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

We talk about the free trade agreements. What I am hearing from people on the farms about the free trade agreements is that they actually need water. They need water to be able to grow the produce. They need water. They need decent water policies to ensure they have a product to sell. They need decent infrastructure policies to ensure that they can get their product to port to be able to sell it. When it comes to the free trade agreements, they need a government that is going to focus on the secondary trade barriers, on what is going on in the countries of transit. I have had a number of heartbreaking conversations with producers who have said, 'My product is stuck on a port in China and I am not getting the support I need to get it released.' Where is the government's focus on that?

What we did have come through my part of the world and through regional Victoria was a great roadshow telling them what is great about the free trade agreements. But there was no practical support on how to develop those industries so that they can actually get into those markets and no practical support about what to do when it goes wrong. That is the disappointing thing about this government: we stand up time and time again to talk about levies and to talk about amending levies when that should just be part of the function of government: listening to the industry, addressing the levy issue. But what we do not see is a really concrete plan, a reform and a mature discussion that can actually help build a strong, sustainable agricultural community going forward.

I mentioned the water issue and just a couple of the experiences that I had just in relation to the dairy industry. I can tell you what these dairy farmers will say to me when I go back and say, 'Great news, we have done the amendments around that dairy levy.' They will roll their eyes and say, 'That's great, Lisa, but what about water? I'm still having to pay a ridiculous rate on the temporary water market.'

And how bad is the water issue when it comes to Victoria? I am not the only MP who has been vocal about this; I acknowledge that there are other regional MPs who are vocal about this issue. In our south-west the dairy farmers are saying that there is a water issue, that there are not a lot of good bores out there, that the water is too deep and we just cannot get it. They are saying that we just have not had the rain that we have needed to help our dairy farmers. In warm weather, lactating cows require 150 litres of water per day, and it is literally not there. The farmers are working with the local council, but they are saying that it is getting very tough.

In northern Victoria changes to water policy in the past decade have led to a massive reduction in the available water for irrigation. This has dramatically changed dairy farming in the Murray region. It is the reality. I am not for a moment standing here advocating for a change to environmental water. I believe that is a misdirection about what is happening in the conversation about the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and water. One farmer who I know has made some comments on Facebook that really sum up the crisis and the challenge for some of our dairy farmers:

… due to an unsustainable temp water prices Kyle and I made the extremely tough decision to sell our farm … to our neighbour, this was a very sad day for me as I thought—

this—

… would have been my forever home but sadly not owning any permanent water meant we were at the mercy of the temp water market and we could not make any money buying water at $300 a meg. We are selling the farmer in the north and moving to where it rains in the South West.

This is the real experience of a dairy farmer. They are not talking about levies. They are talking about water.

As I said, I am not for one moment speaking against environmental water. What I am talking about is the lack of a mature conversation about the temporary water market and how it is impacting water prices around the Murray area. I am not trying to argue that all the water woes being experienced by our dairy farmers and other farmers are because of environmental water allocations. They are not.

Earlier this year the new Murray-Darling Basin Authority boss said that recovery of water for the environment is 'the largest single structural adjustment an industry has had to go through'. They are working closely with industry. He also said that it appears the Basin Plan is delivering improvements for native fish, birds and vegetation throughout the Murray-Darling, according to a new report they have just released. This is good news, because it is about getting the balance right between the environment and irrigation water.

But what we have not seen and what this government is only flirting around the edges of is a genuine discussion about temporary water. We need to start asking questions. Is it appropriate to have speculators in the water market? Is it fair and right to have a water market that is structured to maximise the profits of investors before the agricultural and environmental interests of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan? We need to talk about whether it is a free and fair market that we have established in water.

Think about the structures of market based economies. If you are an investor, it is a great deal. You can play the numbers. You know exactly how much the government must allocate in terms of environmental water. You know that figure. You know exactly how much water some industries will need—for almonds or any of those other crops—so you are able to run the numbers and work out what price point you can push farmers to. That is the problem I see that we have with the water market. Yet, rather than having a bold discussion about this issue, the government instead is flirting around the edges of the issue.

Yesterday the federal government released further details of its plan to introduce a national register of foreign ownership of water entitlements. We are not seeing any bold, mature discussion about water. We are seeing the government release a consultation paper on a proposal to introduce a national register of foreign ownership of water entitlements. You could not get further from action. That is saying, 'All we're going to do is talk to you about setting up a register of who owns water.' That is not good enough. That is not bold enough. This is a government that claims to be the voice for the bush, and all it can do in this critical space, when it wants to see us grow our ag industries, to build on the free trade agreements, is to talk about setting up a national register of foreign ownership of water.

A bolder move of the government would be to ask for feedback on whether it is right that we have foreign ownership of our water entitlements. That would have been a bolder move by this government—to go to the question of whether it is right to have foreign ownership of our water and our water entitlements. These are the issues that this government is not willing to tackle head-on and have a mature conversation about. Probably it is because of the split within their own ranks between the city based Liberal MPs and the country based MPs. But your rhetoric will bring you undone. If you are serious about maximising profits in the bush, if you are serious about building the ag industry, if you are serious about ag being the new black and the growth industry that will bring us forward into the next age, where we are going to have a boom, then you need to get serious about the critical infrastructure that will help not just our dairy farmers but our other farmers.

We need to start a mature conversation around water infrastructure. We need to start a mature conversation about energy costs and production costs. This government instead has just dropped the ball. It has stopped talking about energy costs, because they have skyrocketed. It is not serious about an NBN plan, which is another thing that our dairy farmers are crying out for. Only last year in this place, when I was talking to some dairy farmers at a couple of functions that we had up here, one of them said to me: 'Lisa, what I need is the NBN. What I need is to be able to do my farming business, to run my farm and connect to the NBN.' That is not what this government is prioritising.

What this government also needs to prioritise is coming up with a genuine plan on how they can help our dairy farmers develop their markets overseas. Standing up and rattling off the price of milk and farm-gate prices is, quite frankly, not enough. Our farmers and farming communities do want to hear from their government. They do want to make sure that when it comes to building the ag industry, and about staying on the farm, that this government is going to get serious. Legislation after legislation that focuses on levies is lazy ag policy. It needs to happen but it is not the genuine reform that will give legs to the white papers that have been released over and over again.

Whilst Labor supports this bill and congratulates the work that the dairy farmers have done—in the broad consultation that they have done—we advocate that the levy dollars be spent as effectively as possible. We would like to see, and want to see, this funding go into research. We know that a number of our dairy farmers are active in this space because they do want to be the best producers that they can be. It is great to see that partnership going on between industry and our industry research. This levy will help. Let us get serious about infrastructure that will really help our dairy farmers.

See this speech in context