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Thursday, 13 December 1973

Mr LLOYD (Murray) - This Bill does 2 things. It extends the fruitgrowing reconstruction scheme for another 12 months and it also lifts the payment for fresh fruit from $200 an acre to a maximum of $250 an acre. Both of these amendments are minor, and they are acceptable to the Opposition. This scheme had a very difficult birth some 12 months ago mainly because of complications arising from a severe means test. The former Minister for Primary Industry, the honourable member for New England (Mr Sinclair), eased the means test on two separate occasions, in August and October last year, and because of this, the reconstruction scheme was considered to be a reasonable proposition if goodwill and flexibility in administration occurred at both Federal and State levels.

I intend to restrict my comments basically to discussing Victoria and to the irrigated areas of northern Victoria - the canned and fresh peach and pear areas - because these are some of the major areas affected, or to be affected by the scheme. The history of the application of the scheme in those areas is less than happy. By the time the second alteration to the means test was made, the fruitgrowing season was at hand and no time was available for growers to make decisions. Also, a great deal of confusion was created by various Labor members of Parliament and Labor candidates for election to Parliament who said that if the Australian Labor Party became the Government, the means test on eligibility would be completely abolished. I should like to quote an article in the Griffith Area News' of 16 October 1972 in which reference was made to what the honourable member for Riverina (Mr Grassby) had said. The article states:

So, one can understand the confusion in growers' minds at that time last year, when one of the leading spokesmen for the Labor Party said that if Labor became the Government, the means test on the tree pull scheme would be completely removed. However, once Labor came to power as the Government, this undertaking evidently was forgotten because since that time there have been 2 surveys of this scheme and nothing further has been done to ease the means test. The only action along these lines was taken by the previous Minister, the honourable member for New England.

In my opinion, the scheme in Victoria has been marred by lack of commonsense in its application, lack of goodwill - in fact, one gets the impression sometimes that certain people do not want the scheme to succed at all - and lack of flexibility in administration both at the Federal and State levels. I will give honourable members some examples of this. The first example I give relates to the Victorian administration of the scheme, the Victorian Rural Finance and Settlement Commission. In order to decide how much per acre will be paid for canning peach or pear trees, the Victorians have instituted a points system., and in this system are included certain criteria such as the age of the trees, which is fair enough, and also the shareholding of the grower which determines his cannery access. By some strange means, the Commission has arrived at the conclusion that if a grower has few shares or, because of quota arrangements, poor access to a cannery, he should be offered a lower compensation value for the removal of his trees than if he had good cannery access. This situation is completely topsy-turvy.

One would think that the people who should be assisted to leave the industry are those who do not have a ready market for their fruit, namely, those with poor cannery access who are restricted by cannery quotas from selling their fruit. They should be offered the highest possible figure to help them leave the industry because they are the ones without any future in the industry. Yet, in this topsy-turvy situation in Victoria, those people are offered the least. This anomaly has been pointed out on a number of occasions both by me and by members of the Northern Victorian Fruit-growers Association at both Federal and State levels, yet nothing has been done about it. This is a very good example where one could wonder whether or not people really want the scheme to work.

For example, as at 30 November this situation has resulted in an average figure of $259 an acre being paid in compensation for canning fruit in Victoria. According to the original Bill, the average figure to be achieved was $350 an acre. One had hoped that the generous administration of the scheme, which I believe has been one of the features of the general rural reconstruction scheme, would also have been applied in this instance so that, at least in the initial stages of the scheme, the average compensation payable may have been even higher than $350 an acre. If necessary, under pressure it could have been reduced later. But we find that, 12 months after the scheme has begun, the compensation being paid, on an average, is approximately $100, or 30 per cent less, than what it is possible to pay. How can one say that it is an incentive to make the scheme work, when the administrators of the scheme are paying only 60 per cent to 70 per cent of what the grower is entitled to?

Another point relating to the lack of flexibility in administration of the scheme concerns the household area. In many cases, under the clear fell operation, the grower must leave the property. Particularly if they are new Australians and are unsure of themselves in this country or if they are older persons who could possibly retire, the one thing they want to retain is their house in which to live.

It has been suggested both by myself and by the fruit growers in the area that surely when a clear fell operation takes place or when the Rural Finance and Settlement Commission takes over the property a subdivision should be made so that the house and perhaps half an acre around it can be retained by the grower. This would not inhibit the sale of the property because people who would be buying this property would be buying it basically as bare land for an extension of their farming operations - most likely of a grazing nature. But these people, because of their fear of being put out without a house to live in 'have refused to accept any proposition put forward to them. At least 20 new Australians as well as a number of old Australians have come to me and have said that they want to get out. They have no financial future in the industry at all but where can they go if they are left without a house to live in? In this area of northern Victoria, because of the closer settlement, it is possible that they could still have this house on a property and drive to work at Shepparton, Numurkah or one of the other major towns in the area. This is another example of lack of flexibility in the scheme. It has nothing to do with the original legislation itself, but it is just cussedness in the way it is being administered that is restricting the success of the scheme and restricting social justice to these growers.

