Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

The Imported Food Control Amendment (Country of Origin) Bill 2017 repeals and replaces the definition of 'national standard' in the Imported Food Control Act. The former Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources stated in his second reading speech that the bill was 'an important final step' in implementing country-of-origin labelling reforms. I think that is an overstatement and a dubious statement, I might say. This is a minor amendment that will ensure that authorised officers can continue to enforce country-of-origin labelling requirements for imported food products. At this stage, Mr Deputy Speaker Vasta, I'd like to move the second reading amendment that has been circulated in my name. I move:

That all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

'whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes that a distracted Turnbull Government has failed to implement effective policies in a timely manner to ensure that Australian agriculture is achieving its full potential'.

The House will recall that, some time ago, there was a shocking outbreak of hepatitis A, which at the time was attributed to frozen berries imported from China. As I understand it, that link was never actually established, which is unfortunate—not unfortunate that it wasn't associated with the berries but unfortunate that there wasn't any final determination about the source of that outbreak. But at the time, the minister of the day, the member for New England, rather than admit there had been a flaw in our system, decided to turn the debate away from the importation regime and the checks around that to a debate on country-of-origin labelling, which is how we found ourselves on this path. That is the country-of-origin labelling regime that we now have, which has been somewhat of a fizzer. The fact is that the imported berries that came into Australia back then were clearly marked 'product of China'. It wasn't in any way an issue relating to country-of-origin labelling.

But, since the introduction—with great fanfare—of the new fuel-gauge type country-of-origin labelling regime we now have in place, things have gone very, very quiet. I challenge members of the House to find anyone in their constituencies who is familiar with the new country-of-origin labelling regime or, in particular, whether they find it any more helpful or any more informative than the old regime. From my experience, members are highly unlikely to find any people who think that those changes have been in any way relevant. In fact, the labelling still doesn't tell you where the food has been imported from. On that basis, the fuss was about nothing more than distracting people's attention from the failings of this government in allowing an outbreak to occur in this country at that time.

I note that, despite all the rhetoric that comes from those opposite about agriculture and our food system, there is not one member of the coalition speaking on this bill. I made the point earlier when I was speaking on the appropriation bills that in that debate also there weren't any members of the coalition speaking on the coalition bills. Everyone who has been in this place for longer than five minutes knows that we all—or certainly the overwhelming majority of us—take the opportunity to speak on an appropriation bill because it is a bill on which you can speak about any matter you like. You cannot be called on relevance when speaking on an appropriation bill, because you can speak on any matter.

So it appears that those opposite have nothing to say about the government's performance and its budget and have nothing to say about matters in their electorates and have no concerns amongst their constituents that they want to raise in the appropriations debate. One can come to a number of conclusions. It might be that they are all too embarrassed to stand up and defend this government, which is a highly likely proposition given the embarrassing saga that we've seen play out over the last few weeks, and hardly an unlikely proposition given the enormous number of cuts and government decisions generally that have adversely impacted on so many sections of our community. So I think they are just running and have decided not to even try to defend this divided government any longer. The only other conclusion that you can come to is that they just have nothing to say about their electorates. Everything must be just fine and dandy in their electorates—but I suspect that that is not what their constituents are saying.

I find it even more amazing that not one member of the National Party nor any Liberal representing a regional seat is coming in here to talk about an important matter relating to agriculture. I've done them a favour; I've moved a second reading amendment, which will substantially broaden this debate. That second reading amendment talks about the failings of this distracted government to implement serious policy in the agriculture space. They have had four years or more now, and I can't think of one substantial initiative by this government which is ensuring that we make the very most of the enormous opportunities that lay before us in agriculture with the substantial increase in global food demand, including from the rising middle classes in the Asia region.

