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

This bill, as the previous speakers have outlined, is about exports. In regional areas, the conversation about exports is one that we have quite frequently. Being able to export produce is one of the major economic drivers, particularly in central Victoria. We on this side of the House have said that we will be supporting the Export Control Amendment (Quotas) Bill 2015 as it will bring regulation of all commodity quotas under the same legislation. So this is not one of those red tape repeal days that we have seen from the government. This is smart, sensible policy that will help our government and our exporters by having a simpler system in place, with the regulation of all commodity quotas under the same legislation. So it is a bit of tidy-up work, but it will help our exporters.

This bill will enable all quota export certification arrangements for agriculture to be carried out under a common set of powers. This is important when you are dealing with agricultural industries, because quite often producers have multiple agricultural products and when they are under separate regimes it can get quite complicated. Red tape, bureaucracy, is something that comes up more often than you would expect when you are talking to the agricultural industries, farmers and producers. So, being able to have a situation where there is a common set of powers is a smart move and one that we support.

The government has assured us that stakeholders have been consulted to ensure that these quotas meet with their expectations. Stakeholders that have been consulted include many that have produce that is produced in my region. What is it that we export from my part of the world, from the area of Greater Bendigo? When you say 'Bendigo', many think about the township and do not realise that we have quite a large agricultural area and farming in the Greater Bendigo area and the Bendigo electorate. Since 2008-09, there has been an almost 16 per cent increase in our exports internationally. There has been growth in a number of areas. Believe it or not, mining is back on the agenda in Bendigo. We have started mining again and that is where one of the big increases has been. Manufacturing continues to be a big source of our exports, particularly heavy-metal manufacturing. Food processing and food manufacturing is an area that is on the increase. That was before we locked in the free trade agreements. There is food manufacturing and slaughter houses. We heard from previous speakers about meat processing. We have meat processing in the Bendigo electorate, in Kyneton and in parts of Castlemaine, and further north there is food manufacturing. As I said, it accounts for a significant proportion of income that is generated locally. In other parts of our area we export our stone fruit and our apples. Increasingly, though, our apples are being turned into cider. Wine industries is an area that is growing and winemakers are keen to get their product, their boutique wine, into industries overseas.

I want to focus on a couple of our export success stories. We have Hardwicks in Kyneton. It traditionally started out as a domestic business, but now they maintain a tier 1 export licence and have been exporting chilled lamb and frozen lamb produce and chilled beef and frozen beef produce all over the world. When I last caught up with them, about 30 per cent of what they produce goes from the farms that we have in the north to Kyneton and then overseas. For people who do not know, Kyneton is a township of about 6,000. Hardwicks is one of the major employers in the town—in fact, it is one of the largest private employers that we have in the town. They employ just over 300 people locally. It is a 24-hour operation that they have through their processing. They have workforce issues, and I will come back to those in a moment.

I will give an example of how relevant exports are export industries are to Central Victoria. What we also know through previous speakers is that our farmers tend to diversify. They have multiple production and cropping going on to ensure that they are getting best value and best bang for their land. We have had tough times in Central Victoria this season, not as tough as the Mallee and not as tough as parts of the Murray, but we have had a number of crops fail this year because they did not get rain at the right time. It is a good start to the season, but they did not get the right rain, so we are not going to see growth in those export markets next year, which is why they are hoping to do well in other crops in the future. Hay, believe it or not, is a new crop that more and more of the farmers in our part of the world are transitioning to, because, as the live cattle export trade grows, they need to take with them Australian hay for the Australian cattle to eat whilst they are in transit. In the north of the Bendigo region, around Goornong, more and more of our farmers are switching to hay so that can be transported and exported with our live cattle trade. Ensuring that we have a robust and rigid export system is critical.

Just to support the comments made by the member for Hunter, what the farmers and the producers in my area are now saying is: 'Great. Done. Tick. Free trade agreements are in, but what about the nontariff barriers? What about how I get my product into the port?' The shadow minister for agriculture is absolutely right that only part of the job has been done by this government. It is good that we have now secured these free trade agreements for the agricultural sector. It has come at the expense of other jobs in our economy and, without the safeguards that were put in place, it was going to come at the expense of a significant number of local jobs in trades. But, now that those safeguards have been adopted, we hope that we will not see the high levels of exploitation in the China free trade agreement that could have happened, with a local workforce.

