Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for New England for bringing the issue of the future of agriculture to the attention of the parliament through a matter of public importance and also for the fact that, when he does bring these issues to the parliament, we actually have some of those rare and truly constructive discussions. This reflects well on what he is able to bring to the parliament. The member for New England referred to Australia being effectively, in agricultural terms, an exporting nation. We export just over 60 per cent of what we grow here, and this carries its own context. I want to look at the four different sorts of challenges that we have. There are some areas that in some ways have the biggest effect on agriculture which we have to acknowledge we simply cannot control at a government level, there are some areas where we can manage risk, there are some areas where we can intervene, and there are some areas where the best thing government can do is to get out of the way. I want to have a look at each of those four areas.

One of the areas that cannot be controlled by us, as an exporting nation, is the value of the dollar. There is nothing farmers are feeling more acutely at the moment than the value of the dollar. The dollar is trading at US92c at the moment. As an exporting nation, many of our farmers are feeling that and are feeling that very deeply. You have only to look at what has happened to a lot of the cattle prices of late. At the same time, there is a lot more quantity coming onto that market because of the reopening of access particularly in Japan and Korea to US beef. There are challenges out there that have a price impact where it is beyond the realm of government to be able to directly intervene. Farmers have suggested to me that we would be able to fix the dollar issue if we had a weaker economy, but I suspect that no Australian would say thankyou for that as a method of fixing the challenges they are having with their export prices.

The other issue that cannot be controlled by government is drought. We know from the projections that we can expect to see longer and deeper droughts in the future, even if only because increased temperatures have an immediate impact on soil moisture. Even if rainfall remains steady, increased temperatures mean that soil moisture tends to run out earlier.

I think we need to be upfront and acknowledge the areas we cannot control. We need to say, ‘Within that context, what are the things we can do?’ The first thing we can do for the future of Australian agriculture is work out how much more effectively we can manage risks. A quarantine risk, a biosecurity outbreak, is the key risk the government has a role in assisting to manage. When I first came into this portfolio, equine influenza was still present throughout the country. I undertook one of my first visits to country New South Wales with the member for New England. I remember going from one section to another, and we were spraying under our shoes to disinfect them. We had to follow a lot of different rules to make sure we were part of the successful eradication of equine influenza. That outbreak alone cost the Australian economy at least $1 billion, and I think the truth is that we will never know the full cost of the outbreak.

The last time the Productivity Commission had a look at the likely cost to the Australian economy of an outbreak of foot and mouth disease, the figure they came up with was between $8 billion and $13 billion. A determination to manage risk at the border more effectively in the future than Australia has done in the past is a responsibility that falls heavily to government. There is no such thing as zero risk. Zero risk would involve shutting the borders, closing down tourism, closing out all forms of imports—and probably shooting all migratory birds. Zero risk is not going to happen. But everything that can be done to reduce risk and to make it as unlikely as possible that we will have future biosecurity outbreaks is an important thing for government to do in terms of creating a better situation for Australia’s farmers.

Quarantine used to have in their risk management a whole series of things known as the IQIs, whereby it had been determined that a certain number of containers and passengers had to be checked. A whole lot of raw data figures were the benchmark. If there was a greater risk somewhere else, our officials were not put there. We had a rigid approach that said, ‘We have set the key performance indicators and they will remain.’ But we have now moved to a system where we are able to deploy our resources directly where the risk is greatest. Does that give a guarantee that there will be no problematic outbreaks in future? Of course not. But I do think it has been a very important development to get to that first threshold of saying risk is what we will look at.

In areas where we can directly intervene, there is none more important than the one the member for New England referred to, which is research and development. The capacity for direct government engagement in research and development is extraordinary. You only have to look at the story of productivity growth for cropping in Australia—and once again this is an example the member for New England has referred to on many occasions. Productivity growth was running at about double the rate for the rest of the economy, and it was directly linked to research and development. There were a number of factors that helped, but one was critical, and that was the uptake of minimum-till/no-till farming, the direct drilling of seed into the ground. That is a great example of how research and development can find a pathway forward that has massive improvements in the tools available to farmers.

