So how is agricultural production holding up in this new era of increased adverse weather disruptions to state & local supply

 

With the concepts of climate crisis and population resilience both becoming more frequently mentioned when discussing rural and regional Australia, perhaps a brief overview of aspects of the nation's agricultural inventory might be of interest as an indication of how the country is coping when it comes to food produce security.

Australian Bureau of Statistics, Latest Release, 14 June 2024:

Australian Agriculture: Horticulture

Statistics on the production and value of a range of horticultural crops

Reference period

2022-23 financial year

Released

14/06/2024

First release

Key statistics

• The local value of Australian fruit production (excluding wine grapes) was $6.3 billion in 2022-23 with 2.7 million tonnes sold in 2022-23

• Local value of vegetable production was $5.8 billion with 3.6 million tonnes sold

• Local value of cut flowers, nurseries and turf sold was $3.4 billion

• Local value of nut production sold was $721.2 million

• Local value of wine grapes was $983.1 million with 1.3 million tonnes crushed.

*****

Key results for 2022-23 include:

Fruit:

• The local value of Australian table grapes was $918.6 million, with 233,000 tonnes sold

• Apples had a local value of $647.0 million with 285,200 tonnes sold

• Bananas had a local value of $583.3 million with 374,300 tonnes sold.

Vegetables:

• Potatoes had a local value of $1.0 billion nationally with 1.5 million tonnes sold

• Leafy salad vegetables had a local value of $736.5 million with 75,700 tonnes sold

• Tomatoes had a local value of $570.6 million with 321,700 tonnes sold.

Nuts:

• Almonds had a local value of $523.4 million with 103,400 tonnes sold

• Macadamias had a local value of $104.0 million with 48,400 tonnes sold.

*****

Macadamias experimental estimates

In 2022-23:

• Australian production was 48,400 tonnes

• Local value was $104 million

• Total crop area was 40,800 hectares

• The bearing area was 24,300 hectares.

In 2022-23, 60% of the national macadamia crop area was bearing. Queensland had the largest planting area 24,700 hectares, of which only 11,500 hectares (or 46%) was bearing. This reflects that there is a significant area of younger plantings in Queensland. New South Wales has the second largest planting area with 16,000 hectares of which 12,800 hectares (or 80%) was bearing.

*****

In 2022-23, Queensland produced 70% (34,100 tonnes) of Australia’s macadamias followed by New South Wales with 29% (14,200 tonnes).

In 2022-23, Queensland macadamia production had a local value of $73 million, followed by New South Wales with a local value of $31 million.

NOTE: Value refers to local value which is the farm gate value that farmers receive for their products. This is lower than the gross value which includes transport and marketing costs.

Queensland's production is highly concentrated in the Bundaberg region. In 2022-23 the two largest Statistical Area 2 (SA2) regions were Bundaberg Surrounds (North and South), which accounted for 44% of national production sold. In New South Wales, Lismore Surrounds and the adjacent Ballina Surrounds were the largest producing SA2s, accounting for 21% of national production.

*****

In the Northern Rivers region in 2022-23 macadamia produce by in-shell weight was:

Lismore Surrounds - 5,203 tonnes

Ballina Surrounds - 4,994 tonnes

Bangalow - 1,539 tonnes.

Lismore Surrounds came in at 3rd place in the Top Ten macadamia production areas of Australia, with Ballina Surrounds following at 4th place and Bangalow in 6th position.

Elsewhere BOM noted:

The value of livestock disposals declined one per cent to $23.3 billion in 2022-23. Cattle was the largest contributor at $13.9 billion, a drop of 2.4 per cent while poultry bucked the trend, increasing by 15.6 per cent to $3.6 billion.

At 30 June 2023 there were 29.9 million head of cattle, a 4 per cent increase on the previous year.

“This is the largest cattle herd in the past five years as rainfall and favourable conditions supported farmers rebuilding their herds....

In 2023 the New South Wales cattle herd estimates stood at 6.14 million cattle. With beef cattle comprising 5.87 million head and dairy cattle 268,000 head.

According to ABS local value of all NSW cattle disposals was $3.11 billion in 2022-23.

Lower rainfall through the early stages of 2023 reduced producer confidence and may have affected livestock disposals generally.

