Preparing your business for drought

• Find out how to prepare your agribusiness for drought.
• Find out how to prepare sheep for drought.
• Connect with your local council and industry associations for advice on drought in your local area and for your sector.

• Think about alternative ways to operate when water supplies are restricted or unavailable.
• Plan for rising costs of products and produce.
• Make a plan to respond to supply chain disruptions.

• Check with your local council to learn about current water restrictions, guidelines and compliance requirements.
• Introduce water saving measures in your workplace.
• Use the water restrictions preparation checklist.
• Identify alternate water supplies, consider using non-potable water
• Educate and train staff about the importance of water efficiency and how it can benefit your business.

• Check insurances are up to date, and adequately cover your business, assets and any rebuilds or repairs that may be required.
• Review and document how you will manage orders and cancellations.
• Check you have financial reserves and emergency cash on hand.

• Monitor the:
  • Bureau of Meteorology drought knowledge centre
  • Queensland drought declarations and revocations
  • Queensland drought maps showing drought declared areas
  • your local council website for water restrictions, alerts and updates.
• Keep up to date with climate information, including seasonal climate outlooks, rainfall and pasture growth, and a drought condition update on the Long Paddock website.

Animal welfare

• Read more about managing livestock and crops during drought conditions.
• Find out how to manage sheep during drought.
• Learn more about maintaining horse welfare during drought.
• Learn about preventing chemical residues in food-producing animals while drought feeding.

Crops and horticulture

Learn more about managing your crops and irrigation during drought.

Pests and diseases

• Find out about pest animal and weed management in drought-affected areas.
• Identify and target crop diseases. Grow Help Australia can test some crops for diseases and pests.

• Look after the mental health and wellbeing of your staff and family, as well as yourself.
• Find out about counselling services for drought-affected communities.
• Stay connected to your local community, industry and neighbours.
• Remember it's okay to accept assistance, even if you think others are worse off.

• Keep your staff up-to-date on changes to the workplace or processes as you clean up and recover.
• Check what support services are available to staff.
• If you have to temporarily close your business or reduce operations, consider how you will manage your staff during this time. Make sure you're aware of your legal obligations as an employer, especially if you plan to:
  • stand down staff
  • ask staff to take paid or unpaid leave
  • assign staff to different roles or locations
  • end employment.
• Learn more about employment entitlements during natural disasters and emergencies from the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Contact your bank

• Ask your bank about financial hardship options, for example:
  • changing loan terms
  • temporarily pausing or reducing repayments
  • deferring repayments and interest payments (all missed payments and interest will need to be repaid)
  • waiving fees and charges
  • consolidating your debt
  • finance to help cover cash flow shortages
  • deferring upcoming credit card payments
  • increasing emergency credit card limits
  • waiving early termination fees to access term deposits.
• Provide loan details (account name and number, payment amounts) and an overview of your financial situation.
• Request a hardship variation by using the sample letter generator from the Financial Rights Legal Centre to send to your bank.
• Your bank must advise you within 21 days about your hardship request. If you can't negotiate a variation, you can:
  • contact the bank's internal dispute resolution team
  • visit the Australian Financial Complaints Authority or phone 1800 931 678 to make a complaint, and get free advice and independent dispute resolution.
• Speak to a rural financial counsellor if you are experiencing, or at risk of, financial hardship. It is a free, confidential service and can give you individual support to meet your needs and help you to make the right decisions for your business. This could include assistance with talking to your bank about your financial matters.

Contact utility providers

• Contact your utility providers' hardship team about electricity, gas, phone or water bill payment options.

Review your finances

• Contact your accountant to:
  • identify how long you can operate with reduced or no revenue
  • identify how long you can continue to pay staff and creditors before your business would be trading insolvently
  • identify if or when you would need to lay off staff
  • develop a plan to pay creditors on payment plans where possible.
• Taking stock of your business is CPA Australia's kit to help you assess your financial position.

Get financial help

• Queensland natural disaster assistance includes grants, loans and other financial support for businesses and primary producers.
• Contact the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to get help managing your tax.
• Get free financial counselling support from small business financial counsellors and rural financial counsellors.
• Phone the Employer Assistance Helpline on 1300 731 988 – advice and support if your business has been forced to close or reduce operations from the Business Chamber Queensland.
• Learn about extending state tax and royalty payments from Queensland Treasury.

• Connect with your local community, neighbouring businesses and disaster recovery centres to find out how you can help your community, or they can help you.
• Accept volunteer and community support – people want to help and you are not alone.

• Contact your insurer if you:
  • aren't sure the event is covered by insurance – you may be able to claim under your business interruption or income protection insurance
  • have lost your policy documents – your insurer will have a copy.
• Contact the Insurance Council of Australia (phone 1800 734 621) if you have questions about your policy or don't know who your insurer is.
• Check your insurance policy:
  • review your cover
  • provides emergency or advance funds for wages or recovery activities.
• Gather all information about the claim:
  • complete an event log
  • items to claim and when purchased
  • photo and/or video evidence.
• Make a claim and resolve issues:
  • lodge claim as soon as possible – don't wait for a full damage assessment before making a claim
    • insurers must fast track a claim if you can demonstrate 'financial need' (read item 64 of the General Insurance Code of Practice) – if the insurer agrees, an advance payment must be made within 5 days
    • your insurer must inform you of their decision to accept or deny your claim 10 business days after receiving all relevant information and completing all enquiries
  • contact the Australian Financial Complaints Authority on 1800 931 678 if you can't reach agreement with your insurer
  • phone Legal Aid Queensland on 1300 651 188 if you need information and advice on how to get a claim paid.

Consider who your business might need to communicate with before, during and after a drought.

Key stakeholders may include:

• staff
• customers or guests
• clients
• suppliers and distributors
• banks and insurers
• industry body or association
• regulatory body or agency.

• (insert town, city, regional area) is currently experiencing drought conditions, with water levels lower than usual.
• To respond to the situation, we have introduced water restrictions.
• This means residents and visitors can only use a maximum of (x number of) litres per day.
• We are committed to water conservation. In an effort to conserve water resources we ask you to do the same.

Initial recovery

• We have been following authorities' advice and plan to reopen our business as soon as it is safe to do so.
• We wish all of our customers and clients a safe recovery.
• We are delighted with the rain to our area but are aware this rain has not broken the drought across all areas in Queensland.
• These rains will make a big difference for our business allowing us to (provide details).
• Please be patient as we work to resume full operations.
• You can continue to contact us on (provide details).

Later recovery

• We are now open for business and ready to welcome our customers back.
• Please be patient with us as we work to resume full operations.
• You can continue to contact us on (provide email/phone details).