Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her question, coming from the beef capital of Australia—it is certainly the beef capital of Queensland; I know that Mr Hogan might have a different view about the beef capital of Australia. Certainly the cattle industry has been one of the best examples of a turnaround that has been delivered in the time of the coalition government, no better seen than in the price of cattle, especially 400 kg steers through Roma. When we came into government, back in September 2013, it was less than 150c a kg, and now it is at 300-and-over cents a kg—a 100 per cent increase. This means that there is a real turnaround in the prospects and lives of people—to think that a B-double means that you get well in excess of $100,000 and that comes back to those mums and dads who are the backbone of the cattle industry.

There is so much work that has been done in the cattle industry and you can see it in the free trade agreements that we have delivered to China, Japan, South Korea, to the new live animal destinations that underpin over $14 billion a year that we get from the cattle industry—$12½ billion from slaughter and processing and $1½ billion from live export. We continue to build on that work in the cattle industry by investing in the infrastructure, through such things as the announcement of $100 million for the Winton to Laverton road to connect us up to those in the Gulf Country. Also the money we put into the beef roads; the money that we are putting into further development of markets by having people positioned overseas to drag our product into new markets and expand new markets.

We also noted that, during our time of government, we have had something that has not happened for 50 years—that is, the opening of two new abattoirs since we have been in government. Just recently, Jack Burton over at Broome opened a new abattoir, promoting new jobs for people in those areas, just like the new jobs that are going into the AA Company abattoir in Darwin. This is how we bring the wealth back into our country. This is how we turn things around. Of course, turning things around is vitally important. The Labor Party have obviously got some views about turning things around and had a little problem with the member for Maribyrnong.

I noticed the member for Grayndler was playing touch football today and he was doing a very good job. I noticed that, as the member for Grayndler came onto the field, they said, 'Now, here's a leader. Here is a leader.' That is what the crowd said as the member for Grayndler came on.

See this speech in context