ABS does not publish herd estimates at NSW regional or district level so it is not possible to compare Northern Rivers cattle numbers.

However, a University of Technology Sydney (UTS) June 2023 report did suggest the possibility that beef cattle dominate agricultural gross value product (GVP) in two of the seven local government areas - Clarence Valley & Kyogle. With beef cattle agricultural GVP being a significant factor in Richmond, Lismore & Tweed local governments areas. While dairy cattle agricultural GVP also contribute to the agricultural GVP mix in four of the local governments areas - Clarence Valley, Lismore & Byron.

So this Australian Winter was expected to be drier and warmer than the median mark, but now it seems twice as likely a rainfall suppressing El Niño event will also start this year

During the multi-year Millennium Drought from 1997 to 2010, south east Australia experienced its lowest 13-year rainfall record since 1865 over the years 2006 to 2010.

Temperatures were also much hotter than in previous droughts and temperature extremes peaked during the heatwave and bushfires in early 2009. This culminated in the loss of 374 lives in Victoria and many more over the larger southeast in the heatwave leading up to Black Saturday. There were 173 lives lost in the fires.

The years 2015 to 2016 saw El Niño combined with a positive Indian Ocean Dipole in the second half of 2015 further suppressing rainfall, so that rainfall was the equal fourth-lowest on record for Australia during September, Tasmania had its driest Spring on record and mean temperatures were also highest on record for October to December 2015. This El Niño also contributed to an early start to the 2015-16 southern fire season.

By 2017 Australia was again in the grips of a multi-year drought. Very dry conditions in the cool season were followed by only a limited recovery in the October–December period in 2017 and 2018. This meant record-low rainfalls over various multi-year periods.

By June 2018 more than 99% of NSW was declared as affected by drought. The most extreme rainfall deficiencies over multi-year periods occurring in the northern half of New South Wales.

In June-July 2019 New South Wales began a trial by mega bushfires, as did other east coast states, that lasted through to January 2020.

Widespread drought was not an issue for the remainder of 2020 through to the present day, given La Niña visited three times in three years bringing high rainfall events and record floods in the eastern states.

However, the Australian Dept. of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (ABARE) is now drawing attention to this:

All but one international climate model surveyed by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology suggest sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific will exceed El Niño thresholds in June. [ABARES Weekly Australian Climate, Water and Agricultural Update, 25 May 2023] 

[ABARES, 25 May 2023] Click on image to enlarge

Suggesting in its climate update that there is now twice the risk of an El Niño event this year, with a likelihood of it making itself felt sometime between August and October.

The overall outlook for this Australian Winter continues to be below median rainfall and warmer median temperatures. 

The main urban centres in the Clarence Valley have a chance of unusually warm temperatures over the winter months of between est. 55-60% (Maclean-Yamba-Iluka) and 59-65% (Grafton). While elsewhere in the Northern Rivers region unusually warm temperatures are expected in Lismore with est. 58-59% chance, Tweed Heads est. 59-62% chance, with Byron Bay & Ballina at est. 60-61% chance. [BOM, Climate outlooks—weeks, months and seasons, June-September 2023]

How this developing scenario affects agricultural growing seasons over the next twelve months is anyone's guess.

In New South Wales only the parishes of Newbold and Braylesford in the Clarence Valley are showing Combined Drought Indicator (CDI) at “Drought Affected”. 

Nevertheless, root-zone soil moisture has been falling across north-east NSW so that by end of April 2023 it was very much below average in from the coast. 

Remembering that drought 'safety net' Shannon Creek Dam, which supplies urban town water to both Coffs Harbour City and Clarence Valley resident populations (total 134,538 persons, June 2022) is currently at 92.6% capacity or 27,677 megalitres, perhaps we may see increased water restrictions by the next Christmas-New Year period. Given the tourist-driven seasonal population rise increases water consumption and that 80% dam capacity is the increased restrictions trigger.

It doesn't take a genius to suspect that should a drought develop, the 2024 and 2025 bush fire seasons might also be highly problematic for rural and regional areas across Australia.

