rojo,

I don't get a welfare cheque.
I get a fortnightly payment from a grateful Government and People for services rendered in the direct defence of Australia.

I only ever saw small farmers, with a misguided sense of propriety that would refuse assistance. Generally the bigger the property then the more they were willng to accept taxpayer help and also the bigger the property and the higher that they imagined themselves to be in the social scale, the more they owed the banks. Which is itself a form of socialism in that the other account holders or those paying off homes etc are the subsidees of the 'big man'.

Is Mise, and so you should be looked after, for services rendered. In a purely capitalistic society,in theory, you would have been paid well at the time, and left at that. Our societies owe everthing to people such as yourself, and I trust you are looked after accordingly.

You took a broad brush to people on the land in your comment, I saw no differentiation and felt it an unnecessary slight toward people who find themselves in trouble. How do they prepare for a drought worse than any other recorded? Particularly if the unknown effect of climate change is considered.
Presently farmers are affected by interest rate rises resulting from primarily the housing bubble and discretionary spending with credit.
The high Australian dollar is a consequence of the resources boom that farmers are not benfiting from. Many of our commodity prices are linked to the US dollar and are poor as a result, even if there was produce to sell.

I don't think "handouts" to farmers any different to say automotive industries, just because of the perception that "landed" recipients are anti-socialist by nature