Cathy McGowan (Indi, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to speak the Farm Household Support Amendment Bill 2017, and I acknowledge the comments of the member for Murray and the member for Hunter. I say to the minister: thank you for what you have done, but it is not nearly enough. I pick up the point that the member for Murray made about Senator McKenzie's visit. It is true; it is absolutely true that the senator came to Indi, to Murray, to Gippsland and to Corangamite. She did listen, that is true; however, where we have a massive failure is with the action taken from the listening. It is really fantastic the government comes and listens, but if it fails to take action on what our farmers are saying it is for nought. I have Senator McKenzie's report here, which I acknowledge. There are nine recommendations and areas for action; however, in this particular piece of legislation—which is great to see—before the House only two get addressed. So there is a long, long way to go. I have to say to the minister: consultation is important, but if you fail to act you lose the trust of the people you have been consulting with.

Let us leave that aside, because part of the discussion I want to have today is about the fact the crisis has not gone away and there is still a lot to be done. I am really pleased that the member for Murray acknowledges that the government sees there is a crisis. That is good. The second thing I would like to talk about in my speech today is what is happening in northeast Victoria with a fantastic, innovative, local grassroots model of how communities are getting together to actually take action on their behalf.

But first I need to talk about some of the indicators that the crisis has not gone away, that we are not debating in isolation here. In my own area, the charitable donations and money in terms of food vouchers—$45,000—is almost gone. There is nothing left in the local kitty to give out to farmers. There are a number of reasons for this. Farmers are either not getting farm household allowance, which the member for Hunter talked about, or, if they do get the allowance, for many of them it is very, very low. Businesses in the area are also struggling: they are not getting paid because the dairy farmers cannot pay their bills. There is a lot of financial pain and there are mental health issues, and increasingly people are not in a fit state to make good business decisions. There is underlying anger; people are in shock and they are struggling. There is a whole lot of evidence that it has not gone away. There are real problems that were identified in Senator McKenzie's good report and the government needs to take action urgently on it. That report is before the House; it does not need any more words from me.

I would now like to particularly focus my comments on some of the fantastic work that is happening in northeast Victoria. At this point I would like to acknowledge some of the members in the public gallery today. It is great to have you here. Thanks for making the effort to come to Canberra. What I want to talk about is northeast Victoria and the Alpine Valleys. The Alpine Valleys are the Kiewa Valley, the Mitta Valley and the Murray Valley, and a bit of the Ovens and King valleys. This community have got together and they have formed a grassroots community group called the Alpine Valleys Dairy Pathways Project. They have done some really strategic thinking about global impacts on dairying and how they can work locally. I am very proud to be their representative and to bring to the House a model of how we can manage and work with the crisis we are facing, and I call on the government to see, in partnership with this community group, if we can replicate it in other areas of the dairy industry and agricultural industries. This model has got huge potential to get grassroots communities, local government authorities, state governments and industry to all work together. I am a really big advocate for that and I would like to bring it to the attention of the minister at the table, the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, and say: can we think about how this model can be duplicated in other communities?

In acknowledging the work of this committee, and I am going to talk about it in some detail, I would like to put in Hansard the tremendous leadership role of the Alpine Valleys Dairy Pathways Project in their community and to say thank you to Stuart. And in talking about Stuart, I also acknowledge the role of Sarah and all of the partners. We all know these things do not happen—there is no such thing as 'a farmer'; there are farming families and farming businesses. So I acknowledge you—Lauren, Scott, Pat, Patten and Lachie—and all of your families. I also acknowledge the members of the steering committee: the North East CMA; the local processor Murray Goulburn; the North East Local Learning and Employment Network; Murray Dairy, which is the Commonwealth government and local research and development team; Rural Financial Counselling Service; the local governments of Indigo, Wangaratta, Towong, and Alpine, who form the steering committee; and the education services and providers who are also there. The steering committee is wide-reaching and it covers off most of the service providers and the farmers in the Alpine Valleys.

The AVDPP was established in 2011 and it is a unique model. It began as a grassroots movement driven by farmers, and is now actively supported by all of those people on the steering committee. The project's aim is to provide strong, consistent and cohesive messages about how we can work together to grow and develop dairying in northeast Victoria. It decided to take a leadership role. It set clear goals. It has a comprehensive strategic plan to actually grow milk production 80 per cent by 2025, and that would actually mean growing the local industry by 400 million litres in the Alpine Valleys by 2025. Recent Dairy Australia figures indicate milk production in the region has already increased by 30 per cent in the last 10 years, despite the drought, so there is so huge potential to grow it more.

The Alpine Valleys Dairy Pathways Project model has proven a powerful tool in creating change and has delivered several high-quality projects to date which focus on education, farm succession planning and transition, and planning for growth. It has grown to be a well respected voice for the dairy industry in north-east Victoria. We are seeing great change happen across all levels of government because of this community leadership.

I would like to read into the Hansard and bring to the attention of the government some of the priority areas that the Alpine Valleys Dairy Pathways Project members are working in and are considering for the future. They are looking for a medium- to long-term planning approach so, as we move through this discussion of farm household support, we have actually got to think about the medium and long term. We have got to talk about water security. We need to talk about supporting farm succession and transition. We need to talk about agriculture in schools. We need to talk about place based ownership and solutions. The logic of one size fitting everybody just does not work in rural and regional Australia. As we heard in the discussion about child care, we have got to be able to have place based solutions that respond to local needs.

We really need to keep up with technology and innovation. There has been a resounding call from me, as the member for Indi, that we have got to do better with NBN. We have got to do better with mobile phones because these dairy businesses are hugely technologically connected. Moving your electric fences and doing all the work that comes with it relies on technology that relies on mobile phone connectivity. I will talk in another time and place about how disappointed I am that the mobile phone project ended, that there is no money for round 4.

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