World Meteorological Organization predicts one year in the next five will almost certainly be the hottest on record and there’s a 66% chance a single year will cross the crucial 1.5℃ global warming threshold

“….So what is driving the bleak outlook for the next five years? An expected El Niño, on top of the overall global warming trend, will likely push the global temperature to record levels. Has the Paris Agreement already failed if the global average temperature exceeds the 1.5℃ threshold in one of the next five years? No, but it will be a stark warning of what’s in store if we don’t quickly reduce emissions to net zero.” [Dr Andrew King, Climate Extremes Research Fellow, School of Earth Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Melbourne, writing in The Conversation on 17 May 2023]

World Meteorological Organization (WMO), media release, 17 May 2023:

Global temperatures set to reach new records in next five years

Geneva, 17 May 2023 (WMO) – Global temperatures are likely to surge to record levels in the next five years, fuelled by heat-trapping greenhouse gases and a naturally occurring El Niño event, according to a new update issued by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

There is a 66% likelihood that the annual average near-surface global temperature between 2023 and 2027 will be more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels for at least one year. There is a 98% likelihood that at least one of the next five years, and the five-year period as a whole, will be the warmest on record.

“This report does not mean that we will permanently exceed the 1.5°C level specified in the Paris Agreement which refers to long-term warming over many years. However, WMO is sounding the alarm that we will breach the 1.5°C level on a temporary basis with increasing frequency,” said WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas.

“A warming El Niño is expected to develop in the coming months and this will combine with human-induced climate change to push global temperatures into uncharted territory,” he said. “This will have far-reaching repercussions for health, food security, water management and the environment. We need to be prepared,” said Prof. Taalas.

There is only a 32% chance that the five-year mean will exceed the 1.5°C threshold, according to the Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update produced by the United Kingdom’s Met Office, the WMO lead centre for such predictions.

The chance of temporarily exceeding 1.5°C has risen steadily since 2015, when it was close to zero. For the years between 2017 and 2021, there was a 10% chance of exceedance.

“Global mean temperatures are predicted to continue increasing, moving us away further and further away from the climate we are used to,” said Dr Leon Hermanson, a Met Office expert scientist who led the report.

Key points

> The average global temperature in 2022 was about 1.15°C above the 1850-1900 average. The cooling influence of La Niña conditions over much of the past three years temporarily reined in the longer-term warming trend. But La Niña ended in March 2023 and an El Niño is forecast to develop in the coming months. Typically, El Niño increases global temperatures in the year after it develops – in this case this would be 2024.

> The annual mean global near-surface temperature for each year between 2023 and 2027 is predicted to be between 1.1°C and 1.8°C higher than the 1850-1900 average. This is used as a baseline because it was before the emission of greenhouse gases from human and industrial activities.

> There is a 98% chance of at least one in the next five years beating the temperature record set in 2016, when there was an exceptionally strong El Niño.

> The chance of the five-year mean for 2023-2027 being higher than the last five years is also 98%.

> Arctic warming is disproportionately high. Compared to the 1991-2020 average, the temperature anomaly is predicted to be more than three times as large as the global mean anomaly when averaged over the next five northern hemisphere extended winters.

> Predicted precipitation patterns for the May to September 2023-2027 average, compared to the 1991-2020 average, suggest increased rainfall in the Sahel, northern Europe, Alaska and northern Siberia, and reduced rainfall for this season over the Amazon and parts of Australia.

Paris Agreement

In addition to increasing global temperatures, human-induced greenhouse gases are leading to more ocean heating and acidification, sea ice and glacier melt, sea level rise and more extreme weather.

The Paris Agreement sets long-term goals to guide all nations to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2 °C while pursuing efforts to limit the increase even further to 1.5 °C, to avoid or reduce adverse impacts and related losses and damages.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that climate-related risks for natural and human systems are higher for global warming of 1.5 °C than at present, but lower than at 2 °C.

The new report was released ahead of the World Meteorological Congress (22 May to 2 June) which will discuss how to strengthen weather and climate services to support climate change adaptation. Priorities for discussion at Congress include the ongoing Early Warnings for All initiative to protect people from increasingly extreme weather and a new Greenhouse Gas Monitoring Infrastructure to inform climate mitigation.

Ensemble mean forecast 2023-2027

Notes For Editors:

The Global Annual to Decadal Update is one of a suite of WMO climate products, including the flagship State of the Global Climate, which seek to inform policy-makers. WMO will release its provisional statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2023 at the UN Climate Change Conference, COP28, in December.