So I am giving members opposite, including the member for Calare, an opportunity to speak more broadly about their aspirations for agriculture, but, alas, it seems that they are not interested in talking about agriculture. They like talking about it at the despatch box, to make a political point. But, when we come in here offering a serious debate about the future of the agricultural sector, they are absolutely missing in action. I think it is almost without precedent for coalition members not to speak in the House on an agricultural bill. It is even more surprising on this day when the National Party has elected a new leader and Deputy Prime Minister who likes to crow on a regular basis about his commitment to agriculture—as do those who serve under him in the Nationals and the LNP, yet not one of them is in here to make a contribution to this debate. Well, let me make a bit of a broader contribution. Most of the points I have made in the past, but I want to build on them.

What we lack most in agriculture in this country from a government perspective is high-level government policy guidance and signals from government as to where they see agriculture going, what they see are the key opportunities and what they see as the key challenges and guidance which sends signals to investors as to where they believe the opportunities are in the future and where they as a government are prepared to offer the path of least resistance for investors. A government should be indicating its view about natural resource allocation, for example. We just don't have that from this government. After almost five years, we've had nothing on that front. We of course had the agriculture white paper, which, as we all know, just came to be treated as a joke—a cobbled together set of thought bubbles and boondoggles, a pork-barrelling exercise that never really amounted to anything. It certainly didn't provide high-level policy guidance from government so that people in agriculture knew where the government wanted the sector to go and where it might work with government to make the most of those opportunities.

The second thing we need to do is restore the COAG process. Sadly, one of the member for New England's first acts as the Minister for Agriculture was to abolish the Standing Council on Primary Industries, the COAG committee responsible for coordinating the efforts of the Commonwealth and the states. It's a constitutional fact that most of the management of land in this country is in the domain of the states. If the Commonwealth wants to play a full role in guiding us on a path to success in agriculture then the Commonwealth has to work very cooperatively with the states, and SCoPI was the vehicle for making sure we did so.

I had the honour of chairing SCoPI just once as the Commonwealth minister, and I was impressed by its resources, the public servants who worked behind it, the very well thought out policy agenda it had and the way the decisions of the previous SCoPI meeting were properly minuted and followed through at the next meeting, if more needed to be done. It was, of course, the committee responsible for the progression of drought policy in this country, but the member for New England just abolished it, and that was it; that was the end of state/Commonwealth cooperation. He did later establish the AGMIN committee, I think he called it, which didn't do much more than wine and dine on occasions. It hasn't met since last July, which is interesting in itself. SCoPI met on a regular basis, but not AGMIN. It doesn't have any real work agenda other than advice about where the next dinner might be, and I think we've seen in this place some of the costs involved in those dinners.

The third point is biosecurity. Biosecurity is a word that dares not leave the mouths of members opposite; they never speak about biosecurity. Biosecurity is probably the most important responsibility for an agriculture minister, because our real opportunities lie in the growth of food demand in Asia—the demand for high-quality, safe, clean green food. That is Australia's competitive advantage. God forbid we ever lose that competitive advantage. A lot of people think our competitive advantage lies in our geography and proximity to Asia. At some point that was true, and it's still somewhat of an advantage. But emerging countries in South America, for example, are on the march. Technological improvements in transport are bringing freight rates down considerably, and I think they can already compete with us in the South-East Asian market on freight. So biosecurity should, first and foremost, be a priority for every agriculture minister. If we lose our relatively disease-free status, it will be a huge blow to Australian agriculture.

We are seeing what's happening in Tasmania being played out now. The member for Lyons is with us this evening. Our members there are very concerned about the outbreak of fruit fly and its impact. Certainly it is having an impact already, but we are concerned about the enormous impact it could potentially have if it's not brought back under control. Not long before that we had the outbreak of white spot disease in the prawn sector in Queensland. We need to be across these things. It must be an absolute priority.

The fourth point is the need for the sector to adapt to a changing climate and to tackle drought. It's passing strange that it's the land sector that is probably the sector of our economy that is most adversely affected by climate change. Yet the former minister at least—we are yet to test the current minister; we shall see; I'm not particularly optimistic—made it an art form, made it a signature policy of his, to deny climate change, to pretend it doesn't exist and, therefore, to produce no government response whatsoever. That is backward-looking thinking. I hope that the new minister takes a different approach. There is a whole new generation of farmers coming through now who understand more than the generation before them what a significant impact this is going to have on the farming sector, and they will embrace and are embracing the need to change and the need to change dramatically.

