Droughted town businesses denied access to electricity rebates

The thumbs down to the suggestion, made by federal Agriculture Minister, David Littleproud, comes as Barcaldine toy shop, Parent Trap, announced in a letter to local newspapers that it would be closing its doors after 16 years in business.

“Unfortunately, the current financial climate and the long running drought, has not only affected our farmers, but our small communities and businesses, too,” the letter reads.

When questioned in Blackall last week on the possibility of extending primary producer drought relief measures to businesses in towns struggling with extensive turnover declines, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the money going out to farming and grazing businesses through the Queensland Drought Appeal would help businesses because money would be spent with shopkeepers in their local communities.

“That’s the fundamental basis of the appeal – a two-pronged benefit,” she said.

After further questioning Ms Palaszczuk said the process had been worked through with the department and the CWA.

“They have a process in place – I understand the money is going out to the right people.”

Read more: CWA drought aid boost for exceptional circumstances

In Blackall and Tambo, 20 people have received $94,448 or an average of $4722.40 per applicant.

Speaking with Ben Dobbins last week on the Rural Queensland Today show, David Littleproud, also the Member for Maranoa, said it wasn’t only farmers that were hurting, and that there was a real opportunity for the state government to “wipe” the 47 per cent of Ergon Energy’s bill that consisted of fees and charges.

“Particularly where we don't have competition in the bush – we've got one provider, we've got Ergon – they could wipe those fees and charges tomorrow for everyone under an Ergon contract...and save those in regional and rural Australia, businesses in particular, half their electricity costs tomorrow,” he said.

”We've got a state government that owns all the distribution network and nearly all the generation, about 60 or 70pc of it, so the reality is they could with the stroke of a pen fix rural and regional Australia tomorrow in terms of energy costs, get us moving and back up on our feet.”

Mr Littleproud said he could review the state government’s drought policy in five minutes by weaning it off the dividend.

The federal government is also undertaking a review of various aspects of its own drought policy, and Mr Littleproud said he’d met with national drought coordinator, major general Stephen Day to talk about other measures it could extend towards small businesses.

“There’s been a whole range of ideas put forward around extending farm management deposits towards small businesses, electricity relief,” he said.

Read more: Drought summit called by PM

Queensland’s Natural Resources Minister, Anthony Lynham, weighed into the question of whether more could be done for town businesses affected by a severe cashflow downturn thanks to drought, saying that almost all of the dividends from the state’s publicly-owned electricity businesses were used to drive down electricity prices.

“This year, the Palaszczuk government will spend almost half a billion dollars to subsidise the cost of electricity for around 700,000 regional Queenslanders so they pay a similar price to those in the south east.”

The Premier added that Newman and Palaszczuk governments between them had provided more than $670 million to support rural and regional areas in drought.

There have been 698 applications to the most recent Queensland Drought Appeal, 617 of which have been completed, paying out a total of $2,790,500, and taking six days to process applications.

“We want everyone to benefit at the end of the day,” the Premier said.

“Queenslanders have been very generous with $3m.

“I think we can do more – I think we can still dig a bit deeper to help those in need.”