Doorstop in Richmond, Tasmania

E&OE TRANSCRIPT 
DOORSTOP
RICHMOND 
FRIDAY, 23 OCTOBER 2026 

SUBJECTS: Rural Financial Counselling Service, weather impact on farming, H5 bird flu. 

JULIE COLLINS, MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FORESTRY: Well, I'm really pleased to be able to announce today that the Federal Government will be extending the Rural Financial Counselling Services nationwide for five years, so from 1 July 2027 through to 2032. This is really critically important because it comes at a time when we know our farmers are dealing with higher input costs because of the war in the Middle East, they're dealing with obviously, bird flu out there at the moment, a range of other issues, but also with the forecast of El Niño coming, making sure that our farmers understand that this support is available for them all of the time, nationwide, over $100 million over the five years. We're talking about $2.8 million here in Tasmania, and what this means is that the farmers can get the support when and where they need it by specialists who understand farming and understand their businesses in regional areas right across the country.  

JOURNALIST: We know farming is hard, but you just singled out a few really big issues. Is it particularly difficult to be a farmer?  

COLLINS: Well, what we've done as a government is make sure that our support as a Federal Government is available all of the time, because obviously we're a big country and different pockets of it are having different experiences at different points in time. But certainly we know from the regular meetings that I have with industry, you know, the war in the Middle East and the impact that that has had, we obviously know the biggest issue for our farmers is always the weather. I heard just this morning farmers on the radio saying they hope we get a bit of rain in Tassie over the weekend because they really need the rain in terms of harvest at the moment. So certainly we want to make sure that the support is available and that farmers can rely on it, and the five years and the certainty that that funding provides means that the expert financial counsellors are available there. It's also available to farmers who want to expand or diversify their business too. So if you've got a particular entrepreneurial or innovative farmer who wants some advice about how to go about changing their business model, we're also able to do that through the Rural Financial Counselling Service and provide them with some advice. The counsellors have terrific relationships with a whole range of expertise and a whole range of other programs that they can refer people to. Here in Tasmania we've just recently announced partnering with the State Government on business resilience through the Future Drought Fund for drought planning, you know, those two programs together, around $10 million funded by the State and Federal Government working cooperatively to support regional communities.  

JOURNALIST: How did you get to the five year kind of agreement, and is there any reason to believe that that wouldn't be extended further beyond that?  

COLLINS: Well, we've done the five year agreement because that's certainly what we've been told provides certainty to the organisations. I mean, as I said, this is really specialist work, and 95 per cent of their clients are farmers, in regional parts of the country. So to make sure that they understand the business and to make sure they're available in those regions, it's important to provide that certainty so that qualified expertise staff are able to be available.  

JOURNALIST: We always come back to this, but bird flu, is there anything in that space that you can give me an update on, and then if you can elaborate on the impact of bird flu on farmers as well.  

COLLINS: So here in Tassie we've certainly seen the numbers slowly increase in terms of the amounts and incidents of bird flu. We've always had the news last week of the Macquarie Island being impacted, and obviously a part of Tasmania there. What I can say is that we continue to work particularly with our chicken growers and our egg producers in relation to making sure that we lift biosecurity as much as possible. So it's certainly having an impact on farmers, particularly those in the chicken meat and egg industries.  

JOURNALIST: I think that was it. Anything else? 

COLLINS: Lovely, thank you. Not that I can think of.  

JOURNALIST: Okay.  

COLLINS: You've got everything? Well done.  

JOURNALIST: And just look at me rather than at the camera. Is the light okay?  

ELIZABETH SKIRVING: Yes, that's fine.  

JOURNALIST: Lovely. I'll just get you to introduce yourself first. First, last name, and the best title for you as well.  

SKIRVING: Yep. Elizabeth Skirving, Chief Executive, Rural Business Tasmania.  

JOURNALIST: Lovely. Can you spell out your last name for me?  

SKIRVING: S‑k‑i‑r, v for Victor, i‑n‑g.  

JOURNALIST: Thank you, good. If we maybe talk about this extension to the funding, and I guess what that will actually look like on the ground for Tasmania.  