On drought, again, the COAG committee was abolished. There was a consensus reached around 2012 that the drought architecture we had in place, the government policy in place, was not working. It was very costly and, in some cases, arguably, it even acted as a disincentive for farmers to build resilience and to drought-proof themselves. The exceptional circumstances arrangements were abolished. That proposition had the support of both the major political parties and the support of the National Farmers Federation. A new Farm Household Allowance support payment with a more liberal assets test was put in place to replace the old payment—there has always been a household support payment of some sort—but that was it. The idea was for the COAG committee, SCoPI, to progress that reform and develop new strategies for addressing drought. Since 2013, since this government was elected, not one extra mile has been progressed on drought policy.

The fifth point is the pursuit of a vigorous productivity agenda. You never hear anyone on the other side talk in this place about productivity in the farm sector. The member for Mallee is here. I will give him the benefit of the doubt, because I know that he is a thinker on these questions. He is a farmer himself in an increasingly competitive global market. He knows the importance of being competitive and of productivity. But, gee, I would challenge him to show me a Hansard where he can demonstrate they did talk about it. The member for New England never spoke about it. I have never heard the member for New England talk about productivity in the farm sector. I have heard him talk about commodity prices, which he used to like to quote in this place on a regular basis—commodity prices over which he had absolutely no control, particularly in the red meat sector where prices were rising because of drought. It is a bit ironic, isn't it? He threw drought policy out the window but then claimed credit for beef prices rising on the back of drought. It is a simple matter of supply and demand. I don't know who the former minister thought he was talking to, because the people in the supermarkets weren't very happy about beef prices going up. All the cockies knew that beef prices were going up because of the drought. It still remains a complete mystery to me who the member for New England thought he was talking to when he was wrongly claiming credit for beef prices rising and other price rises in the red meat sector. You never heard him talk about dairy or any of the commodities which were in freefall. Apparently, the member for New England was fully responsible for all the price rises—and I can see the member for Mallee acknowledging my point—but took no responsibility for falling commodity prices. It is a magic thing that. It is amazing what you can get away with at the dispatch box when the opposition has no proper mechanism for responding.

We have to have a vigorous productivity agenda. We can't sit back and say that our clean, green image is enough to get us there, or our proximity to Asian markets is enough to get us there. As other countries emerge, in South America again, in particular, we will increasingly face competition, and our productivity needs to do much better. It has been flatlining for all too long, and it should have been a key focus for the now former minister and it should be a key focus for the incoming minister, and I hope he gives it some attention.

The sixth point is the embrace of more efficient and more sustainable land use practice. This, of course, goes to productivity and the points I was making about a changing climate. Governments will have a role and should have a role in incentivising and encouraging a greater and more rapid take-up of best land use practices. It's a bit of a fallacy or myth in this country that we have an abundance of soil and water resources. We simply do not. Decades upon decades of European farming practices and the overuse of pesticides and fertilisers have degraded our soils. Practices are shredding our waterways. We're having a big debate about the Murray-Darling Basin Plan now. We need to ensure that farmers everywhere—producers growers, horticulturalists and the like—are embracing the very best management practices so that we are feeding our soils and using our water efficiently to make sure that we preserve them and get the best use out of them.

The seventh point is further development of market mechanisms to maximise the efficient allocation of those natural resources. Again, we have limited natural resources in this country. We want to make sure those resources are used where they produce the highest possible return both for the producer and also for the country. If I can just go back the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, people see it as first and foremost an environmental plan. It certainly is that. It's a plan to restore the health of the river and to make sure that our farmers have the irrigation water they need for many, many decades, if not hundreds of years, into the future. That is a critical point. But when you think about it, it's also a market mechanism which ensures that the price of water determines where that water is consumed. Already we see a shift in the use of those water resources into higher value products and away from lower value products. That is a very good thing.

