Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The report by the Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources entitled Farming the future: the role of government in assisting Australian farmers to adapt to the impacts of climate change is an important document for now and for the future. One of the great things about where my electorate is located, on the beautiful Central Coast—and I acknowledge the member for Robertson, who shares the beautiful Central Coast with me—is that there are many areas where residential suburbs interface with picturesque rural land. One minute you can be driving through typical suburban streets with brick houses, well-kept lawns and curbs and guttering and the next minute you can have expansive views of farmland with cattle grazing and undulating hills in the background. It is a very mixed area in terms of the environment.

We do not have extensive areas of farmland, unlike many other parts of New South Wales, but we do have some important agriculture on the Central Coast. For instance, the region has the largest kiwifruit farm on the eastern seaboard of Australia, and there are extensive properties specialising in cut flowers for both the domestic and overseas markets. In fact, I was recently talking to a Zimbabwean couple who picked out the Central Coast as having the perfect climate for roses. They were planning to set up a business and were looking at all sorts of countries around the world, looking at the temperature and so forth, and they have now set up a successful rose growing business on the Central Coast in my electorate. Following along the lines of selling coal to Newcastle or supplying champagne to the French, we actually have Japanese companies now buying green tea grown on the Central Coast. It is another important area of agriculture that we have. So, while the Central Coast is a relatively small agricultural area, it is a very diverse agricultural sector.

While the Central Coast is probably the most beautiful area of Australia, we are also an area that is susceptible to the effects of climate change. Unfortunately, the environment in this region is very fragile. We have a thin coastline with developments there. In the middle of my electorate there is a beautiful lake which is prone to flooding, as it has access to the sea. An issue such as rising sea levels affects everyone on the Central Coast, particularly those in my electorate. When I walked along the beach at North Entrance earlier this year inspecting the damage done by a major storm—the sorts of hazards that many of my constituents face living so close to the ocean—it hit home to me just how fragile our environment is. A whole street of houses had lost large chunks of their backyards. There were bits of fences overhanging the beach, concrete pathways sticking out going nowhere because the backyard had been washed away. There were broken rails and trees uprooted along the fence line. In the backyard of one of these houses there used to be a beautiful glass fence. The glass fence had been completely washed away. The residents had over four metres of their backyard washed away because of this storm surge. These storm surges are becoming more regular as our climate is changing.

Because of this issue I made a submission to the Standing Committee on Climate Change, Water, Environment and the Arts, which delivered a very comprehensive report to the House last year. One of the places they visited—in fact, the first place they visited—was the electorate of Dobell. Dobell has three areas in particular that have been hit hard by the storm surges. The beaches at Wamberal have been washed away on a number of occasions, as have the beaches at North Entrance, which I have just been talking about. These beaches have extensive development on them. The beach at Little Cove at Cabbage Tree Bay at Norah Head has been closed now for over two years because there are houses on the clifftops that are literally falling into the bay as the erosion has occurred around this area due to the storm surges, and it is dangerous for people to go on that beach in case these houses do in fact fall off the cliff.

My electorate bears the full brunt of the storm surges on the coast, but it also bears the brunt of storm surges that come up through The Entrance and into the Tuggerah Lakes system which they did in 2007, causing extensive flooding inland around the lake where most of the population in my electorate live. This resulted in over 1,000 people having to be evacuated and moved in a massive coordinated response that was undertaken.

As was the report on the impact on climate of coastal communities important, so too is this report on how we assist farmers with the impact of climate change. That report on the impact on coastal communities made many recommendations in relation to us being prepared, action that we would need to take to mitigate these natural disasters, and why we need to act in relation to climate change. It was a very important report that brought home to everyone who lives on the coast the need to act. We cannot put our heads in the sand and hope that this issue will go away. It is affecting my community right now.

The report we are talking about today, on how we can assist farmers when it comes to dealing with the impacts of climate change, should be commended and its many recommendations should be endorsed. I will not go through all the recommendations, but some of them are particularly relevant to my Central Coast electorate. Part of a recommendation, which deals with investing research funding, is an overall response to issues affecting agriculture and climate change, and it recognises as a high-priority area soil water retention strategies and water use efficiency. I am happy to say that, on the Central Coast, water efficiency has become a very strong culture, especially amongst its residents.

Our region—the region that the member for Robertson and I look after—sank to a very low point in water storage only a few years ago. In fact, our main dam was down to about 11 per cent capacity. We also had a pipeline from the Hunter, piping water into our electorate to ensure that we did not completely run out of water. Thankfully, that is not the case now but, as the total water storage level currently hovers around the 30 per cent mark, we have to remind ourselves that in terms of water storage we are still 70 per cent empty.

