A day after announcing a major aid package for drought-hit farmers, Howard played down the link between climate change and the "Big Dry."

"Even the most pessimistic predictions about climate change, which I don't necessarily share... don't say that it will never rain again in rural Australia," Howard told Channel Nine television.

"We've just got to keep a sense of proportion."

The drought has stretched for seven years in some areas of Australia, forcing some farmers to quit life on the land as their properties become dustbowls.

The government on Tuesday doubled to 150,000 (129,000 US) dollars the amount paid to farmers leaving the land to give them the chance to "exit with dignity" and start a new life.

However, Howard said he doubted there would be an exodus of farmers and said his conservative government was prepared to prop up rural Australia because of its importance to the nation.

"Most people will stay on the land -- they love it," Howard said.

"We have to, as a nation, preserve a farm sector. It would be unthinkable if we didn't have the bush in the future, if we lost our rural community.

"Therefore we have a special obligation over and above the economic value of farms."

Government drought assistance to farmers has reached about three billion dollars since 2001, with more than a billion announced in the past week as a national election looms before the end of the year.

The National Farmers Federation (NFF) last week called for greater government action on climate change, saying agriculture was probably the economic sector in Australia most exposed to the problem.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates agricultural production was 37 billion dollars in the 2005/06 financial year.

But the government estimates the drought shaved 0.75 points from Australia's economic growth in 2006, with the upcoming wheat harvest expected to fall by a third and next year's grape crop tipped to halve.

Australian bushfire risk could rise 300 percent by 2050: report
Australian bushfires will become more intense due to climate change, while the number of days each year when there is a high fire danger could soar 300 percent by 2050, a report released Wednesday said.

The study, prepared by government scientists and the weather bureau for the independent Climate Institute, noted that bushfires are an inevitable feature of the Australian landscape.

But it warned they had already become more fierce in recent years, with fire weather intensity rising 10 to 40 percent since the 1980s and 90s.

The report predicts that the intensity of bushfires in Australia will jump by up to 30 percent by 2050 under the worst global warming scenarios.

And it adds that the number of days each year when there is an extreme risk of fire could soar 65 percent by 2020 and up to 300 percent by 2050.

"The number of very high and extreme fire-weather days is projected to increase in all scenarios," it said.

The largest changes are expected in the state of New South Wales where Sydney is the capital, while the southern island state of Tasmania will have the least.

The report also expands current fire risk ratings to include two more unofficial fire danger levels -- "very extreme" and "catastrophic".

"Climate projections indicate very extreme and catastrophic fire danger levels may become much more common," it said.

"With high global warming, "very extreme" days may occur twice as often in Australia by 2020, with a four or five-fold increase predicted across much of southern and eastern Australia by 2050."

The report also warned of an increase in the risk of injury and deaths, a prolonged fire season and the destruction of ecosystems.

The Climate Institute, which works to raise awareness about climate change, said unless rising pollution from the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming was reversed, Australia's fire weather was set to spiral dangerously upwards.

Firefighters said they were concerned there will be a marked increase in the number of blazes which are uncontrollable.

"It reinforces our message that there will be times when no force known to mankind can suppress these bushfires," chief officer with the South Australian Country Fire Service, Euan Ferguson, told ABC radio.

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