Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to briefly speak on the Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2013, the Primary Industries (Excise) Levies Amendment Bill 2013 and the Primary Industries (Customs) Charges Amendment Bill 2013. This first of these bills will amend 10 acts in the agricultural portfolio to improve the efficiency, transparency and accountability of the rural research and development corporations. The bill also changes the framework for the selection committees in filling board positions on statutory R&D corporations.

There are two companion bills, the Primary Industries (Excise) Levies Amendment Bill 2013 and the Primary Industries (Customs) Charges Amendment Bill 2013, which effectively eliminate the need for amending legislation to change the levies or fees being charged so that, in most cases, it will be possible for such changes to be made by regulation. So I welcome the changes in the legislation.

As other speakers have already said, this legislation is almost identical to legislation which was passed by this House on 4 August but which did not get to the Senate and therefore lapsed. So the government, quite properly and rightly, is reintroducing it to the House. The legislation is the result of a range of consultations which took place across the agricultural industry sectors generally, and I believe the legislation reflects many of the matters which were raised during the consultations. The changes in this legislation make the research and development corporations more flexible and more responsive in dealing with the new realities they face. Through this legislation the governance processes are streamlined and made more accountable and more effective.

I note that it was in fact a Labor government, back in 1989, that established the research and development corporation model which we are currently talking about. The amendments in the legislation will encourage private sector investment in research and development because they enable the private sector to apply for matching government funds, because the changes streamline the selection process for RDC board members and because they provide more flexibility to the RDCs. The amendments allow individual and industry-specific levies to be applied—in particular, I note, to the fisheries sector. I support and welcome this change. It will allow specific fishery sectors to raise their own levies and to carry out their own research, development and marketing.

This principle should be applied to every industry sector in primary production. The different sectors of primary production—whether horticulture, agriculture, animal farming or fisheries—have specific opportunities, specific needs and specific barriers. Generally, too, there is a uniqueness about them which allows only themselves to best manage and spend the money raised from their respective industry sectors. So I welcome allowing, as these amendments do, the fisheries sector to have specific programs. But, as I said, this principle should apply more broadly across all sectors if they have the capacity to organise themselves into a structure of some kind.

Research and development is as vital to primary industries as it is to any other sector of the economy, whether it be manufacturing, mining, medicine or technology. Innovation in and the advancement of Australia's primary industry have in fact enabled Australia's primary producers to remain competitive, and Australia has often led the way in new technology and new farming methods. But the global production of food is becoming increasingly competitive. Other countries are now competing with Australia for global supplies of food products for which, in past years, Australian growers had secure markets. That is no longer the case, but primary production nevertheless presents Australia with huge opportunities.

Our primary producers need to remain competitive and they need to be able to respond to changing markets and the changing climate. In fact, according to the National Food Plan put out earlier this year by the former agriculture minister Joe Ludwig, 15 per cent of the Australian workforce is involved in food production. We export $30.5 billion worth of agricultural products annually, and produce enough food to feed the country twice over.

Food creation is, indeed, the biggest employer in rural and regional communities. It provides one in six jobs. Australia exports over half the food it produces, yet over 90 per cent of the fresh produce sold here is also produced here. By 2050, world consumption is expected to be 75 per cent higher than it was in 2007. And the value of Australia's agriculture and food related exports will have increased by 45 per cent in real terms by then if current projections continue. In 2011-12, primary production generated annual earnings of $42.6 billion for the Australian economy and, as I said earlier, food exports accounted for some $30 billion.

Other speakers have made the point that rural productivity has increased at more than twice the rate of other industries. I welcome that. I will come to that point in a moment, because it is not all good news for our primary producers. I want to talk for a moment about one of the biggest challenges that our primary producers are faced with, and where research and development is going to be critical to their survival—that is, the question of climate change. Climate change—whether it is simply the changing of weather patterns, where seasons come in earlier or later than in past years; changes in rainfall patterns; higher temperatures and higher temperatures for longer periods of time; extreme weather events or perhaps even new diseases—is a real threat confronting our primary producers. Climate change presents challenges that individual farmers alone cannot respond to. But collectively—using research and development carried out by the corporations and by other government institutions such as CSIRO, Australian universities and other research organisations—they may be better able to respond and adapt to the changes that are required for them to survive and to continue producing.

I believe that research that is specifically related to climate change and how it impacts on our primary producers, and our farming sector specifically, is one of the most important areas that we need to put money into in the years ahead, because it is a real threat. It is happening right now and it will make a significant difference to the ability of our farmers to continue to operate profitably, not to mention to continue to be competitive in the global market.

I said earlier that I wanted to talk about how well our primary industries have been going in recent years. Whilst the growth rate might have been double that of most other industries, the concerning reality is that Australia's spend in research and development has, over the last decade, been dropping. Internationally, we have fallen from around ninth place, in the year 2000, to something like 16th place internationally right now. That is according to a research paper released earlier this year by John Mullen from Charles Sturt University and Mick Keogh from the Australian Farm Institute. Their research paper was reported in the Australian on 6 February this year. The paper linked falling farm productivity between the years 2000 and 2010 with reductions in research and development funds. We know that research and development will lead to primary industry production becoming more efficient and more effective and that if we want to increase production and productivity in this country it will not come about by us increasing the area of land cultivated and produced from; it will come about through us doing better with the land that we currently cultivate and with the farmers that are currently in the system. In other words, the farmers need to become more efficient and more productive with what they have rather than trying to expand their operations, because that is just going to add to their costs and therefore the bottom line for them would be no better than if they can become more productive with what they have.

One of the other issues that arise when you discuss research and development is the argument and discussion about the genetic modification of foods. It is a debate that needs to be confronted and that I do not believe has been properly confronted in recent times by this parliament, and it is a debate that is currently taking place across the world. It is a debate, again, that will have very serious ramifications for the future of our farming industry. Whilst I certainly do not wish to debate the issue right now, I just point out that it is one of those matters that we seem to perhaps not want to address or focus on when the reality is that we need to focus on it, because genetic modification can make a difference to farming while simultaneously it is a matter that polarises the community both here in Australia and in other countries. Therefore it is a matter that I believe this House needs to properly debate at some point or another.

Australian farmers have indeed been through tough times in recent years, because of the high Australian dollar, droughts, floods, climate change, overseas competition and, as the member for Murray quite rightly said, monopolies squeezing the growers in every way they possibly can. So I have no doubt whatsoever that for primary producers of this country it has been a difficult decade up until now. The reality, however, is that all of these factors—whether the high Australian dollar, the droughts, the climate change or the overseas competition—will continue. They will not change. We might modify them a little bit here and there, but the reality is that our farmers will be confronted with those issues into the future as well. So I believe that the only way that they will be able to survive, to remain competitive and to grow is by us investing in research and development so that they can be smarter about what they do and how they do it. That is going to give them the competitive advantage in the marketplace. Nothing else will.

So, for those reasons, I believe that this legislation is appropriate and should be supported by the House. I thank the minister for bringing it back into the House given that it was an initiative of the previous government, because I believe it will be welcomed by the primary producers and the farming sector of this country more broadly.

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