One thing that the Rudd government has done—one of the promises that we have acted upon—is to build a pipeline between the coastal dam and the water storage dam which, hopefully, we will be turning the sod for in the weeks ahead. That will, over time, ensure that the Central Coast is drought-proofed because of this good infrastructure that the Rudd government has put in that affects those two seats on the Central Coast. The whole subject of water efficiency, from areas such as water harvesting and recycling to cutting evaporation rates on farms, is increasingly being embraced by businesses that include farms. I know of at least one hydroponic salad/vegetable farm which built new greenhouse structures, incorporating rainwater collection and storage, making themselves almost completely self-sufficient in water use. Quite a few orange and other fruit growers on the Central Coast have already adapted their fields so there is better water retention in the soil. They have certainly improved their water use efficiency.

The committee also recommended that the Australian government support further research efforts into the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. In another recommendation the committee said that the government should increase its investment and support for research into energy efficiency in the agricultural sector and the development of alternative energy and fuels on farms, particularly in the area of biofuels, biomass from agricultural waste and biochar.

There is another recommendation that is very interesting from the point of view of the Central Coast area. The committee recommended that the government:

… increase funding for research into improving the consistency and accuracy of weather and climate forecasting, especially at a seasonal and regional level.

Following that is the recommendation that the government develop an education and training scheme for farmers in the understanding and use of weather and climate information.

Currently, weather forecasts on the Central Coast are included as part of the larger Hunter area. Clearly, the Central Coast is not the Hunter area. One of the things that I am pushing for is to ensure that we have our own weather forecasts that are tailored to the Central Coast that will have the effect of giving greater accuracy and consistency in forecasting for the area. That is one thing this committee recommended: ensuring that there is greater accuracy and forecasting at a regional level. That is something that has a direct effect on my electorate. The committee also recommended that the government:

… maintain its commitment to climate change research pertaining to Australia’s agricultural industries, ensuring that the funding is committed, sustained and pays due attention to regional as well as national needs and priorities. Climate change research must reflect the changes affecting different regions, soils and topography—as all have an impact on changes in farming practices to deal with them.

I am certain our farmers on the Central Coast will welcome this recommendation, as they will many of the others in this report. Another recommendation is that the Australian government:

… develop a strategy to capture, evaluate and disseminate the range of farmer driven innovations that have a significant capacity to increase the resilience and productivity of farm enterprises.

The member for New England was making that point in his contribution and I think it is a point well made. It is not just in the area of research that innovative issues are developed; more often than not, it is through dealing with issues of a practical nature on farms where these innovations first take place. That is something this report acknowledged, and it recommended that we make the dissemination of those innovations that have grown up through practice on farms easier so that the farming community as a whole can benefit from some of those innovative practices.

The committee has also recommended that the government:

… ensures that there is an overall body to receive and analyse research and co-ordinate research across the nation in relation to climate change adaptation in agriculture, and that said body is given the necessary resources of staff and funds to carry out its role.

I would encourage our farmers on the Central Coast to become involved in any such organisation and make valuable input. It is further recommended in the report that the government:

… give greater consideration to better integration of local and regional organisations into its overall response to the issues affecting agriculture and climate change, and provide additional funding to support the management role of these local and regional organisations.

On the issue of incentives for industry in agriculture, there is a recommendation that the government:

… explore further opportunities to facilitate adaptation to climate variability and climate change through the use of targeted, industry and issue specific, incentives.

Recommendation 15 calls for the government to:

… place funding for local and community organisations engaged in the work of supporting farmers in adapting to climate variability and climate change upon a permanent and regular basis.

To sum up, I would strongly urge those involved in our rather small but very diverse agriculture sector on the New South Wales Central Coast to have a close look at the report by the Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources and its recommendations. While not all of the recommendations will be relevant to them, there are some very important ones there that will be. It is essential that the farming sector on the Central Coast work closely with the federal government to ensure that their voice is heard when it comes to implementing the measures to deal with the impacts of climate change on farming.

One of the key features of this report was the continual recognition of making sure that there are regional and local solutions. Where those solutions exist, they are adapted to the local environments of the various regions around Australia. In my area on the Central Coast, we have always felt that we get lumped in either with Sydney or with Newcastle and the Hunter. The Central Coast is its own area. It has its own particular and unique problems. It has its own challenges in relation to many issues, not least of which is climate change. The committee should be commended for the many recommendations in this report that focus on a regional approach and on looking at the particulars of regional difficulties. There are few areas in Australia that face the variety of challenges in terms of climate change that my electorate faces. From the eroding coastlines and the flooding of the lakes through storm surges to the lack of water, these issues have greatly affected the lives of people living on the Central Coast, none more so than those people seeking to make a living from the land, who are perhaps even more vulnerable to these issues of climate change. This report has recommendations that are important for now, but it also has important recommendations for the future. I commend the report and its recommendations to the House.

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