Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

It is fortuitous that I be here to follow the member for Capricornia and to deal with some of the propositions that she has put forward. I say this very clearly to the Nationals and members of the Liberal Party who represent rural and regional seats: it takes more in our electorates than rebadging Labor's spending priorities and spending them as your own.

You never hear government members talk about all the money that was flowing to rural and regional Australia, which now does not flow because of the early decisions of the coalition government. Regional Development Australia funding is the perfect example. I can cite the case in my own electorate of $7 million that should have gone to the refurbishment of the Maitland mall as an example. That was set in stone by the former Labor government. It went through a cabinet process—I was part of that process—and it was determined on the basis of recommendations of the department. Yet it was not honoured by the incoming Abbott government.

Every time Minister Truss approaches the despatch box during question time, much to the ire of the member for Grayndler, the former minister for transport, he cites projects the Nationals or the coalition is rolling out in rural and regional Australia, in terms of roads in particular. These are projects Minister Truss takes credit for, but which were selected, determined and funded by the former, Labor government. The truth is that this coalition government has not spent one additional cent on any of those projects—not one cent which was not already planned to be spent by the former, Labor government, and fully budgeted for by the former, Labor government. So let us not hear the rebadging. Please let us hear the coalition plan for rural and regional Australia. Where is their vision for rural and regional Australia? Where is their strategy to ensure that rural and regional Australia receives a fair amount of attention as compared to our cities when it comes to the priorities of this government?

Let's talk about some of the more bizarre decisions that have been made recently by this coalition government, which run contrary to the interests of rural and regional Australia. Let's go through all those budget measures. There have been cuts in education, cuts in health and GP co-payments, which seem to have gone away for the moment, but we will see where that goes. I suspect there is another hit coming on patients, which will only be rebranded and will come in a different form. There have been fuel increases on motorists in rural and regional Australia. All these budget measures impact adversely and disproportionately on people living in rural and regional Australia, including those who live in my electorate of Hunter.

Let's take the recent decision or proposals to lower the thresholds of the Foreign Investment Review Board. This is populist politics at its worst. We know that there is concern—particularly in rural and regional Australia—about the growing levels of foreign investment in our agricultural land and our agricultural investment. The secret to this is to build public confidence in foreign investment, because we know from the Greener pastures report—thanks to one of the other side's own members—that by 2050 we will need about $500 billion in agriculture investment to fully capitalise on the opportunities presented by what I call the dining boom. I am talking of the ever-increasing demand for high-quality, clean, green food in Asia.

Let's say, that the Greener pastures report was not all that robust. Let's accept, for a moment, that it will not be $500 billion but it will be $250 billion by 2050. It is axiomatic that, as a small island continent with 23 million people with a limited savings capacity, that most of those funds will, by necessity, come from foreign sources, as has always been the case in Australia. Our country is built on foreign capital, effectively—iconic projects like the Sydney Harbour Bridge being the perfect example.

So we should be welcoming of foreign investment in agriculture and in agricultural business. We desperately need that foreign capital. And we need to put that 'we are open for business' sign out. Otherwise—thanks to the member for Hume, was it?—we will have a shortfall; we will not be in a position to capitalise on those opportunities in Asia. Instead of building public confidence in foreign investment, as we first proposed to do with a register—which would allow people everywhere to see who was investing in what and where, and how much they were investing, so that people could have confidence in the system—those opposite went out and fiddled with the thresholds. They have taken the thresholds from a quarter of a million dollars to $15 million, in the case of agricultural land. We still do not know what the agribusiness threshold will be, because they have not guesstimated that yet. They have not been able to agree on that. I suspect coalition members are still arguing. The dries in the cabinet want one figure and the more progressive, I will call them—I think they would like that term—want another figure.

So they make the announcement but say: 'Don't worry; we will work out the figure for agribusiness somewhere in the future.' Meanwhile, investors in Asia and elsewhere are saying: 'What the?' They do not know what the rules are. And, by the way, there is no legislation. There is no law. It will be retrospective, though, I am told, when the law comes into this place. But, in the meantime, investors right around the world—in a world where competition for global capital is intense—do not know what the rules are in Australia. So guess what? They are looking at South Africa; they are looking at South America; they are looking at Australia. They all have great potential to provide yields well beyond what an investor might get domestically in, say, China. They are looking at the three opportunities and they are going: 'Australia—eh-eh.'

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