Mr FITZGIBBON (3:10 PM) —My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Can the minister confirm that the Queensland government lodged an exceptional circumstances application for Peak Downs on 28 October 2002? Can the minister explain why he has denied the 220 farm families covered by this application any interim financial assistance while the application is being assessed? Can he further advise if he intends to subject these families to the same administrative delays forced upon the people of Bourke and Brewarrina, thereby subjecting them to a wait of more than 60 days for their EC application to be considered?

Mr TRUSS (Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) —I can confirm that the Queensland government lodged an application for exceptional circumstances declaration for Peak Downs Shire and parts of the Belyando and Emerald shires a week or two ago. This particular application was actually prepared largely by AgForce, the farmers' own organisation in that region, because the Queensland government has not taken much interest in providing drought assistance, and so it was left to the industry organisation to do most of the work. But eventually the application was presented.

The government announced on 19 September that we would speed up the consideration of applications by allowing predictive modelling to be used to bring forward the time at which applications can be considered, and also that we will make welfare payments available as soon as a prima facie case has been established. But it was on two conditions: firstly, that the state had to have declared the area to be in drought before the application was made; and, secondly, that they had made a significant effort to provide assistance to the farmers in the region.

This particular application covers the Peak Downs Shire and parts of Emerald and Belyando shires. The Queensland government has not declared either Emerald or Belyando shires to be in drought. So they are lodging an application for the Commonwealth to pour in potentially millions of dollars to assist farmers in an area that they do not even consider to be in drought. I have asked the Queensland government for some information on how much money they have provided to the farmers in this region, including Peak Downs. The state governments are very reluctant to tell us anything about the efforts that they are talking about, but we do expect the states to have made a reasonable contribution towards helping the farmers in the area. As the honourable member said in his question, there are about 220 farmers in the region. So what would honourable members think would be a reasonable amount for the Queensland government to have given to these farmers before they asked the Commonwealth for assistance? Would it be two or three million dollars? Perhaps that would be a reasonable effort. But in this particular case they have not given $2 million; they have not even given $1 million. They have given a total of $12,000 among 220 farmers.

We in the Commonwealth are anxious to do what we can to help farmers in need. Exceptional circumstances has always been a `last call' assistance. The states are normally expected to have made something of an effort themselves before they call on the federal taxpayers for assistance. This is a clear case of a state government trying to shift the total responsibility onto the Commonwealth—doing nothing itself and asking the Commonwealth to declare areas to be in exceptional circumstances where it has not even declared them to be worthy of its own drought declaration. The Commonwealth are concerned about these farmers and we do not want Queensland farmers to have to suffer because their own government is not prepared to provide them with any assistance. It is high time that the Queensland government provided these farmers with support. We are prepared to consider the application in spite of the dismal performance of the Queensland government, but it obviously detracts from its submission when it is not prepared to provide any assistance to these farmers itself.