SA councils call for financial relief as rural debt mountain grows
Crippling debt is growing by the day for drought-stricken South Australian farms with local councils pleading for state government intervention in the form of rate relief.
Despite recent rains, the past three years of poor rain have seen farmers continue to borrow to cover their overheads.
After 90 per cent of his crops failed last year, Appila farmer Andrew Zanker, in South Australia's Mid North, said he was reliant on loans to pay bills.
"Everything that we pay [for bills] at the moment increases our debt month by month," he said.
By the end of the year, Mr Zanker expects he will be overdrawn by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Dean Johnson, Kimba mayor and president of the Eyre Peninsula Local Government Association (EPLGA), said providing council hardship relief was difficult because local governments were already "battling" sustainability issues.
"We want to support our primary producers as much as we can, but we've still got to provide the services that they need to keep their communities growing," he said.
According to the Essential Services Commission of South Australia, the District Council of Tumby Bay and the Flinders Ranges Council are unsustainable or projected to remain unsustainable.
Despite the findings, Flinders Ranges Council Mayor Ken Anderson said it was trying to alleviate as much financial pressure as possible.
"Our focus is on trying to make savings in these hard times, across the board for everybody," he said.
Mr Anderson said that, although the budget had not been finalised, his council was hoping to limit its rate rise to below 4 per cent.
Both the EPLGA and Flinders Alliance of Councils have called on the state government to provide further and more targeted support to assist councils and primary producers.
In a letter to Premier Peter Malinauskas, the Flinders Alliance called for a 12-month waiver of state government-imposed levies and taxes, such as the landscape levy and emergency services levy.
The alliance has also requested that the state government subsidise rates for affected local governments.
"For those councils with primary producers that can demonstrate financial hardship resulting in the inability to pay rates, the state government [should] 'spot' councils for the rates that cannot be paid," the letter read.
The request echoed similar calls from the EPLGA that said in a letter to the government that councils were "bearing the cost" of certain hardship measures, such as deferring rate obligations.
"These additional financial pressures further strain council resources, which are limited," it said.
Streaky Bay farmer Dion Trezona said deferred or delayed payments still represented a bill for landholders and impacted councils' cash flow.
"Especially for your prime production land holders, those rates should just be picked up by the state government just to give us a hand … and not have another bill come through your household," he said.
Minister for Primary Industries Clare Scriven said the government was open to the idea, but it would mean one of the 20 different streams of grant funding available under the $73-million support package would have to be cut.
"We developed that with primary producers, with peak bodies and with regional stakeholders," Ms Scriven said.
"It was based on the feedback that we were hearing about what was needed by farmers and by regional communities.
"It's not clear to me where anyone thinks that should be cut to be able to fund this, so I guess that's something that would need to be clarified."
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