Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This Rural Research and Development Legislation Amendment Bill 2014 is an interesting one. I say that because it comes at a time when this government is cutting so much money from research and development. It is cutting funding from the CSIRO of $146.8 million, which will cost about 500 jobs; it is cutting $11 million in appropriate funding for the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation; and there is an $80 million reduction to the Cooperative Research Centres Program. This is at the same time as there is a radical overhaul going on of our universities, where we will see funding cuts to our regional universities.

So it strikes me as odd that they would stand up here and say that the government is a champion of regional research and development when, in fact, it is a bit of a smokescreen: 'Here is a small amount of funding, whilst we cut over here to the left and over here to the right and radically restructure universities.'

The member for Indi raised this issue in her contribution to this debate around the effects of funding cuts to our regional universities. It is pretty hard to have the scientists that you need for regional and rural development and research if you do not have university students. I wanted to start my contribution on the effects that this government will have on higher education when it comes to science, industry and the regions.

We are concerned—regional MPs—particularly those on this side of the House, about the government's effects on science and on ag in our part of the world. We have already had the Melbourne university close its agricultural campus, Dookie, and it is now running agriculture from its campus in the inner city of Melbourne. It is pretty hard to be actively involved in the grassroots of your industry if you are in the city at an inner city based campus. Sure, you can jump on a train—if it runs on time—and get out to the ag areas. But one of the real strengths of having a strong, grassroots-driven, research, innovation and development sector is if the science, the study and the expertise are occurring in the very communities where the industry is based. And yet we are seeing the very opposite occur as this government pushes to deregulate the university sector—as they start to talk about deregulating fees, which will only see an increase in fees for the vast majority on campus and as they promote how good the scholarship fund will be for regional students so that they can go to a Melbourne or city based university.

What they are not talking about is the negative impact this reform will have on agricultural studies and on science studies. The member for Indi has already told us that there is a shortfall of at least 4,000 skilled professionals that we require in the regions. This is an issue that comes up over and over again in the roundtables and discussions that I have with the industries in my electorate. I come from quite a big regional producing area, central Victoria. Bendigo city itself has become a hub for our region, whether it is people in agriculture doing their finances and their banking in our area or whether it is the head offices of organisations such as the Victorian Farmers Federation, which now has an office in Bendigo. Bendigo is definitely a hub for the regional agricultural sector. Locally it is one of our biggest employers. There are more people involved in agriculture and food manufacturing now than there are in heavy manufacturing in my electorate. The big employers in my electorate are Hazeldene's, Tip Top Bakeries and KR Castlemaine. We also have a number of people who work in Hy-Line Australia and in B&B Basil.

I mention Hy-Line and B&B Basil because they are two agricultural businesses that could benefit from this particular fund. The story of B&B Basil is one of those great innovative regional success stories. They produce the microherbs or the garnishes that you have on your dinner plate. So successful has their business been that they are now exporting their microherbs overseas. They have talked to me about the need for greater assistance when it comes to Austrade, not so much in the way of R&D but the need for Austrade to support developing markets for their products. They have basically done it on their own, with the help of other local manufacturers. Where R&D has been important in their organisation is to develop the equipment that they need to grow their microherbs. As you can imagine, it is not your average planter that is required to grow microherbs; it is quite a small container that is required. So they have also needed quite a bit of innovation when it comes to the equipment on their property.

Hy-Line is an interesting business. Most may not realise what it actually does or that it is based in Bendigo. It is the largest specialist supplier of day-old chicks for the poultry industry. In fact, 70 per cent of our hens that lay eggs have come from this facility based in Bendigo. For more than 50 years, Hy-Line has provided the Australian poultry industry with the livestock that they need to lay eggs. They talk to me about the importance of biosecurity—which is another debate for another day—and they also talk to me about the need for R&D. More importantly, they talk to me about another area where this government has failed them, and that is having the infrastructure and the technology that they need to be able to continue to manage their business effectively. They talk to me about the need for a decent NBN and the need to be able to monitor the climate conditions of their facilities via a closed-circuit network. But, because they do not have a fast-speed broadband network, with the upload that they require, they struggle to do that.