It is my view that we should never go down the path of telling farmers what they should grow and precisely how they should grow it. I think all of those decisions are best made by farmers taking their own risks on their own land. The more we can hand over to that ingenuity, the better it will be for the nation and the greater the productivity outcomes. But, as was referred to a moment ago, for many years there has been underinvestment in research into soils in Australia. We have put extra money into research and development since we came into office. I am very pleased to have insisted that a very large part of the $46.2 million that we added through the Climate Change Research Program went into soil research. I think we can be more optimistic about the extent to which the different priorities can actually be aligned. The concept of a low-carbon economy and higher productivity for farmers can and will go hand in hand if we get the research and development right. There are areas of science which are not yet fully formed. With biochar, for example, there are examples where we know it works great, but we have not yet worked out how to match all the different soils we have in Australia with all the different sorts of biochar. What is the answer? Let us do that research and find out—which is exactly what the government has done through this funding.

I also believe that we should not close our minds to any area of scientific research. While I appreciate that from time to time there are strong community campaigns and wariness among people about genetic modification, I do believe that all areas of biotechnology should be on the table. Let’s face it: this industry is in the business of feeding people. We have a world population that will be pushing towards nine billion people by 2050. If we are going to do something about alleviating hunger, we are talking something in the order of a 70 per cent increase in total food production between now and 2050, largely running off the same area of land. There are very significant reasons why we should not be shutting our minds to any area of research. While some people will argue a moral case against genetic modification, I am happy any day to put that up against a moral case for feeding people.

On the carbon economy, when people talk about trees I say, ‘It depends.’ With the planting of trees, there are ways things can be done which do complement agricultural production. In Victoria I have seen some fantastic examples of improved afforestation on grazing land which has had a dual benefit. It has provided a timber asset on those properties for the farmers involved and it has allowed them to increase—not decrease but increase—their stocking rates. It is, of course, not the same story at all if you plant your trees on cropping land or on plantation land or anything like that. In grazing areas, however, what is available through extra shading, through wind breaks and through the extra nutrients provided to the soil by careful strategic tree-planting should not be viewed in any way as a threat to a commitment to agricultural production.

The final area where we can intervene is market access. Improving market access is always painfully slow. Essentially, when we are trying to improve market access to other countries, we are talking about one thing—we are trying to get extra customers for an Australian farmer. We are trying to increase the number of customers available. A good job has been done for a very long time by both sides of politics, no matter who has been in government, in trying to push the envelope on market access wins.

I have a document here—though it says ‘last 12 months’, so it covers only a limited period, and it is quite a few months old—that has a number of examples of improved market access: new access for kangaroo meat into China and dairy breeder cattle into Sri Lanka and New Caledonia; recognition of Sunraysia as seasonally free of fruit fly; access to new markets for the live animal trades; access for citrus into New Caledonia, fish into Korea, dairy products to India and fish to Russia. Example after example has been presented to me. Another one is cherries, particularly Tasmanian cherries, making their way into Japan. There are many examples in front of me of where farmers have radically increased their numbers of customers, and that is a very good thing in terms of the options available to them.

The final example, though—and I appreciate that this example will not necessarily win the favour of the honourable member who brought forward the matter of public importance—is of areas where government can properly get out of the way. I do believe wheat deregulation is an example of that. I appreciate the strength of opinion of a number of wheat growers, particularly in the New England area, who would prefer that the government took a different path. Those concerns have always been voiced very strongly and loudly by the member for New England. I do believe, though, that allowing farmers to have extra choices and to choose whom they sell their wheat to provides extra opportunities for them.

There are other areas where I believe we can get out of the way. With export certification, by moving from a subsidy process, with a transition arrangement which was negotiated in very good faith with the opposition and the shadow minister, we have eliminated a lot of the red tape which has occasionally held up entire shipments—after the grain was already loaded, a problem would arise and then all the demurrage costs would flow on. By allowing private enterprise a pathway for a greater engagement in some of these export certification issues, I do believe, once again, we reduce red tape. Similarly, there was legislation introduced this week—today, actually—about registering the use of pesticides with the APVMA. There are many examples where red tape and the government being in the way is one of the problems for farmers. I am determined that, wherever we can responsibly find ways of taking that step back and saying, ‘No—these are areas of red tape that we can remove for you; these are areas where the inefficiency is actually our fault, not the farmer’s,’ we should do so.

There are many other issues, obviously, but I am mindful of the time. Essentially, the context of being an export nation must not be lost in this debate. Some 60 per cent—it is much more than half—of what we grow is dependent on those international markets. We need to manage risks where we can, acknowledge the areas where we cannot intervene, intervene strategically in ways that actually help and be careful that government is not getting in the road.

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