Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have a really good question for the minister for agriculture, but I just want to talk about some of the things that have been happening, because they do feed into my question, which is going to be about the instant asset write-offs in the context of agriculture and horticulture. One of the things that needed to happen was the facilitation of confidence in the agriculture and horticulture sector, particularly the agriculture and horticulture sector in Mildura. When I was VFF president I spent a lot of time walking around the corridors here, trying to advocate to Tony Burke, who was water minister at the time, about the value of the Sunraysia Modernisation Project, a project that was about investing significant amounts of Commonwealth money into our horticultural industry to really grow opportunities. I could not get anywhere with Tony Burke, the water minister at the time.

In contrast, I have to say, has been the work of Barnaby Joyce, as shadow water minister and now as minister for agriculture, to see that project developed. There has been $103 million of federal money and $17 million of irrigators' money. There has been no money from the Victorian Labor government. This federal money has instilled confidence. So you have the first level of confidence, which is that the federal government is putting money into infrastructure. But the next step, the step that I want the minister to answer a question about, is the on-farm instant tax write-offs, the ability to deduct infrastructure, such as irrigation infrastructure.

We are now building infrastructure that is letting people put water to their farms, but we have also created the tax environment on those farms so that those things—those irrigation systems, those trellises—are, I believe, going to be instant tax write-offs. The other thing is that when you grow these great vineyards and you produce these great table grapes—and, I might point out, table grapes that have great market opportunities because of the free trade agreements delivered by our government—you are going to need to pick those table grapes and you are going to put those grapes in one of those little four-wheel drive things they drive around. They call them mules, don't they? I believe they are under $20,000; you can get them for about $15,000. Under the tax regime that our government has delivered, they are currently 100 per cent tax deductible in the very year they are purchased. So, when you think about it, from the very first step of building the water infrastructure—for which Barnaby Joyce has delivered $103 million—to the tax deductibility of building these trellises and putting in the irrigation on the farm and then picking that fruit and taking it in your little mule, which cost less than $20,000, everything is about creating a strong economic framework.

I will also add something about what we, in contrast to the opposition, are doing in the water space. There is now confidence that there will no longer be purchases above a 1,500 gigalitre cap. In my patch Penny Wong is regarded as the worst water minister that the country has ever seen. Not only did she require people to hand over water for five years; she required them to pull up the water infrastructure. That water infrastructure is now being put back into the same blocks from which it was pulled up by Penny Wong, largely under the administration of the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources​.

My question is to the man who is regarded as the most saintly agriculture minister to ever walk on the hallowed grounds of Sunraysia, the man who has delivered $103 million worth of infrastructure, the man who has given tax incentives to farmers to build trellises, the man who has allowed those farmers to deduct the value of their little mules to cart their fruit, the man who has been the strong advocate for selling their products overseas and getting good prices, the man who has put some confidence back into the water market.

My question to the minister is: can you explain just how more asset tax write-offs are helping the people of Sunraysia, because they are obviously very, very happy and were very, very upset with the very poor management we saw on water under Penny Wong and the lack of infrastructure we saw under Tony Burke? That is my question.

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