmers get their payments as long as EC are in place.

Is it fair for other people to have to be reduced to being penniless before they can get payments