Announcement date
13 December 2023
Link to announcement
Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook 2023-24
Appendix A: Policy decisions taken since the 2023-24 Budget | Page 215
https://budget.gov.au/content/myefo/download/myefo2023%E2%80%9324.pdf
Problem being addressed
The Farm Household Allowance program (FHA) is the Australian Government's main scalable response and support mechanism for farmers and their partners in hardship, with drivers including drought, natural disasters, biosecurity outbreaks and any other business shocks.
The FHA aims to:
- provide income support and other supplements to farmers and their partners in financial hardship (while avoiding welfare-dependence); and
- achieve measured structural adjustment in the agricultural industry by assisting recipients through case management to set achievable goals to either improve their farm-enterprise or make the difficult decision to exit farming.
Under the FHA's current eligibility, compliance and case management practices, a small but significant number of farmers with extremely and persistently low turnover year on year have come on payment - contrary to the original intent of the FHA.
Proposal
The proposal is to make the following adjustments to the FHA from 1 July 2024, to better align the program with its original intent, including to avoid welfare dependence:
- introduce a minimum gross annual turnover of $60,000 to limit access to FHA to commercial-scale farms with reasonable prospects of financial viability;
- introduce annual collection of financial information from recipients to ensure ongoing assessment of eligibility; and
- strengthen case management by introducing annual financial reviews between recipients and case managers, providing additional training and gather data more regularly to improve on-going monitoring and evaluation.
Assessed Impact Analysis outcome
Good Practice
Assessment comments
The IA provides insights into the time impact for a Farm Household Allowance recipient to participate in the proposed random annual income review.
While the IA notes that a risk plan will be established prior to delivery of the policy, more detail on risk management would have improved the overall quality of the IA.
Regulatory burden
The Department estimates the time taken for an individual to participate in an annual review of their income is not expected to add a material impact on their time. Firstly, recipients will not be selected for a review unless they have already completed and lodged their tax return and prepared the supporting financial paperwork, such as profit and loss statements, and balance sheets. Secondly, this activity will be rolled into their ongoing requirements to meet regularly with their case manager.