Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

The world's population, based on estimates from October this year, will reach some 9.7 billion people by 2050. The same report, issued by the French National Institute of Demographic Studies, projected there would be 10 billion to 11 billion people on the planet by the end of the century. At the same time, Australian Bureau of Statistics projections reported in The Sydney Morning Herald last week predict that Australia's population will be 40 million people by 2060 and almost 50 million by 2100. Let us think about that for a minute. The ABS's population clock, as of 11 o'clock this morning, estimates there are some 23,301,971 people in Australia at the moment. By 2060 that figure will almost double. That is a lot of hungry mouths to feed, a lot of food to produce and a lot of farmers who will be required to undertake that task.

I proudly stand in this chamber as the member for Riverina, a vast and diverse electorate which has at its heart small and large businesses which are feeding the nation, the region and indeed the world. Riverina people are grain growers, dairy and beef producers, irrigators, apple growers, rice and citrus producers, wool and cotton producers, olive growers and wine producers—and I could go on. There is not much that we do not grow in the Riverina, and we do it amidst some challenging times—certainly over the past decade, with terrible droughts, flooding rains and frosts which strike just as the farmer needs them least. Just this year, in fact, it looked as though it was going to be a bumper harvest for canola growers. Prices were good and there was much of it grown throughout my electorate. You could see at one point when driving around or even flying over the electorate a brilliant sea of yellow paddocks for kilometres, as far as the eye could see. It was quite a sight.

As many regional members in southern New South Wales and northern Victoria would be aware, a frost struck and dampened many of the bumper crops and harvests that Riverina farmers were looking forward to. In fact, it was a black frost—it froze from the inside out. That had not happened in the Griffith area since 1969. But we are resilient people in the Riverina. We understand in real terms what a growing national and world population means for producers. Rather than mere statements about the Asian century and its potential for Australian farmers, the people of the Riverina know they have the capacity and the will to expand and grow the food to keep the dinner tables of the nation's families full of quality Australian-grown produce.

We know there is potential and that is why the grain producers of my electorate were so pleased last week with the Treasurer's decision to block the Archer Daniels Midland bid to take over GrainCorp. Gerry Lawson AM, who is the Chairman of SunRice, which is based in Leeton in my electorate, wrote in the company's 2012 annual report that they 'support the view that Australia has the ability to feed up to 200 million people in Asia and beyond'. He is absolutely right. The report also said that the company he heads had a harvest of more than 960,000 tonnes of rice, which will go to feed at least 23 million people around the world every day for a year. Let us think about that statistic. One operation in Leeton and the Murrumbidgee irrigation area produces enough rice to feed at least 23 million people—that is the population of Australia at the moment—every single day for a year. How amazing! How remarkable! They have the capacity to grow further and feed 200 million people in the future.

They certainly are doing their bit in research and development. SunRice and the Ricegrowers' Association well understand the value of rural research and development. They get it and they put it into action. Effective and efficient use of water to them equals food security and sustainability. All they want to do is feed the world with quality Australian produce and invest in ways that ensure they can continue to turn water into food to feed the world for many years to come. In 2011 SunRice looked like being bought out by Spanish multinational Ebro, but the growers, the SunRice board and the Ricegrowers' Association understood the growers' potential. Irrigation was purpose-built in the area. They celebrated the centenary of irrigation just last year. Thanks to consistent research and development, growers' needs are understood and their operations are becoming more efficient.

The Griffith city council area, which takes in parts of the MIA, also has the wonderful ability to feed the nation. Major industries include the top five Australian owned largest export wineries in Australia: Casella Wines, De Bortoli, McWilliam's, Westend and Berton wines. They supply 75 per cent of New South Wales wine grapes. And 70 per cent of New South Wales citrus production also comes from the Griffith local government area. There are three large juicing operations: Real Juice, Summertime and Harvey. There is the export of more than $800 million of wine per year. I could go on about the other wonderful things about Griffith, but this is about rural research and development.

The government recognises the importance of R&D in the agriculture, fisheries and forestry sectors. I want to digress a little. I have just come from a meeting with a pulp and paper mill workers delegation. Mr Deputy Speaker, you would be interested to know that your friends from the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union had eight delegates here in Canberra to attend a meeting hosted by the member for Gippsland, a National Party member. We recognise the role that the CFMEU are playing in trying to protect their jobs and keep industries in the forestry sector open, viable and prosperous. We also recognise that this is above politics; we need a bipartisan approach. Certainly R&D in the forestry sector was a critical part of that hour-long meeting with the eight delegates from the union.

It was interesting to hear the sorts of things they told us about the challenges that their industry faces. It was interesting to hear about the sorts of initiatives that some of the very well-known and established companies and factories within the forestry sector and within the paper and pulp sector are doing to diversify and to transform so that they can continue to stay viable and afloat in challenging times.