The UK’s Met Office acts as the WMO Lead Centre for Annual to DecadalClimate Prediction. This year there are 145 ensemble members contributed by 11 different institutes to the predictions, which start at the end of 2022. Retrospective forecasts, or hindcasts, covering the period 1960-2018 are used to estimate forecast skill.

Confidence in forecasts of global mean temperature is high since hindcasts show very high skill in all measures.

The forecasts shown here are intended as guidance for Regional Climate Centres (RCCs), Regional Climate Outlook Forums (RCOFs) and National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs). It does not constitute an official forecast for any region or nation, but RCCs, RCOFs and NMHSs are encouraged to appropriately interpret and develop value-added forecasts from this Climate Update.

The World Meteorological Organization is the United Nations System’s authoritative voice on Weather, Climate and Water

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Excerpts from WMO Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update: Target years: 2023 and 2023-2027 specifically mentioning Australia:

• Predicted precipitation patterns for the May to September 2023-2027 average, relative to

the 1991-2020 average, suggest an increased chance of above average rainfall in the Sahel, northern Europe, Alaska and northern Siberia, and reduced rainfall for this season over the Amazon and parts of Australia.

Near-surface temperatures in 2023 are likely to be higher than the 1991-2020 average in almost all regions except for Alaska, South Africa, South Asia and parts of Australia (Figure 7). Parts of the South Pacific Ocean are likely to be cooler than average. Skill is estimated from hindcasts to be medium or high in most regions (Figure 8) giving medium to high confidence in the forecast…..

This section shows predictions for the average of the next five extended seasons for May to September and November to March.

For the May to September average, predicted temperature patterns over the years 2023-2027 show a high probability of temperatures above the 1991-2020 average almost everywhere, with enhanced warming over land (Figure 9). Skill is very high in most regions, giving high confidence in this prediction (Figure 10). For the same season, sea-level pressure is predicted to be anomalously low over the Mediterranean and surrounding countries, and high over the maritime continent and surrounding countries.

There is medium skill for most of these regions, giving medium confidence.

Predictions of precipitation show wet anomalies in the Sahel, northern Europe, Alaska and northern Siberia, and dry anomalies for this season over the Amazon and western Australia. Skill is low to medium for these regions, giving low to medium confidence.

For the November to March average over the years 2023/24-2027/28 (Figure 11), the predictions show warm anomalies are likely almost everywhere, with land temperatures showing larger anomalies than those over the ocean. The Arctic (north of 60°N) near-surface temperature anomaly is more than three times as large as the global mean anomaly. The North Atlantic subpolar gyre shows negative anomalies, the so-called warming hole, which has been liked to a reduction in the AMOC. Skill is high in most regions apart from parts of the North Pacific, some areas in Asia, Australia, and the Southern Ocean (Figure 12), giving medium to high confidence…..

NOTE: My yellow highlighting throughout this post

The Great Barrier Reef is a nursery for Queensland & News South Wales fisheries and we are still failing to adequately protect its coral structure and marine biodiversity

"Healthy coral reefs are among the most biologically diverse and economically valuable ecosystems on earth, providing valuable and vital ecosystem services. Coral ecosystems are a source of food for millions; protect coastlines from storms and erosion; provide habitat, spawning and nursery grounds for economically important fish species; provide jobs and income to local economies from fishing, recreation, and tourism; are a source of new medicines, and are hotspots of marine biodiversity." [UCSanDiego, Scripps Insitution of Oceanography]

Go to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation website and you be presented with links to a "Kids Corner", visual tours and various 'projects', some of which were unrealised or unsuccessful.

A website visitor will also find that the foundation has not published online an annual report since 2018 - the year the Turnbull Government announced that this small foundation was to receive $443 million dollars in federal funding.

However, it did publish the Annual Work Plan 2019-2020.

The Foundation rarely rates a mention in the mainstream media these days. 

This is the latest news report is from The Guardian on 11 July 2020:

The Great Barrier Reef Foundation has raised only $21.7m out of a target of $357m in donations more than two years after it was awarded the largest single environmental grant in Australian history. 

It has prompted Labor to call for greater transparency from the foundation about its fundraising, while the Greens have said the figure “makes a mockery of the government’s logic” for awarding the grant. 

