The Abbott government has earmarked $83m in new spending to assist drought-affected communities, including money for local infrastructure projects and pest control programs.
The government was due to announce a $333m drought assistance package on Saturday, a figure that includes $250m to continue access to existing drought-specific concessional loans. The loan funding is rolled over from previous allocations.
The new funding includes $35m for shovel-ready infrastructure and employment projects, which aim to stimulate spending at a time when local economies are facing significant difficulties.
A further $26m to manage pest animals and weeds in drought-affected areas would “provide work for rural contractors while assisting landowners to deal with the impact of feral animals on livestock and pasture”, the government said in a statement.
Other spending will be directed to help community wellbeing, with $20m to improve access to mental health support and counselling services and $1.8m for additional rural financial counsellors in drought-hit areas.
Tony Abbott said the assistance was “an acknowledgment of the difficulties being experienced by farmers and by the communities they help to sustain”.
“It is critical these communities remain viable and that people stay in jobs so that they can take advantage of better conditions when the drought breaks,” the prime minister said.
Abbott foreshadowed the funding in a joint statement with the deputy prime minister, Warren Truss, and the agriculture minister, Barnaby Joyce.
They said helping farmers through times of drought was in the national interest.
“Despite unprecedented drought conditions in some parts of the country and a third failed wet season in large parts of the north, Australia’s agriculture sector will contribute an estimated $52bn to the economy this financial year,” they said.
The package includes $250m in the 2015-16 financial year to extend access to existing drought-specific concessional loans schemes which were due to expire.
The government said it had approved $270m in concessional loans to 531 farm businesses over the past two years – although it has previously faced some criticism over tight eligibility criteria.
It is understood the $270m in loans approved over the past two years comes from a total pool of $700m earmarked for three streams of loans, which include not only the drought concessional loans but also drought recovery and farm finance loans.
Labor’s agriculture spokesman, Joel Fitzgibbon, issued a statement on Friday anticipating the latest drought package announcement.
“It is now clear the announcements of drought assistance which followed the prime minister’s well-publicised drought tour in February 2014 have been a failure, and this weekend, he is about to concede as much,” Fitzgibbon said.
“The promised $280m concessional loans sounded big, but little of it has been spent because too many farmers just don’t qualify or have simply concluded they are a waste of time, particularly as interest rates continue to fall.”
