Bridget McKenzie, the Minister for Agriculture, has managed to cut the application forms from 15 to 10 pages. She has also made the scheme more financially generous, giving the Prime Minister a useful counterpoint in Dalby's dry earth on Friday to Washington's rich lawns a few days before.

The changes being made and proposed to the allowance, and the use of a grade five student to market state protection for Australia's second-oldest industry, demonstrate the awesome lobbying power of blue skies, barren fields and sandy soil.

On Friday, Morrison said the rules had been relaxed to make it easier for farmers to earn income from non-faming work and still receive the Farm Household Allowance, which provides the equivalent of unemployment benefits for farmers in financial distress.

The new measures add to a decision announced three months ago to permanently set the maximum assets for qualifying farmers at $5 million, instead of $2.5 million. The payment was also made available for four years out of every 10, up from three.

Morrison, with young Berne nearby, framed the changes as a way to sustain farmers until the weather turns. "We want to keep them there because it is going to rain and then there's an opportunity on the other side, like there always is," he said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison with farmer David Gooding on his drought-affected property near Dalby, Queensland. AAP

In reality, the lifeline will likely retard agricultural production. Poorly run farms that can't survive regular weather patterns should be allowed to go broke and be bought by operators who have the financial and organisational wherewithal to get through drought.

Instead, asset-rich small business owners will be allowed to live off welfare for 40 per cent of their careers.


Farmers already benefit from some of the most generous tax treatment in the economy. The value of their tax-shielded bank accounts rose over the past year by a GDP-busting 4 per cent to $5.8 billion during what some commentators mistakenly claimed was the "worst drought in a century".

If any farming family has $5 million in net assets and can't generate enough cash to cover basic living costs, they should sell up (usually without paying capital gains tax) and invest in the bond market. Vanguard's diversified index bond fund has returned 6.5 per cent over the past 10 years, which is $325,000 a year on $5 million - a sum that goes a long way in country towns.

Environmental activist Greta Thunberg. AP

With the macro-system policies in place, one objective of the goverment's response to the drought is getting more farmers to subsist off the state. Last year, an official review was conducted of the Farm Household Allowance to find out why only 5000 people were receiving it. The review discovered there is a reason farmers don't like applying for welfare: it makes them feel like welfare applicants.

"Many people felt the application process was ‘demoralising’ and ‘dehumanising’ in the requirements to provide third-party documentation to verify all statements," Michele Lawrence, Georgie Somerset and Robert Slonim wrote in their review. "People commented that it made the process feel like an ‘interrogation’ and with ‘no trust’ placed in the applicants."

Men and women living on the land really, really hate the long application forms, which they regard as an imposition on their valuable time. One farmer's accountant complained to the review the paperwork could take him more than five hours, and he wasn't always fully paid for the work.

Not only did the farmers want a separate website for their honour-based applications - imagine if every Australian was granted that level of trust - they asked for answers within two weeks and the program to be excised from social security law.

Turns out farmers who want the dole don't think they should be vetted by the same system used for the unemployed, students and pensioners.


For those who feel proud that a wealthy nation is prepared to help working families struggling under an adversity as old as human settlement, perhaps consider if the response might have been as energetic if the victims of nature were Halal butchers or Chinese shopkeepers.

In a way, the question has already been answered. Everyone except farmers in the agribusiness supply chain and the rural economy is banned from the allowance and most other forms of government protection for agriculture. This reflects the structure of rural politics, where farmers sit at the top of the hierarchy.

Ironically, Jack Berne isn't part of the country culture. "We are not farmers," his mother, Prue Berne, says. "We have no ties to the farming community at all. Which is why this has been an amazing learning experience."

For the rest of the country too.