This Briefing Note discusses droughts in Australia outlining past and present drought assistance, the changing strategies in dealing with drought, the importance of the rural sector to the national economy, and the planning process for drought with particular reference to assistance avaliable to farmers followed by a brief summary of the paper.
In 1963, the Australian Water Resources Council (AWRC) was formed to co-ordinate research into Australia's water resources. The Council comprised the federal Minister for Primary Industry and the relevant Ministers for water resources in each of the states. In 1978 the Council issued a statement, A National Approach to Water Resources Management, which was adopted by the AWRC and endorsed by the federal government and by all the state governments.
Most recently the issue has been considered at the February 1994 meeting of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) which looked at a report by Sir Eric Neal, commissioned by COAG, outlining a strategic framework for the delivery of water services or, as COAG termed it, a framework for the Australian "water industry". In particular the Council of Australian Governments agreed on the "adoption of pricing regimes based on the principles of ... full-cost recovery".
The rural sector is still important to Australia particularly in the area of exports - despite its diminishing role in total domestic output. Both the federal and state governments are committed to providing emergency relief for primary producers in periods of uncommonly extended drought and this has been underlined by the commitment of the Prime Minister on 15 September that the federal government would "put in place some systemic support" to deal. with emergencies such as this and by the commitment of the NSW Government, in its recent budget, to continue its own funding of emergency drought relief for farmers.
Overall policy however, at both a federal and at a state level, is committed to positioning both primary production, and water service delivery, on a commercial basis and this is, and apparently will be, the approach in the future to primary production in dry conditions. Whatever the outcome of immediate measures to help primary producers in coping with the drought, long-term policy will increasingly focus on emphasising to producers that the onus is on them, as people engaged in business on the land, to take into consideration the regularity of dry periods and to be commercially responsible for making adequate provisions to cover such eventualities.