SKIRVING: Yeah. We're really rapt that the Federal Government and Minister Collins have announced today that the funding for the next five years is secured and that we will be rolling out that for the next five years. We've done this or similar services, back in 1986, we started, so it's been a continual ride for us. The certainty provides my staff and our expert financial counsellors with the ability to have security of job, for us to be able to plan how best we can support the farmers over the next five years, and to make sure that we have those skills that might be coming up for, particularly biosecurity threats that we're starting to see, obviously the changes in climate, but also the financial impacts, so working with our clients, with banks, with farm consultants and accountants, with accessing some of the other help that's available from the Federal and State Governments, including the Regional Investment Corporation loans, Farm Household Allowance that are both Federal and then State farming loans. So there's a number of different resources that are available. Obviously at the moment we have the input costs that are, you know, really making us struggle, we've had some commodity price reductions and some of the tonnage has been reduced. So it is a difficult time for our farmers across Tasmania, the East Coast and Southern Midlands is particularly dry, and even though we have a little bit of rain forecast for this weekend, it's going to be a hard season. It's probably the earliest irrigation season, another Federal and State support to our great irrigation schemes across Tasmania, so we're really blessed with that in a dry year. But all of the tools that are available still means that a farmer has to sit down and make decisions, no decision's still a decision for that farmer, and to have someone that's there that's impartial that has some expertise, either banking or accounting or farm knowledge, to actually make those business decisions around the farm table, they come to the farm, they'll actually sit down with the family and work out how it's best to work forward. It's quite a procedural thing, where we analyse, we then prepare them, we give them options and then we implement. So it's a really good framework that's been developed over those 40 years with input from all of the providers around Australia, and you know, really helpful for the farmers.  

JOURNALIST: If we can just go back to the start a little bit, and you have answered it ‑‑  

SKIRVING: Yep.  

JOURNALIST: ‑ a little bit. So a farmer comes to you and says, "I'm really struggling".  

SKIRVING: Yep.  

JOURNALIST: What are the steps from there and what you guys can do?  

SKIRVING: Okay. So a farmer will either self‑refer or be referred through say a bank. They will meet with a financial counsellor at the farm table, the rural financial counsellor will go through their financials, through what their goals are and what they need out of the service. From there, there will be a plan developed so that they actually have some guidance of going through. It's a little bit like the GP of the farm business in that, you know, we'll keep guiding them through for three years, and during that time we'll pull in experts as they go through that journey to meeting their needs and the goals that they have to be a sustainable business going forward.  

JOURNALIST: And have you had more farmers presenting to you, whether that's self, or, you know, being referred at the moment given what's happening?  

SKIRVING: At the moment we're probably ‑ they're just in planting season, so they're all out on tractors day and night, so we usually see going into harvest when the cheques start to land is when the real pain is felt, so yes, there's a bit of pain point at the moment that we are seeing some calls for help, but we are also very much aware that, you know, coming into next autumn and winter, we're going to continue to have that increase in clientele.  

JOURNALIST: What do you expect the increase to be roughly?  

SKIRVING: It's usually around 10 per cent. It's really interesting after, you know, a drought, flood, whatever, natural disaster or commodity issue we come to that it's after, so it's a slow build that people, after they've come through that, the family will sit down, and you know, say, "Do we want to continue farming", you know, "What can we change to make this more sustainable going forward?" So once they've got the harvest out of the way, going into winter, and hopefully a little bit quieter, they'll take that time to look at their financials and work with us.  

JOURNALIST: And we heard weather's obviously a big factor.  

SKIRVING: Yes.  

JOURNALIST: What's happening overseas, and then bird flu. Of the three, has there been one that's been particularly detrimental as being like the perfect recipe, would you - 

SKIRVING: I think it's a perfect recipe, but I think the input costs, you know, not so much the availability of fuel and fertilizer, but the cost of it, and the increases in all the other costs. So if you look along the supply chain of farmers from, you know, putting a pea or a carrot in the ground, or raising a sheep from, you know, a lamb, it's all those costs that mount up; it's the freight to get it to market, it's the vet bills, it's everything along that supply chain where there's additional costs put on them, and there's probably not that increase in the actual commodity sale price.  

JOURNALIST: And obviously they're particularly resilient, but is morale ‑ has it dipped a little bit, would you say?  

SKIRVING: I think they're very stoic, so we've got really good farmers that have got diverse commodity, so they may be, you know, planting three or four different crops and have some livestock that they're running. So what we've seen is that people are pivoting, so they might be, you know, getting rid of some of, and selling off some of their stock, called "destocking", to make sure that there's, you know, only the nucleus, so they will keep those, you know, really good nucleus of stock that have the bloodlines, but some of the others they might sell off a little bit earlier, that might change what they're planting. So, you know, we're seeing that perhaps they're planting more of the fodder crop so that they can feed their animals or that they know that there's going to be a run on hay and those sort of things, and they can get a good price for that. We're very lucky in Tasmania that ‑ and it's quite unique in Tasmania that we can have, you know, up to eight or nine commodities, whereas you go mainland, and as the Minister said, you will have a pocket of regional South Australia that is just wine, and so the rural financial counsellors there have to have that expertise in wine. My financial counsellors have to be understanding of oysters, scallops, wine, dairy, goats, whatever; it seems to all come together. So it's a broader mix, but it gives some diversity for the farmers here.