Quilpie mayor Stuart Mackenzie has come away empty-handed from a meeting with deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss in Canberra on Thursday, after the shire was again refused access to federal funding for drought relief programs.
Cr Mackenzie was attempting to reverse a federal government decision in July that meant his shire wasn’t eligible for assistance under the Drought Communities Program.
The shire was one of four, including Boulia, Barcoo and Richmond, that were left out of the original list of shires given priority access to $1.5m in drought infrastructure funding designed to stimulate local community spending in 2015-16.
Barcoo and Richmond shires joined the list of eligible shires after providing supplementary information.
“I tried to make Mr Truss see reason but they have a formula for these things and said we do not fit the criteria,” Cr Mackenzie said.
This is despite Quilpie being drought declared under Queensland guidelines since 2013.
“The reality is, we think the methodology government used to determine our funding eligibility is flawed and does not accurately measure the true impacts of this devastating drought,” Cr Mackenzie said.
“There are other factors to consider when assessing drought status and severity.”
Cr Mackenzie said the channel country in the west of Quilpie shire depends on annual flooding and rainfall has no impact on the growth of feed.
“The Cooper has not had a flood in years and is devoid of feed and stock. This of course impacts on our local economy but bureaucrats in Canberra just don’t get this.”
The mayor said the Quilpie council would now work quickly to gather further information to demonstrate how other issues, such as the type of rainfall, is also important.
“They have based their decisions on a monthly rainfall total but anyone who lives out here knows a series of 2ml showers over a month may look OK on a total but it has zero impact on feed growth,” he said.
“In addition to this, any growth that does come from a small shower is consumed by the current kangaroo plagues.
“We will have to do more work to show the detrimental impacts on Quilpie business houses and how they all rely on farmers’ stock levels.”
Cr Mackenzie concluded by saying he hoped no mayor of a droughted region ever had to go through this process again.
“I told Truss this is the worst decision I have ever seen in my history of local government and I hope they use a different method for determining drought funding eligibility in the future because this is a joke,” he said.
