NSW Community Cabinet

EAM President, CEO and GR Manager attended the NSW Government's Community Cabinet Forum in Tweed this week. 

We got the opportunity to raise some key issues - why NSW is slower than Qld to categorise disaster impacts and distribute support to farmers; concerns with the arbitrary cap on transport subsidies in each financial year; the current interpretation of relief funding that is only allowing farmers to claim for ex-Alfred or the May storms, not both; and the lack of assistance to EAM to support farmers as occurs in Qld. 

The Treasurer Daniel Mookhey and Minister Saffin were particularly well versed and motivated to increase NSW's timeliness with delivering financial support after disasters.  They agreed improvement is needed and advised they are both meeting with the Federal Treasurer to discuss a solution.  EAM will also advocate to the Federal Treasurer on behalf of NSW farmers on this issue.

Ministers Saffin and Moriarty seemed to appreciate that the current interpretation of the relief funding arrangements is unfair and agreed to look into it. 

EAM also pressed Minister Moriarty to respond to our letter regarding the on-farm infrastructure processes.  NSW is out of step with other States, making it more time-consuming and costly to do developments.  We also had the opportunity to raise this matter with the Planning Minister Paul Scully.  If the response from Minister Moriarty's department is unsatisfactory, we will take the matter to Minister Scully. 

We also discussed virtual fencing with Minister Moriarty.  She repeated her strong intention to have the necessary enabling Regulation in place by the end of the year.  EAM is involved in the consultation around this process.  

All in all, the event was productive and the Government gave EAM a good hearing on our issues.

Denise Spinks – eastAUSmilk Government Relations Manager