Senator the Hon Mathias Cormann

The Coalition’s Future Drought Fund has passed the House of Representatives as the Coalition moves quickly towards delivering a key election promise today. 

We are proud to see Future Drought Fund legislation pass the House of Representatives.

We promised to do this to support our farmers and we’re delivering. It’s a great victory for the Coalition Government.

We hope this Bill now passes quickly through the Senate so we can get on with the job of delivering the fund. There’s much work to do before 1 July 2020, including consultation.

The $5 billion fund will ensure $100 million a year in perpetuity towards drought resilience and preparedness. 

Yet all Labor could do was delay and make excuses before finally being dragged to commonsense - supporting the Bill at the last possible moment. 

Opposing this Bill as Labor did before the election was one of the lowest acts in political history. Labor politicised the misery of farmers in drought. 

For Labor to offer the false excuse that it opposed the Future Drought Fund to protect infrastructure spending was just garbage. The former Building Australia Fund was not contributing any money to infrastructure and had not done for years. The Coalition has a $100 billion pipeline of infrastructure investment; the biggest in Australian history. 

With Labor’s support, the Bill should sail through the House of Representatives. We celebrate this great day and look forward to support of the Senate and the fund helping farmers from 1 July next year.