FORMER WA Agriculture and Food Minister Mark Lewis is one of three inaugural board members of the Regional Investment Corporation; otherwise known as the “Barnaby Bank”.
The other two RIC board members appointed by the federal government are David Foster and Lucia Cade, a statement from Finance Minister Mathias Cormann and Agriculture and Water Resources Minister David Littleproud said.
Mr Lewis represented the Mining and Pastoral Region in the WA Upper House for four years until losing his seat at last year’s state election when the Liberals and Nationals each lost a seat and Labor and One Nation each gained one, of the six representatives.
He was appointed as WA’s Agriculture Minister in September 2016 to replace Dean Nalder, who lasted less than six months in the role, and served up to the March election last year.
During his time in the WA parliament, Mr Lewis had responsibilities that included the Rural Business Development Corporation which administers loans to primary industries, including concessional for the Commonwealth.
He’s also been involved in and owned cereals, sheep, cattle and horticulture farms and is currently working with AFS Agriculture Limited, advising a number of agriculture-related joint ventures and private equity companies.
Mr Forster has an extensive background in commercial finance having previously worked for both Westpac and Suncorp and is currently a director with Genworth Mortgage Insurance, G8 Education Limited and Local Government Enterprises of Queensland.
Ms Cade has a background in engineering and commercial leadership, with a focus on water infrastructure, utilities and professional services and has been Chair of South East Water, a Victorian government-owned water utility, since October 2015.
The RIC was an election commitment made by former federal Agriculture and Water Resources Minister Barnaby Joyce at the 2016 federal election, in the Coalition’s agricultural election policy.
It will administer the federal government’s $2 billion farm business concessional loans program and $2b National Water Infrastructure Loan Facility.
After the enabling legislation stalled in the Senate last year, it passed in February allowing it to now fulfil the government’s deadline to have it established at Orange in regional NSW, by July 1 this year.
The “Barnaby Bank” has also been welcomed by farming groups throughout the nation as a means of improving the delivery of drought assistance funding to farmers battling adversity by removing state based bureaucracies via a federal agency within the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources.
Despite the farm sector’s enthusiasm, Labor has repeatedly opposed the RIC with ongoing political accusations of “pork barrelling” by Mr Joyce, to place the RIC at Orange where the Nationals lost a state seat at the last NSW election.
Labor has recently described it as an “unnecessary entity” and remained opposed to its establishment.
Labor Senator Carol Brown in a speech on the enabling legislation said he party was opposed to the move to “establish another boondoggle, a pork barrel,” by the former Deputy Prime Minister.
She said the loans to be delivered by the RIC had already been delivered by the state and Northern Territory governments and would continue to be administered by them.
“The government is claiming that establishing the RIC will put competition on the banks to provide better support to farmers doing it tough - but this is already happening by the delivery of concessional loans by the state and Northern Territory governments,” she said.
“It is important to understand that the RIC - the so-called ‘Barnaby's Bank’ - will be the bank of last resort, but the farm business will need to be assessed as being viable.
“Whether a farm business is deemed or determined as being viable has been a major issue for the states when developing the guidelines for concessional loans and this will continue under the RIC.”
In also opposing the RIC enabling legislation, Greens agriculture spokesperson and Victorian Senator Janet Rice said it was aiming to set up “another dodgy slush fund for the corporate mates of the government”.
“With the power to administer business loans, the Regional Investment Corporation looks, at first glance, to be set up to facilitate these loans to farmers in a timely manner - however, first glances can be very deceiving,” she said.
“The Greens agree with both the government and the Australian National Audit Office that there have been problems with the existing arrangements for the government’s concessional loans programs and that farmers haven’t been able to access the loans as easily as would be preferred.
“We also acknowledge the submission of the National Farmers' Federation during the committee inquiry into this proposed bill, which was supportive of the bill, stating that there is hope in the farming community that the lag between political announcements about farm business loan programs and the actual delivery will be significantly shortened.
“But it's a very different question as to whether the proposed solution is the best thing to meet that problem.
“The Greens are concerned that, in setting up this Regional Investment Corporation as proposed, the minister has complete discretion as to the creation of the operating mandate and the classes of loans that the Regional Investment Corporation will supply to farm businesses.”
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