It is another area where this government is letting regional and agribusinesses down. When I talk to young farmers, they have the apps ready to go for how to monitor their livestock. They are innovating in science, yet they cannot connect properly because this government is dragging its feet when it comes to vital infrastructure. It is another example of how this bill is designed to be a great big smokescreen, to pretend that this government is doing something when it comes to research and development and innovation in agriculture. Yet there are so many other areas where this government is failing.

There are a number of niche businesses in the electorate of Bendigo: wineries, bakeries, coffee roasters, olive oil processors, honey producers and craft beer producers. These are all boutique niche industries that are developing product and getting it ready for market. All of these businesses struggle with their own issues when it comes to export. Their issues include not being able to get past the red tape at the other end when it comes to New York or China, say. They want to see this government investing more in Austrade being able to resolve some of those issues. One particular winery do not want to import wine into New York; they just want to send the wine to a taster, and those tasting notes will be how they then onsell their product into Hong Kong and other parts of Asia. So they do not actually want to sell the product; they just want to get it to the taster so that his tasting notes will then help them market their business. To date, they have struggled to have somebody help them resolve the receiving end in New York. These are some of the challenges that people in my electorate talk to me about that they face in the agricultural industry.

This bill talks about research and development corporations. These were created by Labor in the late eighties to undertake scientific research for the benefit of Australian rural industries that would flow on to the community and the nation more broadly. The government would put half the amount, matching dollar for dollar, into R&D if the industry levy was able to come up with the funds—a co-funding model. Labor will fight to protect the original model we had when it comes to R&D, and the reason is the acknowledgement on this side that government does have a role in creating industry. As other speakers have said, within this particular co-funding arrangement there needs to be, as the NFF have called for, some form of sunset clause so that we can continue to come back to assess whether this is the right model.

Labor's R&D model is working with industry. It is not telling industry what to do but facilitating and encouraging partnership. Labor's model brought together the universities, brought together the skills, brought together the industry and brought together the government, brought together the CSIRO and brought together other organisations to help create product, to help create the innovation.

There is another area that this government is failing when it comes to this particular sector. Constantly the government stands up and says: agriculture is the future industry for jobs, we will be the food bowl of Asia and we will help feed Asia, which, in turn, will create exports and that, in turn, will create jobs. But I ask the government: who will actually work these jobs? Because there is a growing problem in our agricultural sector. A lot of the work that it is being created, a lot of the jobs are going to people who are not just on 457 visas but to people who are international students working in ag businesses on 416 visas or 417 visas, which are holiday working visas. We are not just talking about one or two; we are talking about organised workforces being brought into Australia to do these food production jobs.

In my own electorate, there are what we call boners at Hazeldene's. Hazeldene's is a company that employs about 800 people directly. But what we often do not hear is that they also employ about 200 contractors. These workers are on Thai holiday work visas. They come over here specifically for these jobs. So before these jobs are being advertised locally, there are Thai people brought to Australia specifically for these jobs. They are employed as contractors and are paid per kilo for boning chicken. That is the kind of job that we are creating at the moment in the agricultural sector. We are not creating high skilled jobs. We are not creating jobs where Australians will get first go at them.

The jobs being created in the ag sector are actually jobs going to imported labour that undercuts local labour. There is no way you can be an Australia and be employed in Hazeldene's and paid to bone chickens by the kilo. To be employed as an Australian in Hazeldene's, you are not a contractor; you are on the union based EBA and you are paid by the hour. We are creating this competition in our agricultural workplaces. Again, it is quite easy for these companies like Hazeldene's to say it is because there is no skilled workforce locally.

We have heard, yes, it is true when it comes to the high-tech, high end jobs—because we are struggling—to get universities through the funding cuts to ensure that we have the skilled workforce. But at the lower end, when it comes to the unskilled jobs, there are people willing to work; they are just not be given the opportunity.

As I said, this bill cuts funding to research and development specifically in the rural research and development area. There are $80 million in reductions to the cooperative research centres; $164.8 million in cuts to the CSIRO, which will cost about 5,000 jobs. There are more are more examples about how this government is willing to hide behind the smokescreen of this legislation but not talk about the real challenges that are going on in agriculture. The current funding cuts, the challenges with the workforce and not hiring locals and the challenges when it comes to the NBN and making sure that these businesses have the infrastructure that they need are the issues that this government is not talking about.

See this speech in context