Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

Lyons—look, it has even multiplied! Isn't it great? There is so much going on in his part of the world. It was an interesting conversation. I remembered saying at that point that Tasmania is heralded for the magnificence of its ecosystem in a natural systems sense, an environmental sense, but that we need to make sure that its entrepreneurial ecosystem is nurtured and cared for with the same kind of vigour. We saw a connection between those things, because the export opportunities, particularly into North Asia with those spectacular free trade agreements that Andrew Robb and the team have delivered—and I am sad that the member for Oxley is not here—open up that delicious world of opportunities. The cherry production in Tasmania that is now enchanting those North Asian markets is an extraordinary opportunity, along with other clean, green premium produce, all the way down to some of the abalone—50 per cent of the world's export abalone comes out of Australia, the vast bulk of it out of Tasmania.

I was in China talking to the seven-star restaurant owners in the seven-star hotels, where they want the absolute premium. Guess where they were sourcing that from? Tasmania. People think Tasmania has an abundance of water. It may have a hearty amount of rainfall, but because of that the water storage infrastructure in Tasmania is perhaps not as deep and well developed as it is in other parts of our economy. That is why the asset write-off measure around water investment in the budget is so important. But go a bit further. I think the CSIRO have developed is some technology to remotely diagnose the moisture content in the soils in Tasmania. I am trying to remember the—

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