Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

In presenting this bill to the House I commend and congratulate the senator from South Australia who is often referred to as the farmers friend and the voice of the village. In this case, the village is paying twice what they should be paying for their fruit and vegetables in Australia and the farmer is getting half. In other words, the people in the middle are arguably getting 400 per cent more than they should be getting. Let me be very specific. These figures were compiled by Senator Xenophon and his staff. They were not very hard to compile because the markets give you a market quotation for the value of an orange every day in the markets. So anyone can find out what the farmer is getting paid. And of course you can find out what the consumers pay by simply walking into the supermarket. So it is not very profoundly hard to get these figures. It was profoundly hard for the ACCC—those people who assure us of no competition. Let me quote figures—and these are just ordinary, everyday fruit and vegetable items: apples—the supermarket pays the farmer $2 and charges the consumer $5.98; oranges—18c a kilogram to the farmer, $1.98 to the consumer; potatoes—35c to the farmer, $2.98 to the consumer; broccoli—$1 to the farmer, $1.92 to the consumer; and cabbages—55c to the consumer, $2.38 to the consumer. That is 199 per cent on the first item; 1,000 per cent on the second item; 751 per cent on the third item; 92 per cent on the fourth item; and 333 per cent on the fifth item.

How long is this parliament going to continue to accept the oligopolistic pricing regime in the supermarkets of Australia? I have said continuously in this place, wasting my breath, because no-one here seems to care: within three years, Australia will be a net importer of food. Every four days—I have not seen the latest figures, but two or three years ago these figures were from a comprehensive report—a farmer commits suicide in Australia.

Seven years ago we became a net importer of pork, thanks to the decisions taken by the LNP in this House. Four years ago we became a net importer of fruit and vegetables—the items I am talking about here. We cannot feed ourselves in fruit and vegetables. Two years ago we became a net importer of seafood. The projections for this year are that 72 per cent of our seafood will be bought into this country, so we cannot feed ourselves in seafood. So it is not remarkable for those who have been following this story to know that within three years we will be a net importer of food.

The Fin Review already claims that we are now a net importer of food. I can use different statistics which might push it out to nine years, but there is not the slightest doubt in any set of statistics you want to use that this country will not be able to feed itself within three years. Who is to blame? We have come into this place and said again and again that we are asked to meet conditions of health and hygiene in our production, which are not remotely being met.

Let me take the case of prawns. Our prawns have to be grown in absolutely pristine water. It has to be regulated on its way in so that it is pure and free of bacteria, but then it has to be regulated on its way out, pure and free of bacteria. All water contains some bacteria. The impositions upon this industry have simply closed it down. I am the minister given the credit for starting this industry off, for which I deserve no credit. It was the six entrepreneurs: Wahedy, Coco, Sciacca and the very famous Irwin Vidor. They are the people that deserve the credit and, probably most of all, Jimmy Ryall and Dr Joe Baker from the Institute of Marine Science that commenced this industry.

We started off with great hopes. We felt that we would overtake Thailand in prawn production by the year 2000—this was about the mid- to late eighties. We reckoned that over the next 15 years we would catch up to Thailand. Thailand was on $2,000 million a year of production, and we forged ahead. We went up to, I think, $65 or $85 million—some figure like that—within a few short years. Starting from scratch, we went zoom and were on course to catch them. After the environmentalists had finished with us, we are now down to $24 million, and I think that very shortly we will have no production at all. That would be my prediction.

Let's have a look at the prawns that are coming in. Those are the impositions that are placed upon the Australian industry. You have to have twice the number of ponds plus there is twice the amount of water because you have got to put clean water back into the ocean. I said, 'What contaminant is there?' They said, 'The prawns do their business in the water.' 'Do they have toilets out in the ocean for the prawns?' They said, 'Concentration' and I said, 'Good. I was waiting, Mr Environmentalist, for you to say that because we have fought again and again to have the sewerage outfall into the oceans stopped.' They said, 'Oh no. It dissipates.' You could write a treatise on this, couldn't you? Human waste dissipates but prawn waste concentrates.

It just demonstrates that these people are completely out of control. They are dangerous and they are evil. The environmentalist movement in Australia has moved from being a great asset to this country to a cancer. Here is their handiwork. Let's go back to Thailand. Australia has gone down from $65 million to $25 million; Thailand has gone up to over $8,000 million. All of our agricultural exports in Australia—200 items—only amount to $28,000 million. Thailand has got $8,000 million in a single industry. Their sugar industry is now rivalling ours—it might even be bigger than ours now. These are two industries. They are forging ahead of us. We will run out of coal, we will run out of iron ore and, when we do, this country will be bankrupt. I want to put on the record that I said this in the year of our Lord 2011. I pleaded with this parliament to wake up to itself. You have destroyed agriculture in this country and are destroying it whilst I speak.

Everyone knows the Americans are whingeing, crying, screaming and howling over Walmart. Walmart and its nearest competitor, the big two in America, have 23 per cent of the market. Depending on what set of figures you want to use in Australia, between 88 per cent and 92 per cent of the Australian market is held by the big two. There is no country on earth that would allow two players to dominate the market. They would not allow it on any items at all, but of all items they would not allow it on those—the anti-trust legislation would have smashed them long ago in the United States. Similarly, that would happen in Britain, France, Germany, Japan or any country you want a name. But not here in Australia, where we suffer the power of the great corporations.

I did the figures some years ago on milk, when this parliament decided that it would facilitate the deregulation of the dairy industry. Here is the letter from Dairy Farmers to farmers in my electorate. On the day of deregulation the price for milk was 59c; the day after it was 42c. (Time expired)

Bill read a first time.

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