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

I can hear my South Australian opponent opposite say that it is a good plan. It is now, because New South Wales has just signed up and, as the member for Kingston would well know, because it was a bad plan they held out until the coalition came to power and offered a good plan. Her South Australian Liberal colleague Senator Simon Birmingham has offered 10 gigalitres of environmental flows to be sold to productive growers in the Gwydir Valley in the north of New South Wales and, hopefully, when that works—as it will—water will be offered in the rice-growing season to my irrigators in the southern end of the basin in the Riverina.

For our livestock industry, these cuts by Labor also came in the wake of Labor's kneejerk decision to ban the live cattle trade overnight in reaction to a television program.

There is no doubt that Australia needs to export the goods that we produce and the knowledge we create. This is vital not only to ensure the future viability of our manufacturing sector but to create jobs and to build prosperity right across the economy, whether that be in mining and resources—so important in Western Australia—agriculture services or in research and education. This is in line with the coalition's strong commitment to building a five-pillar economy. To help Western Australia, we want to get rid of the mining and carbon taxes which have been so crippling and so job destroying in that state.

The Abbott-Truss government recognises that we need to support our small to medium enterprises to break into new markets and to expand existing markets. This will not happen by accident. While many of Australia's industry sectors produce some of the best quality and most sought-after products and commodities in the world, it is still a huge challenge to secure overseas markets to sell to.

While Australia's terms of trade have risen by an unprecedented 75 per cent between 1998 and 2008—a period of time dominated by a coalition federal government—that has been driven largely by a rise in commodity prices, and particularly iron ore exports. It demonstrates that we still have significant opportunities for our non-resources sectors to pursue in enhancing our engagement with foreign markets. Just this week, we had a delegation here from Mongolia. I visited Mongolia, and I know the great iron ore industry that Mongolia has. Certainly, Australian companies and Australian expertise are helping Mongolia to extract the wealth of their iron ore. But they do not have a job-destroying carbon tax placed over their industry. The opportunities presented by a growing Asian middle class, with ever growing demand for Australia's high-quality products, need to be seized and need to be seized now.

The EMDG has been an extremely effective mechanism which has enabled hundreds of Australian small- to medium-sized businesses to better promote their products and to seek new markets overseas for more than two decades now. Evaluations of the EMDG consistently confirm the value of the scheme to our exporters and demonstrate that the scheme directly increases Australia's exports. For every dollar spent in EMDG for capital constrained firms it generates a boost to exports of up to $20, and as high as $220 in some cases. I know the member for Paterson here, who is very conscious of improving our tourism exports, will certainly agree with me there.

The changes to the EMDG contained in this bill will make it even easier for businesses to qualify for the grant. Firstly, the bill increases the number of times a firm can access EMDG funding from seven to eight. The bill now reduces the amount firms have to spend on export promotion from $20,000 to $15,000 and reduces the deduction from an applicant's provisional grant amount by half from $5,000 to $2,500. So for example, if an eligible business spends $20,000 on export promotion, under these changes the business can apply for EMDG funding of up to $7,500 rather than the $5,000 it can claim currently.

The bill will also provide for faster payment of grant funding to successful applicants, to provide certainty to their business—and certainty is really important. You get certainty under the coalition. All we got under Labor was uncertainty. Finally, the bill will also prevent grants being paid where a firm has engaged an EMDG consultant who is considered not to be a fit and proper person.

In my own electorate, the Riverina, we boast a number of small and medium enterprises across a diverse range of industries and which are well placed to take advantage of this scheme. Being the food bowl of Australia—I unashamedly say that because the Riverina is the food bowl of Australia because of all the good water policy that the coalition is introducing—it has strategically significant horticultural and livestock industries well placed to meet international demand. We have the best wheat, the best beef and the best lamb of anywhere in the world. And certainly when it comes to wine—

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