David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Hansard source

Can I thank the member for Flynn, who is a real fighter for the people of Flynn. I was fortunate enough to visit his electorate and go across the length and breadth of it, and talk to his farmers at their kitchen tables and have a look at the innovation that takes place on their farms. I was fortunate enough to meet with Smart Berries in Mundubbera, a town of a thousand people. But, at the height of their picking season, they employ up to 500 people, which is a huge influx into a community like that.

When I sit at their kitchen tables and talk to them they tell me the most important things to them are the trade agreements that we've put in place that are allowing them to put their product right around the world and will allow them to get into markets they don't have at the moment—the free trade agreements that we've done with Japan, Korea and China, and now the TPP if only we have some support from the other side. But I don't know whether that's going to come, because the tinfoil-hat approach to trade on the other side of the House is something that's going to hold back agriculture. This is something that would drive growth and jobs in regional and rural Australia. And it's not just at the farm gate that you get the returns; it's in the small communities that support those farms. I can tell you it's from St George to Blackbutt and down to Colac. Those are the communities that take advantage of the free trade agreements. We're putting in the framework and the environment for our farmers to invest back into their farms, and complementing that with the tax cuts we are giving them. They are real tax cuts, because we on this side have employed people. We know what it's like. We know what the pressure is like—

Mr Conroy interjecting—

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