Another point arises on the question of what happens to any excess money after the sale of a property when it has been compulsorily acquired by the State administering authority. For example in Victoria we have a case where a grower was bankrupt. His place was compulsorily acquired; it had to be compul sorily acquired - I have no argument with this - so that terms of agreement could be reached with creditors. Because of the proximity of this piece of land to Shepparton it had quite a high real estate value. This property has been sold, the creditors have been paid and one could even pay back the tree pull compensation which the State authority - the Rural Finance and Settlement Commission - claimed from the Federal Government. But approximately Si 0,000 to $12,000 remains undistributed. One fears at the moment that the State authority - the Rural Finance and Settlement Commission - is going to retain this $10,000 to $12,000. That to me would be completely unfair, unjust and unreasonable. Surely this person who saved for years and who paid out on his property for years but fell behind with his payments should be paid the balance after these other commitments have been met and this money should not be kept by the State authority which could make a profit out of money - Federal money - which at no time has been at any cost to itself. That is another area where I believe the Commonwealth should take a far harder line and tell the States: 'It is not your money; it belongs to the grower once all the debts have been settled'.

One of the ironies of the scheme is that in the Goulburn Valley it was aimed in general at canning pears. But more peaches have been pulled than pears and this is because of the settlement policies in the area, unsuitable soils and climate problems where some peach trees have been planted. This year 3 additional problems have arisen and I want to make 3 points on how the scheme itself as distinct from altering Victoria's criteria system - the household area etc. - could help from now on. Fifty per cent of the peach trees of Northern Victoria have died because of the wettest year on record. This will mean a shortage of peaches this season and, because of lack of financial incentive and poor outlook for the future, in the past few years not enough peach trees have been planted to maintain peach production, the peach tree having a very short life as distinct from the pear tree.

At the moment in the Goulburn Valley there are orchards where some peach trees are still living and some peach trees have died. I would ask that the administrators of this scheme be flexible enough to allow dead peach trees to be included for tree-pull compensation because it is a terrible situation - and not a workable one - to have some trees living and. some trees dead. I do not think it is good enough to say: 'Well, if a tree is dead it has to be pulled anyway'. There is also a point made in the second reading speech which I think is completely wrong, and I agree with the member for New England (Mr Sinclair) in this regard. The second reading speech states:

To me this shows once more the remoteness of the administrators of this scheme from the real life situation facing orchardists. A crop shortage is facing the industry this year because of the season and we have this problem of some trees still living and some dead.

Surely the sensible thing to do would be to allow growers to take this crop off because the season is just about here again and expense has been incurred for spraying etc. and, in conjunction with allowing the dead trees to be included, after this season the growers should pull the trees and claim compensation. It would do 2 things. Firstly, it would improve the financial position of the grower - not make it worse - because he has already incurred the majority of his debts and there is a hope of some income coming in if he is allowed to pick; and secondly, it would help the fruit industry generally this year when there is this critical shortage of canning peaches and even possibly canning pears because of blackspot and other problems.

The third point I wish to make is that because of this problem of peach trees or peach tonnage for the future the scheme should be amended to allow certain types of peach trees - certain varieties which are in demand in the market and which are seasonally the best - to be replanted in certain areas where it is known that the soil and the climate are correct even though the grower himself has claimed compensation for tree pull. Under the scheme basically a person has to sign an agreement that he will not plant fruit trees again for 5 years after he has accepted compensation, yet in a letter dated 15 October the Minister for Primary Industry has told me that in Tasmania, provided 2 types of apples are planted, this requirement that no fruit tree be replanted for 5 years after accepting compen- sation will be waived for apple orchardists in that State. There are certain conditions. I think that should be done for the peach section of the canning fruit industry as well. If it is good enough for the Tasmanian apple grower where there is not the forecast of a crop shortage as there is with canning peaches in the future, it is good enough to be done for the peach canning industry as well. It could be hedged - and should be hedged - with requirements that only certain varieties be planted and that these varieties be planted only in certain soils.

If some of these ways of being more flexible with the scheme both at the State and at the Federal level are carried out - I have enumerated quite a number of them - I believe there is still hope for this scheme to be a far more successful one to help the industry and to help the growers with social justice than it has been up to date.

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