Federal Budget: Department of Agriculture receives $127 million cash boost to aid financial woes

The Albanese Government will pump $127 million into the Federal Department of Agriculture and boost staff numbers by 408 in the 2023-24 financial year as part of an effort to “ensure its viability” after a turbulent few years.

Budget papers reveal staffing numbers will be bolstered from 5387 to 5795 in 2023, despite a forecast $60 million deficit this financial year.

The Department has been running at a major loss, cutting staff, banning staff travel and training and sacking contractors in recent months after falling hundreds of millions of dollars into the red.

Federal Agriculture Minister Murray Watt said the one-off payment would “ensure the viability” of the Department — which relies on cost recovery for funding — attributing its financial woes to the prior Coalition Government.

“A decade of chronic mismanagement, underfunding and budgetary incompetence by our predecessors left a funding cliff that required a substantial sum of money to rectify,” he said.

“That wasn’t unique to this Department . . . in fact it was something many ministers and departments were faced with during this Budget period.”

“Previously, this funding may have been swept up and renamed to include in our biosecurity funding package, making an already large number even bigger. But that would have been tricky and dishonest.

“We are determined to be different, even if it means being brutally honest.”

The cash boost comes after Federal Government unveiled plans to hike biosecurity fees for the first time in eight years with farmers to pay almost $48 million a year to help bankroll Australia’s revamped biosecurity funding system via a new levy on all products.

According to the Department, farmers will contribute $47.5m, or 6 per cent, of the total $804m biosecurity spend from 2024-25.

Importers will pay the lion’s share of $363m, or 45 per cent, taxpayers will contribute $350m, or 44 per cent; a new charge on imports valued at $1000 or under will collect $27m, or 3 per cent; and Australia Post users $15m, or 2 per cent.

It is the first time charges have been hiked since 2015 and the Federal Government says that since then, there has been an increase of nearly 20 per cent in biosecurity activities.

In an email to staff in March, Department secretary Andrew Metcalfe issued an email to staff outlining cost-saving measures as the “cost of delivering essential services and policy and program responsibilities has outstripped revenue coming into the department.”

It also said the department would “close or defer a number of initiatives” and “temporarily pause most new recruitment”.

“And costs associated with machinery of government changes have also had an impact,” the email said.

In 10 years, the Department increased its spending on contractors, jumping from $5 million a decade ago to nearly $90m in 2022.

Former Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud, the now Nationals leader and shadow agriculture minister, has repeatedly said the department’s finances had rapidly whittled away under Labor’s leadership.

He called for the matter to be referred to the Australian National Audit Office.

In 2019, the Department of Agriculture was merged with Water and Environment but that decision was quickly reversed by the Albanese Government. It now stands as the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

Spending on IT systems and costs associated with merging and de-merging in 2022 has also reportedly blown out costs.