Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

They always say that when people put in the word 'that' you should ignore everything that comes before it. That is pretty good advice. It is advice you use certainly when dealing with the media. If you hear 'He is a good person but', remove everything before 'but' and hear what they say next. With an amendment, if they say remove everything before 'that' then basically they are completely changing the context of what was said. In this case, the government will not be supporting the amendment.

The member for Makin mentioned bumblebees. I thank the opposition for their statement that they will be mindful that, if we do intend to go down that path, the Labor Party will not be lining up with the Greens and will be proactive in making sure that a relevant debate is had. Without prejudice I am considering seeing if we can do a further examination of and test theories about bumblebees, and do those tests in Tasmania where there already are bumblebees. There have been bumblebees in Tasmania since about 1880, so even if they escape from a glasshouse they will just go back into the bumblebee population. Bumblebees have also been in New Zealand. We are basically talking about using bumblebees for the crosspollination of plants, but introducing them in such a way that they cannot go out into the bee population and breed. You can do that by just having one sex of the bumblebee. In many instances where they are wanted to be used, they would not survive in any case, even if they did get out.

However, I do note the concerns of apiarists, and varroa mite is one of the issues that they bring up. We have to make sure that there would not be an incursion of varroa mite by bringing the bumblebees across to the mainland. A further investigation of that process in Tasmania is something that I do consider.

The issue that pertains to this bill—and we have noted that we will not be supporting the amendment—is trying to get cost recovery. I wish that this was not the case, but, when a nation is left in a position where the current cost streams that have been delivered to us and the current debt that was left with us would lead our nation to a position where we were $667 billion in debt, that is untenable. We cannot end up in that place.

In my own department, on the first day—as you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, when you come into a department, it is like taking over a business—they said: 'Congratulations. Here are your 4½ thousand staff. Here's your budget. And here's $48½ million loss for the previous year. And there's no money, so you've got to try and clean it up.' This leaves you in an invidious position.

The one department that the Labor Party did manage to cut costs in, whether we liked it or not, was agriculture. We went from a budget of about $3½ billion a year down to about $1.7 billion. They just did not believe in that part of the economy, and that is disgraceful. It is so vitally important, Mr Deputy Speaker, to where we go—and you would know this, coming from Townsville, knowing about the live cattle trade that comes out of the port of Townsville and knowing how important the agricultural industry is. I am very proud of the fact that, since we have been there, from the good people of the city of Townsville, the city of Darwin and Northern Australia, over 500,000 head of cattle have now left and we are starting to get money back into that section of the economy. That was cut off at the knees by a ridiculous decision by the previous government.

I was always concerned, too, that with the previous government it seemed like agriculture was the booby prize if you did not get another portfolio. If, at the end of the day, you had not got anything else, it was the last lolly in the jar, and it was: 'Oh, well, you can be the Minister for Agriculture.' That is basically how it was treated.

Mr Broad interjecting—

The member for Mallee clearly understands how important this is. I will give you an example from recent history of how important agriculture is to the coalition. Do you realise that in this nation we thought we were going to make a loss? You see, this is the difference from when they were in government. We did not make a loss. We thought we were going to make a loss of $100 million in January. Mr Deputy Speaker, do you know that in January we made a profit of $1.4 billion, a surplus of $1.4 billion? And guess where a large portion of that came from—agriculture; it came from turning around agriculture.

It was from those terrible people in the live cattle trade putting all those cattle on the boats and getting paid for it so that money could flow into our nation. And those terrible ma-and-pa farmers, as they are pejoratively called by Mr Paul Howes, from the AWU—he used to be a friend of the Leader of the Opposition; I do not know what he is now; 'dangerous', I think, is the best word for him—harvested 17.2 million tonnes of wheat in Western Australia, and they managed to ship in excess of six million tonnes of it. This meant that our nation made money. We actually started getting back into the main frame.

There are two sections in this nation that I think we should be really focused on. There are people in this nation who actually put money on the table. There are others who put it on and take it off, and there are others who produce extremely good social goods, and we need to be mindful of them. But I will tell you the two sections that do it, and Townsville would be very aware of this: agriculture and mining. They put money—big lumps of it—on the table. That is why it is so vitally important that we stand behind our agricultural industry. It should not be some dismissive sideline; it is absolutely vital for where we are going.

In the circumstances we have been left with we unfortunately do have to do cost-recovery—we have to pay our way. We have to make sure that if the costs are out there we cover them. I have debts in this department that we have to clean up. I am also mindful that we have to do this in the most effective and fairest way and make sure people are getting a fair return for the costs that they incur. We have put $15 million aside to try to assist the smaller producers and we will be doing a review to make sure that the charges, especially in the horticultural industry and areas such as that, are fair in how we do this. If we can do it in a cheaper way but with the same outcome then that is what we should endeavour to do. I commend the Quarantine Charges (Imposition—General) Bill 2014.

As we are still talking to the amendment, I will not repeat myself in the concluding speech. This amendment this is just so typical of the Labor Party. We were down there yesterday on a non-controversial bill and all of a sudden guess what happened? The shadow minister, the member for Hunter, jumps up and moves an amendment. I am sitting there at the table and thinking, 'This is news to me.' I said, 'You've got to circulate the amendment.' He says, 'I don't think you have.' The more I looked and the more I thought about it, I thought: 'You know what? He's moving an amendment to the wrong bill. But no-one could be that silly. No-one who holds a shadow ministry could actually move an amendment to the wrong bill.'

I always give people the benefit of the doubt so I very politely and deferentially put a point of order and said to the shadow minister for agriculture, the member for Hunter, 'Excuse me, with the greatest of respect, I think you are moving an amendment to the wrong bill.' He said, 'No, you've got it wrong. This is the amendment.' Then the member for Grayndler—he was a bit like Carl Lewis—came screaming in and said, 'What on earth are you doing?' Then there was a kerfuffle and the member for Hunter went back to these dispatch box and said: 'I apologise. I have made a mistake. It is actually the wrong bill.'

It was wrong in that bill, it is wrong in this bill and we do not support it.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.

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