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

This has been a great budget that builds on the $4 billion agricultural white paper. We have been doing so much in agriculture within the coalition. It has been an incredible success. There is no-one who denies the fact that, to December last year, we had a 23.7 per cent increase in the value of agriculture. This has been spectacular. It is spectacular when you consider that, in the last section of the Labor-Independent-Greens alliance government, agriculture actually reduced by 0.5 per cent. We are really turning the show around.

There are things that we have done. We have also invested in core funding requirements, such as biosecurity, and we are currently dealing with issues such as white spot disease. We had great success in areas such as Panama race 4, which was a threat to the half-a-billion-dollars-a year banana industry of North Queensland. I know that the member for Capricornia is very aware of that. We have had some success, against all odds, in that space, and it just goes to show that investment in biosecurity actually brings real dividends.

We have also included in this budget $4.1 billion worth of resourcing for the agriculture and water resources portfolio. We have had to deal with a whole range of issues, such as funding cliffs in the water section of the portfolio. We have managed to get these financed, and we are driving forward two agendas that will see the completion of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan—something that people were sceptical about when we brought water back into agriculture, but that is now delivering real outcomes and real delivery in this very serious portfolio section.

We continue on our program of farm support. Well over 7,000 people have had access to the farm household allowance to try and help them through the tougher times. We are now rolling out well in excess of $600 million in concessional loans. That is working on the back of starting the process of establishing the Regional Investment Corporation, which we have now brought about. It will be based in Orange. It is a multibillion-dollar organisation. It just shows the dynamism that the coalition has in this area.

We worked very closely with the infrastructure portfolio on the delivery of such things as the $8.4 billion into the Inland Rail. This will be a huge boon to the development of sections of Victoria—right up into Wodonga through Seymour; through western New South Wales; through Parkes; through Narrabri; through Moree; right up into Queensland; into Goondiwindi; through to Toowoomba; and, of course, to the bookends of Brisbane and Melbourne. I know that you yourself, Deputy Speaker Coulton, are very aware of this major delivery that we have brought about and what a huge assistance it will be to the agricultural sector in those areas. It goes hand in glove with Roads to Recovery and the Bridges Renewal Program. All of these things are about refurbishment to assist the record turnaround that we have seen in the agricultural sector in Australia.

We continue to stand behind the live export trade. We made sure that we worked very assiduously to get the Livestock Global Assurance Program in place. This has meant that we continue to see those record prices bring real prosperity to people up in the gulf and in Western Australia. This goes to show that we take this portfolio incredibly seriously and have definitely made it a pillar of government that is delivering back in spades.

On agricultural levies, we have introduced a plant health levy of 0.1 of a cent per kilogram for avocados. We have increased the plant health levy on bananas and rounded up the banana marketing levy to 1.15c per kilogram. We have reduced the emergency response levy on laying chickens. As for seed cotton, we have introduced an export charge of $4.06 a tonne on seed exports. These show the matching funding of government and how we are investing continually in research and development—driving forward so that we not only have an agricultural sector that is one of the best in the world, if not the best in the world, but also continue to maintain it as one of the best in the world through the research we are doing.

The thoroughbred-horse-breeding sector has also come into the levy system now. It has been a big fight, but we have managed to deliver a levy system there because we know how important that also is to regional Australia and to the racing industry. What a huge employer they are in our areas. As for departmental staffing, the level of staffing in the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources for 2017-18 will be 4,488 people. That is a slight decrease of 43 in the final figures, but it just goes to show the massive investment that we have made. (Time expired)

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