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

what it is like to be in dairy and what it is like to be in small business. Small business: you have either lived it or you haven't lived. There are so many on our side who have actually had their name at the bottom of the chequebook and the mortgage on the house. We understand that.

I would like to tell the member for Forrest the good news first. Since we have been in power the exports of butter have gone up 61.1 per cent, the exports of skim milk powder by 43 per cent—this is in value, by the way—and the exports of whole milk powder by 60 per cent. In fact, the exports of dairy products in general have gone up by 43 per cent because we are actually doing the business, we are actually moving product.

There is also some bad news, and of course the bad news is on the other side of the chamber. The bad news is the Labor Party, because they still support the carbon tax and the carbon tax is costing every person in their dairy shed in excess of $1,300 a year. It is costing one of our largest dairy producers, Murray Goulburn, $14 million a year. That is $14 million that they could be sending back to farming families.

We used to think they were terminators—even the member for Hunter last week was still a terminator under his breath. I said, 'Mate, you're no longer terminators.' He said, 'Well, I am, I'm still a little bit of a terminator.' You were a massive terminator, you were a massive terminator, but no longer. I think the only terminators that are left in the Labor Party—

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