The charity controversially received $443m for reef projects in 2018, with the government defending its decision at the time by saying the private foundation would leverage the funds to attract further investment in reef restoration and science from the private sector. 

The foundation released an investment strategy in October 2018 that set a target of $357m to be raised over five years, bringing the total reef investment to $800m.  
The target is made up of $200m in contributed funds from research and project partners, and $157m in cash donations from a capital campaign ($100m), corporate giving ($50m) and individual donations ($7m). 

In response to questions from Guardian Australia, the foundation said it had raised $21.7m in in-kind donations from research and project partners, about 6% of the total $357m target. 

It has raised none of the $100m from the capital campaign and refused to provide any figures to show how it was tracking towards targets for corporate giving and individual donations. 

A spokeswoman said the Covid-19 pandemic had now “made the fundraising environment more challenging and uncertain for many not-for-profits across Australia and around the world”. 

In-kind contributions are non-cash donations, which a foundation spokeswoman said included things such as a farmer donating time to work on a water quality project, or a project partner supplying equipment such as a boat. 

“Cash is what we need to fund science projects and offer grants for community projects,” said Peter Whish-Wilson, the Greens senator who chaired a parliamentary inquiry into the awarding of the grant. 

“The kind of funds they’re seeking, yes it’s potentially lumpy and can take time to raise. But I would have thought they would have at least $50m to $100m by now. 

“It makes a mockery of the government’s logic and intent giving nearly half a billion of taxpayer money to a small private foundation on the basis they would raise dollar for dollar co-contributions from the private sector.”.... 

“Our fundraising target was $157m, of which $100m was to support the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program which was launched in April 2020,” the foundation’s managing director, Anna Marsden, said in a statement to Guardian Australia. 

“With this program now finalised and as per the strategy outlined in the collaborative investment plan, fundraising revenue is expected to start to be realised from the third year of the partnership.” 

However, the investment plan states the foundation had intended to raise 60% of that $100m across years two (2019-2020) and three (2020-2021) of the strategy. 

The foundation refused to answer questions about how much it had raised of the remaining $57m made up of corporate giving and individual donations. 

The foundation’s spokeswoman told Guardian Australia there had been some donations in these categories but the organisation would not be supplying figures.....

Read the full artcile here.

BACKGROUND


https://youtu.be/E1BvLMhQLZA 

Drone footage captures tens of thousands of sea turtles off Australia's Great Barrier Reef

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 29 June 2020: 

Literally cooked in hot water—what happened in the latest mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef.... 

Coral bleaching is no longer rare, and no longer confined to a few tidal pools. 

Instead, mass coral bleaching, in which many reefs are affected, has now occurred on the Great Barrier five times in the last 23 years. Three of these events were within the past five years, most recently in the summer of 2020. Bleaching is happening much more frequently, and much more intensively. My colleagues at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, James Cook University, and I—along with many others—have been studying these coral bleaching events in an effort to find out more about what factors are driving corals to bleach, whether the Reef can overcome them by itself—and what humankind can hope to do to help the corals. The findings, so far, are bleak—even more so than when I first wrote about coral bleaching for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 2016.... 

Corals are most at risk of such thermal stress in high summer, when water temperatures are at their local seasonal maximum. 

They live only 1-to-2 degrees Celsius (about 1.8-to-3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) below their threshold for heat tolerance, so unusually warm waters over a matter of even just a few weeks is sufficient to cause them to bleach.... 

Different coral species respond to thermal stress differently, with the fast-growing branching corals more susceptible, and slower-growing massive corals more tolerant. The appearance and makeup of coral communities after severe bleaching becomes flatter and less diverse as the corals responsible for the complex three-dimensional structures succumb more readily to heat stress. 

There are obvious follow-on effects to the reef-associated organisms which rely on live, healthy corals for their survival. Restoring a reef to its healthy pre-bleaching state is possible but it takes time: time for surviving corals to regain their algal partners and continue to grow; time for coral larvae to be produced on the reef or be imported from nearby unaffected reefs. 

