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

I thank the honourable member for his question. Coming from the seat of O'Connor, he, more than anybody else, would know about the sort of vision that is required to build a nation, because it was O'Connor who put the pipeline in from the coast to open up the goldfields around Kalgoorlie. It is this government that continues on with that water infrastructure program in building dams and making sure that the lives of people are going to be better by making sure we have that investment. The member for O'Connor is a person who has been part of that area since 1867—he is still on the family farm—so he has a strong history in the area.

It is very important that the Australian people and, indeed, the people of Western Australia understand how important it is that we expand our agricultural production into new markets. We have to be the economic managers who deal with issues such as the downturn in harder commodities, such as coal and iron ore, by expanding our exports of soft commodities, for which agriculture is such a vital part.

Through the work that we have done in the Korean free trade agreement, we have seen beef go from $423.6 million in January to June 2014 to $550.8 million after the free trade agreement in January to June 2015. It is a 30 per cent increase.

Mr Champion interjecting—

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