Line on map robs farmers of support
THE MONSTER February monsoon flooded Peter Fryer’s Hervey Range property, wiping out roads and fencing, but because of lines on a map the grazier is ineligible for government disaster relief funding.
Mr Fryer is one of the dozens of the “forgotten farmers” denied access to the Government’s $75,000 Special Disaster Assistance Recovery Grants because they live in local government areas not disaster declared.
“Our house got flooded, we lost all our roads and fences, we were fairly strongly impacted I would say,” he said. Mr Fryer’s Tabletop Station sits within the Charters Towers Regional Council, which was declared ineligible for Category C disaster relief funding under the Federal Government’s Commonwealth Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA) criteria.
More than 33 per cent of primary producers in local government areas must have sustained damage to at least 20 per cent of their properties in order for a council to be disaster declared.
Katter’s Australian Party MPS Bob and Robbie Katter, who have fielded calls from devastated primary producers since February, said all it would take to solve the problem was a “pen stroke” from Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and a letter to federal counterparts.
“We need someone to show real leadership and barge through the bureaucracy for us on this,” Bob Katter said.
“On behalf of these graziers we have tried to go about all the right channels, we have appealed to all levels of government but have hit bureaucracy and red tape every time.
“The Premier only needs to use the ink in her pen to sign the Category C declaration to both Charters Towers Regional Council and Etheridge Shire Council, and then the Federal Government will foot the bill.”
A Queensland Government spokesman said it was “sympathetic to the situation faced by primary producers and small businesses” in the affected local government areas and left the door open for discussion.
“While the guidelines that determine eligibility for Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements are set by the Federal Government, the current criteria should be discussed,” he said.
“The Premier has also received a letter from Mr (Robbie) Katter on the issue and is considering it.
“Queensland has already raised the issue of ineligibility of some regions with the Federal Government and looks forward to a review of Category C arrangements.”
Mr Fryer estimates his property sustained $155,000 worth of damage.
“It’s the thing in the country, people don’t like putting their hand out because it’s almost an admission of failure,” he said.
“But just the way things are now, we are at the bottom reaching upwards. We need to try and get things moving.”