A teeth grind about rural assistance

Yesterday I rang the Rural Assistance Authority to see if I could get some help in repairing a flood-damaged boundary fence. The internal fences I consider to be my problem.

I explained that the neighbour's section of the boundary fence had suffered terminal injuries. It was not all that healthy before this flood.

I had been down there as the water receded - taking all the rubbish off the fence and propping it up, joining up broken wire. The repair job is very shaky; a frog phart at forty paces will knock it over.

The helpful man on the other end of the line did point out that it was my neighbour's responsibility, and I agreed wholeheartedly, but since my neighbour has been placed in receivership by the bank I did not think that he could possibly help.

We then got into what the grant was all about. If you are eligible you can spend up to $15,000 on flood related expenditure; you present the receipts and the money is refunded.
This is great if you happen to have $15,000 on hand to spend, can get a loan or an overdraft that is not maxed out.
If I had that amount of money in the bank or on hand I would not have to ask for the grant.

Then we came to the eligibility for this grant. Over 50% of your income for the last 3 years has to have come from the farm. I wonder how many of the farms in this region would qualify, since most will have one partner working off farm to provide the security a family needs.

There did not seem to be any consideration of the past seasons or farming conditions in the area. The fact that most of the farms are too small to provide an income sufficient to properly support a family is also overlooked.

This seems to be a Claytons grant, the grant that you have when you are not having a grant.
Well done governments; another grant which plays out well in the media but with a very limited cost for the government.