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

I thank the honourable member for her question. The honourable member, more than most, understands the privations that come from being on a family farm and working hard to deliver to a marketplace a product that is part of the sustenance of everybody. The honourable member has taken an active and physical role in developing and growing their family business, which still includes working with Kim and their daughter-in-law, Deanna.

It is a bit of a shame that the family farm and the benefits of the family farm are not appreciated as much on the other side. It was with some sadness that I saw the member for Hunter's comments on his willingness to accept more consolidation and corporatisation in the sector. This is from Hansard on 26 November. He says that 'it is a reality of the sector that further consolidation will be necessary.'

It is not so much that I am against it, but the ABS report that was out today says that large family farms have generated, on average, higher returns than their corporate counterparts, and family farms have also provided most of the capital for the Australian farm sector. It is very important that we understand what drives this. We on this side believe in the aspiration of the person who starts at the bottom and makes their way to the top, makes their way through the economic and social stratification by their own endeavours, by the sweat of their own brow, by working hard. That is what we believe in. So often it is the case that when people go on the land they buy an asset which makes them equity poor and cash poor at the start. As they work hard their capital base increases, but they remain cash poor and they go without. They go through the probation of not having the best car, of not going on the holiday that other people go on, of not having the accoutrements that come for a person on a regular wage—such as clothes and all of the other bits and pieces that come from having a regular wage. They do this over the longer term because they believe in the capital gain that awaits them at the end. They believe that, after all that hard work and after having to deal with the vagaries of the climate, they will have that capital gain.

But, of course, what the other side believe in is not so much standing up for those people and the sacrifices they make but making sure that they tax them more—making sure that they put their hands into their efforts over so many years. We are going to stand behind the efforts and the entrepreneurship that come from the so many people who, through the history of this nation, have gone west and gone to the remote regions to carve out an existence that has benefited not only them but our nation in whole. We do not believe that, after all of their endeavours and all of their work, we will allow the taxation department, on behalf of the Australian Labor Party, to take that effort away from them so that they, alike, end up being cash poor, asset poor and having missed all of the advantages that, otherwise, they would have got from the remaining of a coalition government in power.

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