What needs to now happen to ensure we can maximise the potential of the trade agreements is an effort by this government to deal with the nontariff barriers. I mentioned wine industries. We have more wineries in the Bendigo electorate than we have schools. We have a brilliant network of winemakers that produce beautiful boutique wine, but they sometimes struggle to get their product off the port. In a place like China, every region has a different set of rules. If your wine is going into the Guandao province, there is a different set of rules to wine going into Shanghai. I will quite often get calls from really stressed out local winemakers saying, 'What can you do to help me? My wine is stuck in the port' or 'My wine is stuck here in China, overseas.' Unlike Japan, where we have a well-established, centralised and mature trading relationship, a lot of our Chinese relationships have blossomed overnight. We need to start focusing on how we can help these businesses with the nontariff barriers that currently exist.

This is an issue that is being faced not just by winemakers in Bendigo but by a lot of groups, and they are starting to get very vocal about it. Agricultural exporters say that non-tariff barriers to trade remain a problem, despite recent free trade agreements. They have welcomed the government announcing five agricultural counsellors for overseas ports and they hope that will help fix the problem, but it is not enough if you think about the size to which we want to grow our export industry. This is supposed to be how we get our country growing again. Everyone keeps saying ag is the new black. It has the potential to be the major employer of our economy. If we are serious about that then we need to be able to complete the process and deal with these non-tariff barriers.

There is a strong sense of urgency when it comes to some of our commodities, such as stone fruit and mangoes. Horticultural Exporters' Association executive director Michelle Cristoe said there is an urgent need to address market access. She said they have had market failure this season and therefore will not achieve market access in regions that can make a significant difference. It is so much harder with mangoes. If you have a problem with mangoes getting stuck in a port or trying to get them into one market, it is not like wine, which can sit around for a couple of weeks, even though that hurts the cash flow. Mangoes go off. So there is a need for us to start tackling these non-tariff barriers as soon as possible.

We also heard the Cattle Council's chief executive officer saying that:

… free trade agreements, while welcome, did not address technical issues.

"We've done some research through Meat and Livestock Australia which has identified that as being significant. We've been working with the government to try and address those issues," he said.

This is another example of how this government needs to start getting on with the work. You cannot just do one part; you have to address all the issues.

There have been problems with China, which suspended all Australian chilled beef imports in 2013 after reviewing its health protocols. There have been problems identified with America to do with certain labelling requirements. These are some of the challenges that we have in front of us. We need to address the non-tariff barriers to investment and government-to-government relationships. We need to help not only our producers; we need to develop a mature trading relationship so that we can resolve issues when they arise.

I also want to touch very quickly on the fact that, if we are serious about building on the potential of the export industry, we need to be developing a skilled workforce locally. We have heard lots of rhetoric from the government and its ministers about how great these free trade agreements will be for local jobs. But without significant safeguards in place to ensure that people working in those industries are not exploited they will not generate the many jobs the government have talked about. In fact, the minister herself has been caught out misleading the Senate on how many jobs these free trade agreements will create. In the space of 10 years the evidence in the modelling shows that about 14,000 jobs will be created as a result of these free trade agreements. If you put that into context, this government has sacked over 16,000 public servants since coming to office. So it is not going to be the great job generator that the government is claiming it will be.

Also we know the ag industry is heavily reliant upon overseas temporary workers. Weekly, if not daily, there is a media report about the exploitation of temporary workers. People who come here as a guest worker, whether they be an international student, a young person here on a working holiday or someone here on a 457 visa, should be paid the same wages under the same conditions as Australian workers. In our ag industry, we have had some of the most grievous and shameful examples of exploitation—such as people being paid as little as $8 an hour or, in some cases, $4 an hour and people who have had their passports confiscated from them by the agency they are working for. The farmers say they want to help clean it up. We need the government to step in and stop ignoring this problem and help clean it up.

If we are serious about exploring and celebrating the potential of exports, if we are serious about being a country that makes things and exports things, if we are serious about having ag be one of our growth industries for good jobs and profits in this country, we need to tackle the things that are not in this bill. We need to tackle the non-tariff barriers through good relationships with countries overseas and we need to tackle the workforce pressures that we currently have.

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