VERY FEW concessional loans have been approved, says South West Coast MP and dairy farmer Roma Britnell.
This has been echoed by frustrated farmers, dairy industry and financial bodies in addition to members of government since they were made available.
“The cash won't flow until the eligibility is sorted,” Mrs Britnell said.
Young farmers and share farmers are even less likely to be approved for the loans due to a lack of equity and current loan repayments.
Those who may be future recipients can expect either more debt at a lower interest rate or significant equity losses as a result of the loans.
“It’s not about politics,” she said. “The State Government needs to work with the Federal Government to have eligibility line up. It’s simple.”
Farmers vented their frustration at how useless and inadequate the financial assistance package had been at a meeting in Camperdown.
“Banks wont let go of a mortgage for rural finance,” one farmer said.
“With the current milk prices, any profit we may get goes straight back into our business,” Another said. “But if you can’t show profit, there’s no point applying.”
Farmer Power vice president Alex Roberston said the funds were “zombie loans”.
“There is little chance of anything being available to those who need it,” he said.
“Murray Goulburn and Fonterra suppliers will need to borrow an estimated average of $120,000 each because of clawbacks.
“That’s on top of an average farm mortgage of $850,000... which equates to least $3 billion of refinancing needed.
Wannon MP Dan Tehan said the message was clear.
“The application process is too complicated,” he said.
Mr Tehan said the frank feedback from farmers at the Camperdown meeting in July had been useful.
“I have already fed issues back to federal and state levels,” he said.
“One of the things I found of concern was the 120 pages of detail required as part of the loan and the difficulty around loan security.
“We have to work out how we can make these loans work.”
Mr Tehan said the process for change would begin as soon as federal ministers were announced.
“We could see a ball rolling within the next couple of weeks,” he said.
“The inability to access loans will be an issue that will be on the agenda of myself and of the new Agriculture Minister.”
Mr Tehan said the election promise of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to meet with Murray Goulburn board members and the commitment to host an entire dairy industry meeting if re-elected would be honoured.