About 10 years without disturbance is required for such recovery and this is just not happening on the Great Barrier Reef. Since 1985, a unique long-term monitoring program has regularly assessed the condition of a subset of reefs. Measurements of the amount of hard coral cover show that the Great Barrier Reef can recover from disturbances such as bleaching, tropical cyclones, Crown-of-Thorns Starfish outbreaks and diseases but that there are limits to their ability to bounce back; overall, there has been a widespread ratcheting down of coral cover. Almost every part of the Great Barrier Reef has suffered some major environmental disturbance in recent times. 

And there is nowhere for the corals to hide.....

Read the full article here.

Charities are warning Tweed Heads is a food insecurity hotspot and they are running out of supplies to meet rapidly growing demand.

ABC News,  June 2020:

Charities are warning Tweed Heads is a food insecurity hotspot and they are running out of supplies to meet rapidly growing demand. 

Agape Outreach founder Theresa Mitchell said the number of people asking for food assistance has almost doubled since the advent of coronavirus. 

"Before COVID we were feeding up to 400 people a week, now we're feeding up to 700," she said. 

"We are getting 1,600-1,700 kilograms of food donated a week, but we can go through 700kg a day. 

"A run we did last week we had 150 hot meals. We didn't get halfway through the places we were going to. We bought $100 of pizza on top and we still had to turn people away." 

Tweed region facing unique challenges 

Agape services the stretch between the northern Gold Coast and Byron Bay, where Ms Mitchell said all communities were experiencing increased hardship as a result of coronavirus job losses. 

Food recovery charity OzHarvest is making hot meals

Tweed, however, has few big businesses to provide major chunks of funding and faces unique accessibility issues with pockets of population dotted in remote areas. 

"There are a lot of people who can't get here [to access food] because of lack of funds to do that," Ms Mitchell said. 

"Every person walking in the door would ask us for a petrol voucher but we're not funded, we don't get money from everywhere, so we can't give them." 

Demand becoming unsustainable 

The Gold Coast manager of food rescue organisation OzHarvest, Sally Anderson, said servicing Tweed's growing demand is unsustainable. OzHarvest figures show that in May 9,299kg of food was delivered to the nine charities it supports in Tweed Heads, but less than a third of it was contributed by donors from that area. 

"That identifies to us that Tweed donors would never be able to fill the demand of the food relief that is required by the charities down there," Ms Anderson said. 

"We make up the rest by donating Gold Coast food that we have collected to meet that food demand down at the Tweed end. 

"We are all a community, regardless of whether there is a border there or not, but in the next 12 months we will be facing some tough times. 

"Tweed really needs some attention so we would love it if we could get some support down there and we are trying to connect with local businesses."

NSW farmers against gas fields on agricultural land or in vicinity of rivers, lakes and underground water

The Daily Telegraph, 21 June 2020:

Local farmers are spoiling for a fight with the State government over plans to dig hundreds of gas wells across NSW’s most fertile countryside.

A proposed $3 billion project to drill 850 coal seam gas wells between Narrabri and Gunnedah would be a “climate crisis” according to farmers in north west NSW, who hold grave fears for the future of livestock, cropping and human drinking water.

The NSW Department of Planning last week approved the proposal after a drawn out three-year process, which means the final hurdle is sign-off from the Independent Planning Commission.

A NSW Farmers branch representing hundreds of farmers across the Liverpool Plains voted unanimously to call on its peak industry body to up the ante in its opposition to the coal seam gas project.

The Gunnedah and Tambar Springs branch of NSW Farmers has formally requested its parent body lobby the government to scrap the Narrabri coal seam gas project and extinguish 11 expired and inactive petroleum exploration licences dotted around the region.

Santos Narrabri Gas project has raised alarm among farmers over the future of livestock, cropping and human drinking water in the area. Picture: Nathan Edwards.

Santos has claimed the project won't compromise the Great Artesian Basin – the world’s largest underground freshwater tank, big enough to fill Sydney Harbour 130,000 times – but farmers maintain there is too high a risk it could deplete and irreparably contaminate the aquifer.

"What my members are saying is they can produce food and fibre without gas, but they can’t do it without water,” branch secretary and wheat farmer Xavier Martin said.

“The Berejiklian government is not listening so NSW Farmers has to escalate this.”

Farmers see the Narrabri project as a “Trojan horse”, which if approved will encourage gas miners to fire up 11 expired and largely inactive petroleum exploration licences in the state’s north west from the Upper Hunter and Liverpool Plains north to Moree and west to Coonamble.