Visy at Tumut in my electorate exports a lot of its product to the United States of America. The high Australian dollar, as the member for Makin has just pointed out, has hurt that business. But they are doing a lot of research and development into plasterboard, realising that that might be something they can venture into to keep their business afloat in these challenging times. I have to say that Visy is one of the most environmentally friendly companies in Australia, and they are also investigating bioenergy opportunities in Tumut and beyond.

Freight costs are also something that affects a lot of these companies—they certainly affect Visy. The plant at Albury is very well known in the newsprint industry, and we all know that the newspaper industry is suffering a downturn due to falling advertising revenue and the decline in the traditional newspaper as a source of news, and that is hurting the Albury plant. But they are also doing a lot of R&D, trying to see what they can do to look at other ways and means of making money. I do commend the CFMEU for today's meeting, for the candid way they approached the meeting and certainly for the way that they are trying to help their workers, along with their companies, to look at ways in which rural and regional research and development can ensure that they do have a future.

It was a request for assistance from MPs to help support pulp and paper jobs, to help pulp and paper mills and to help the industry and you only have to see the passion in these people's eyes to know that they certainly are worried about the future of their industry. They had a campaign, 'Don't Shred Pulp and Paper Jobs'. They realised also that cheap imports are hurting their industries and their futures. We stand with Labor to do whatever we can to protect the pulp and paper mills and to ensure that they do have a future.

Australian farmers also have a big future. They are an innovative breed, our farmers. As the member for Murray pointed out a little bit earlier, they are the best in the world—make no mistake. They know that R&D is essential if Australian industries are to keep pace and to compete successfully in the international arena. And it is becoming difficult. I sat, as did you, Mr Deputy Speaker Mitchell, on the regional Australia committee which looked into the Murray-Darling Basin. We know the challenges that irrigation farmers have because of the Water Act—a water plan which, unfortunately, puts the environment first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth. Unfortunately, the irrigators came a long and distant maybe seventh or maybe eighth.

Certainly, there needs to be more R&D into ensuring that better water policy enables irrigators to grow the food to feed not only our nation and our small part of the world but, indeed, Asia, so that we can tap into that growing and burgeoning middle class in Asia, which has a growing and burgeoning need for more protein and fibre. We can produce food and fibre if we have the water to be able to do it, and I am glad that the coalition government is capping buyback at 1,500 gigalitres. I am happy that the coalition is committed to spending some of that $5.8 billion set aside in the original Water Act 2007 for R&D and to plumb the system, rather than just pushing all the water out of the mouth of the Murray. We cannot just have a policy which puts the environment first, second, third and so on and so forth and leave the poor old irrigators, who are growing the food, out in the cold. They would probably actually like to be left out in the cold, because they might have a bit of water, but unfortunately when they only have 43 per cent water allocations for one reason or another it is not very conducive to actually being able to grow rice or grapes or anything else that they do in the Riverina.

The 15 rural research and development corporations, or RDCs, do provide a mechanism for farmers and fishers to invest collectively in services that will benefit their industries, including R&D and, in some cases, marketing. The coalition recognises the need for good R&D. I was quite angry the day before yesterday when I read that union official Paul Howes was talking about how there was no need for 'ma and pa' farmers, and saying that Australia needed to get with it and to go on like the United States does with big conglomerate farming, and that wide-scale farming and family farms can get left behind. Paul Howes does not understand. As Thomas Watson from Wagga Wagga said in a letter in The Australian yesterday, 'Paul Howes's knowledge of agriculture could comfortably fit on a postage stamp.'

But I digress. I think that we all need to get on board with R&D. We all need to get on board with the need to be able to grow more food. And I am sure that the rural and regional Labor members opposite—as I know that you do, Mr Deputy Speaker Mitchell—acknowledge the need for greater R&D investment, acknowledge what a great job our rural sectors do to be able to grow the food to feed our nation as well as other nations. I also know of the important work that you and others did on the Windsor inquiry for a better Murray-Darling outcome.

Unfortunately, the 21 recommendations that were brought down in May last year were not adopted by the then Labor government. It is unfortunate because I think we would have had a far better outcome. I know that the then member for New England certainly acknowledged and recognised the importance of R&D—certainly in irrigation—as does the new member for New England. I know that was at the forefront of our inquiry into the Murray-Darling Basin, the fact that research and development was an important factor.

Certainly the government encourages investment by establishing and collecting a statutory levy if an industry so requests, and by returning the funds to the relevant RDC less the cost of collection. In the current financial year, the government is providing an estimated $250 million to RDCs. That is admirable and is to be encouraged. I commend these bills to the House.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 13:0 2

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