The Holcombe family pictured on the family farm 40km from Walgett. Finn, Peter, John and Eve. VIDEO: Sam Ruttyn

Bone Dry: "By far the worst I've ever seen"

The announcement of $1 million in drought funding to a regional Victorian council is so puzzling that locals initially thought it was a spelling mistake.

Moyne Shire councillor and Woolsthorpe farmer Colin Ryan said the announcement of the Federal Government funding on Friday was greeted with disbelief.

“We are not in drought,” Cr Ryan told news.com.au. “It’s green. We are enjoying a good season.”

He said he was shocked to hear Moyne was one of 13 areas across Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia to score funding from a $100 million drought package.

Moyne was granted $1 million from the Drought Communities Programme Extension, which provides money to councils for local infrastructure and other projects in drought-affected areas.

The funding decision was so puzzling, councillors speculated that Moyne, in Victoria’s south-west had been mixed up with a Moira, in the state’s north-east.

“We were searching for answers,” Cr Ryan said. “When we first heard about it, we thought it was a spelling mistake.”

The Federal Government has insisted the area does qualify for the funding because it was identified in a map drawn up by the Bureau of Meteorology, which found 60 per cent of the shire was in drought.

“In actual reality that is not the case,” Cr Ryan said.

Cr Ryan said it was a “mystery to us” how the area could be considered drought-stricken.

The Victorian Government has not included the area in its list of drought-affected areas, which includes parts of the state’s central, East Gippsland, northern and north-west areas.

A map from the Bureau of Meteorology showing rainfall deficiencies in the last 17 months also does not include areas in the south-west where Moyne Shire is located.

Moyne was one of five new council areas deemed eligible for the drought program, which is providing a total of 123 councils with $1 million each.

The council is due to meet tomorrow to decide whether to accept or reject the money and Cr Ryan believes the council will say “thanks but no thanks”.

“I’ve been speaking with my fellow councillors and it appears it will be a unanimous decision,” he said.

He said morally the council wouldn’t feel comfortable taking the money.

“It’s all clean and green down here, we are having a great season. We look at our northern brothers and sisters suffering in the dust — struggling to feed their cattle and their families — how could we take it?

“Give it to a shire in Australia that is suffering from drought and needs it.”

This morning ABC journalist Kirsten Diprose tweeted a photo of a dairy farm in the Moyne region, showing the lush green pastures the area is known for.

“This is how green we are,” she wrote.

I’m on a farm in the Moyne Shire in south west Vic. This is how green we are. 🙏 So very thankful of this - send the $1 mill federal drought funding to our farmers in Gippsland, northern Vic, NSW or

QLD #auspol #drought pic.twitter.com/T8cUqnWvU0 — KirstenDiprose (@KirstenDiprose) September 29, 2019

Water Resources Minister David Littleproud has requested an audit of the selection criteria, but has defended the process, saying it was based on drought mapping by the Bureau of Meteorology.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has insisted he is not bothered by the strange funding decision.

“I’m not going to feel at all troubled about the fact we are doing everything we possibly can to help rural communities affected by drought,” he told reporters in Sydney on Monday.

“If we’re being accused of being too supportive, too generous, too much on the front foot in helping rural districts when it comes to supporting them in the drought, well I’m happy to take that criticism.”

Mr Littleproud said he would be asking for a “forensic audit” from the Bureau of Meteorology to make sure the data collection had been right.

“That’s the science we predicate our decisions on,” he said.

“It shouldn’t be a politician’s decision, it should be predicated off the best science, and the bureau are the ones that provide that to us.”

Mr Littleproud said that as of June 30, almost two-thirds of the Moyne Shire was in drought.

“That triggered, along with 12 other shires who are also in drought, our response which the prime minister announced on Friday,” he said.

Labor’s agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon has savaged the funding allocation.

“It’s inconceivable the money could be given to a council which itself says it doesn’t need the money,” he said.

He is also questioning why drought-affected parts of the Hunter and Eden Monaro electorates did not receive funding.

Mr Fitzgibbon is the local member for the Hunter region and pointed out that while Muswellbrook was considered in drought, Singleton had missed out.

In the NSW electorate of Eden Monaro, Yass also missed out while Bega was included.

Mr Fitzgibbon said his representations, as well as those from Eden Monaro Labor MP Mike Kelly on behalf of their communities, had again been ignored.

The MP slammed the government’s announcements as “piecemeal and ad hoc”.

“Something’s going terribly wrong here,” Mr Fitzgibbon told ABC.

Mr Fitzgibbon said he couldn’t believe the government was declaring Moyne as drought-affected when other townships were missing out even though they were clearly impacted by drought.

The NSW Department of Primary Industries includes Singleton and Bega in its list of drought-affected areas.

Labor has called for the Morrison Government to release a report from drought co-ordinator Major General Stephen Day that remains confidential.

Mr Littleproud has said he would issue a response to the report once the National Farmers’ Federation had submitted their own drought policy.

It comes as Mr Littleproud is due to tour drought-affected areas of northern NSW and southern Queensland later this week.

“We continue to be agile around this drought. We’ve committed $7 billion towards it in the here and now, making sure there’s support for farmers to keep bread and butter on the table,” Mr Littleproud said.

Ahead of his three-day drought trip, the minister is ramping up pressure on the states to build more dams during the dry spell.

“It’s time that the states start to partner with us,” Mr Littleproud said. “They’ve been asleep at the wheel.”

NO REPORT FROM DROUGHT ENVOY

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has also been forced to defend Barnaby Joyce’s performance as drought envoy, insisting the Nationals MP made regular reports and presentations to cabinet. Mr Joyce has come under fire for not submitting a final report from his eight-month stint in the role, which was axed after the Coalition was re-elected in May.

“I didn’t ask him to write a book, I asked him to give some advice on what he was hearing from farmers and that’s what he did,” the Prime Minister told reporters in regional Queensland on Friday.

The Opposition has attacked Mr Joyce after Mr Littleproud told the Senate that he didn’t produce a final report from his time in the role.

Mr Joyce was given the job after Mr Morrison became prime minister in August, but the drought envoy position was scrapped during the post-election reshuffle. Labor has suggested the role was a farce to stop Mr Joyce from mounting a challenge against Nationals leader Michael McCormack.

Mr Morrison said people were getting caught up in the semantics of a final report as opposed to other communications.

“There were plenty of reports I can assure you,” he said.

He said Mr Joyce’s advice was provided on the phone, in person and at cabinet meetings.

“Barnaby is a master of all forms of communication,” Mr Morrison said.

The Prime Minister said the advice had helped inform policy, including lifting the eligibility criteria for farmers’ drought welfare from $80,0000 to $100,000 of off-farm income.

Mr Littleproud also defended his fellow Nationals MP’s efforts, telling Labor to take a “running jump”.

“As far as I’m concerned, Barnaby Joyce did a fantastic job sitting at kitchen tables, listening to people and coming back and directly reporting to the Prime Minister and cabinet,” he told Sky News.

Mr Joyce has angrily rejected suggestions he failed to deliver, claiming he compiled multiple reports and made hundreds of representations on behalf of farmers.

— With AAP

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