Farmers 'ruined' by broke fund
September 19, 2011
September 17, 2011
A NUMBER of rural families are struggling despite receiving official endorsement to apply for $150,000 grants to move into another way of life.
The Coalition says it has taken up the cases of at least 40 farmers in Victoria, NSW and South Australia who had sold or were in the process of selling their property when the $9.6 million exceptional circumstances exit grant program ran out of money.
Figures from the Rural Financial Counselling Service in Victoria obtained by The Weekend Australian show there are at least 51 cases of farmers having been assessed for the scheme and who put their properties on the market.
Of those, at least 19 had sold their properties and were waiting for the settlement and 12 more had finalised their settlements.
Coalition MPs said yesterday they had informed Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig about the dire circumstances of farmers and warned some of their constituents had been forced into bankruptcy because funding had dried up.
Now he is working three days a week at the local garage to support his wife and three young children after the scheme's money, allocated in the May budget, ran out only six weeks into the new financial year.
"We bought the property in 2002, which everyone knows was the first year of the drought," Mr Fawcett said.
"At the end of last season we thought that we were on track to finally see some reward from all our hard work when we were devastated in the January floods."
Mr Fawcett received a letter on May 9 from Centrelink notifying him that he was approved for a $10,000 retraining grant and he may be eligible for the $150,000 exit grant if he sold his property.
He sold in the first week of June and the settlement will be finalised this Tuesday. However, on August 11, one day after the program closed, he received another letter from Centrelink informing him that funding for the 2011-12 program had run out.
"Our records indicate that your pre-assessment claim for an exceptional circumstances exit grant was approved," the letter said. "Due to the current demand for the exceptional circumstances exit grant, all funding for the program in 2011-12 has been fully committed."
Liberal MP Sharman Stone will take a number of individual cases to the Compensation for Detriment caused by Defective Administration scheme offered by the Finance Department.
"You just can't in this country, a modern developed country like Australia, you can't commit to deliver a certain outcome and pull the plug and say sorry," she said.
Nationals MP John Forrest has written to Senator Ludwig asking for information on how many people "had their lives trashed", but said he received no response.
South Australian Liberal MP Patrick Secker and NSW Liberal Sussan Ley say they have also referred individual cases to Senator Ludwig.
"It's just an absolute disgrace that this government has not put enough money forward," Mr Secker said.
Senator Ludwig said those affected by the decision had "detailed" appeal rights provided by Centrelink and the Social Security Appeals Tribunal.
He gave an assurance he was "looking into" a number of cases.
"It was very clear that this program provided access to a capped amount of funding for exit grants," he said. The government had contributed an extra $4.8m to the scheme, boosting it to $14.4m.
The Agriculture Department said Centrelink advice made it clear that pre-assessment was "not considered an application".
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