Riddle me this.....

Q: What do Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme, the federal drought relief plan, bushfire recovery response funding and COVID-19 pandemic response have in common?

A: It seems the answer to this riddle is Morrison Government mismanagement, parsimony and, an almost pathalogical inability to keep policy promises.

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The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) commenced on 1 July 2013 and had an annual budget of $148.8 million. The initial 2013-14 budget was underspent by $18 million.

In the following financial years NDIS ran an operating surplus of $0.4 million in 2014-15, $15.8 million in 2015-16, $617 million in 2016-17, $146 million in 2017-18 and $ 694.4 million in 2018-19.

Despite growing concerns about the slow rollout of this scheme and allegations of poor services and needs not met, in 2018 est. $1.6 billion dollars was removed from NDIS and returned to federal government coffers to bolster that financial year's budget bottom line.

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On 1 September 2019 the $5 billion FutureDrought Fund was created by siphoning $3.96 billion from the Building Australia Fund. It consists of the Future Drought Fund Special Account and the investments of the Future Drought Fund. Fund earnings are to be reinvested until the balance reaches $5 billion (expected in 2028-29).

As of 31 March 2020 the Future Drought Fund was holding $3.99 billion, of which a total of $23 million is net earnings – an investment return of only 0.7 per cent. From 1 July 2020 there is a Morrison Government undertaking that the poorly performing fund will transfer $100 million each financial year to the Agriculture Future Drought Resilience Special Account despite the fact that it does not have the required balance of $5 billion.

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On 6 January 2020 Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison announced the federal government would allocate $2 billion for the National Bushfire Recovery Fund (NBRF).

At the time of the announcement $1.6 billion was unallocated.

The 2019-20 bushfire season officially ended on 31 March 2020.

As of 15 May 2020 only a total of $1 billion of the $2 billion in NBRF funding has been spent.

Of the 26 programs being funded by NBRF: 6 do not commence until 1 July 2020; only 3 have fully spent allocated funding with another demand driven program running over budget (funding provided to farmers, fishers, and foresters located in declared bushfire affected areas); and, the remaining 16 programs have spent from 0% (mental health support for emergency services workers) to 89% (additional emergency relief delivered by charities, plus financial counselling) of their allocated funding.

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On 20 March 2020 the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians & Liberal Senator for Tasmania Richard Colbeck announced temporary funding to support Aged Care providers, residents, staff and families - including $234.9 million for a COVID-19 ‘retention bonus’ to ensure the continuity of the workforce for aged care workers in both residential and home care.
This retention bonus would have seen a total of $1,600 tax-free paid in two installments to direct care workers and $1,200 tax-free paid in two installments to those providing care in the home.

However, by 5 June 2020 and ahead of the first installment being delivered, the Morrison Government announced a change to the 'retention bonus'. The bonus will now be capped at $800 for direct care workers, $500 for those providing care in the home and will now be taxed at the individual's marginal tax rate with most aged care workers losing est. >30% of the bonus. 

This measure is expected to save the Morrison Government somewhere in the vicinity of $50 million.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On 31 March 2020 Scott Morrison headed a joint media event with two of his ministers at which it was announced that the federal government was committing $50 million to fund 3.4 million meals for 41,000 older and/or vulnerable people for 6 weeks – the equivalent of two meals a day for which there is a cost to Meals-on-Wheels clients. In addition $9.3 million was set aside to buy 36,000 emergency food supplies boxes to assist this same group to stay safe at home.

The purchase cost to government of these food supply boxes averages out at ext. $258 per box. It does not appear to be value for money.

On 5 June 2020 The Guardian revealed that only 38 food supply boxes had been delivered to date. In all probability because the contents of these boxes were decided by individual grocery chains and came at a cost to vulnerable recipients of $80 per box from Coles and Woolworths.

An additional impediment was that the Morrison Government initially restricted food supply box eligibility to people over 70 years of age who were registered with the National Disability Insurance Scheme or My Aged Care. This locked out so many older Australians with health condtions which made potential exposure to COVID-19 infection high risk.

Now desperate to rid itself of the remaining 36,962 boxes the only eligibility requirement seems to be that you are a registered online customer of a supermarket chain.

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