It's time we turned our minds to our soils as well and how we might ensure they're better allocated. Carbon is the key to that attempt. We should be talking seriously in this place about how we might make that happen to ensure that farmers can benefit, both in the financial sense immediately and also in the longer term as we ensure that we preserve and rejuvenate our soil resources. I challenge anyone to show me when the member for New England ever spoke about the quality of our soils. I know the soil advocate, General Michael Jeffery, is very frustrated with the lack of attention he gets from government for the very good work that he's doing in trying to raise awareness of the importance of our soils. I love the saying, 'We can improve our soils quicker than we can build dams.' We can dramatically improve the capacity of our soils to retain moisture. That would be a good, positive thing to the agriculture sector in this country.

The eighth point is to encourage the pursuit of higher value products and markets. Australia has a history of being a producer of commodities. We have very heavy emphasis on commodities. We will always have an emphasis on commodities. The market will determine these things. But our future is not absolutely in growing more and more commodities from the same limited natural resources and getting them into world markets where we're price takers. We need to see a steady and slow shift up the value curve into products where we can secure higher margins on our products and therefore higher returns on the allocation of those natural resources.

The ninth point is to increase our efforts to reduce non-tariff barriers in export markets. This is really important. Ministers stand at the dispatch box on a daily basis telling the farming community that the world is now their oyster, everything is fixed and everything will be fine because we've now signed three recent free trade agreements with South Korea, Japan and China. We are working on Indonesia, but I'm wondering what's happened to that. We haven't heard too much about that of late. And there is Peru, of course. These are all good things. Levelling the playing field in terms of tariff barriers makes us more competitive than we were before, but we still need to compete. This takes me back to all the points I've already made. However, we don't get access until we deal with the non-tariff barriers.

In horticulture in particular there is very little access into Korea, Japan and China as we speak. Why? Because the protocols have not been established. So the tariffs are down in many instances but that means nothing if the health and other protocols haven't been finalised and, therefore, the importer will not allow those products into their country. This process has been all too slow. I've never heard a minister on that side acknowledge that. I have never heard it acknowledged. They tell us they are doing a great job and making great progress, but every industry leadership group I speak to tells me just the opposite. They are very frustrated that, despite all the hype about the completion of these free trade deals, the real work at the coalface in getting access has not been done and/or is being done too slowly.

The 10th point was a lift in our research innovation and extension efforts. Nothing could be more critical. If we're going to compete in the future in an increasingly competitive market, our embracing of new innovation has to be world's best and has to be an urgent priority for us. We readily claim to have the best model in the world—the co-funded model. That is what we've been operating under. We like to say that it's the best model in the world, because Labor invented it, constructed it and implemented it. But, almost 30 years on, it's probably time for another look to ensure that we're spending the limited resources as efficiently and effectively as we possibly can because we don't have a dollar to waste.

On extension, of course the state governments have withdrawn from the field and nothing has filled that vacuum. There is a role—again for the COAG process—which doesn't exist at the moment for the Commonwealth to address those important issues, to bring the states together and to start working cooperatively with them to make sure that we get the fruits of our research and innovation down onto the farm. If we don't do that, we will fail. Again, in the last five years or so, this government has not given sufficient urgency to that question.

My first point was one of policy guidance. This government has been doing just the opposite. We are desperate for investment in agriculture. The member for Hume was the key author of a report known as Greener pastures, which suggested that we need something like $600 billion of investment I think up to 2030 or 2050. It's a big number. As a country with a small population and limited savings, by definition, as has always been the case, we will be critically dependent on foreign investment. Yet, instead of giving guidance and attracting investment to this country, this government has been sending the opposite signals. It's been putting up the we-are-not-open-for-business sign, at least to certain countries.

For the first time now in our history we've got a discriminatory foreign-investment-review-screening regime. If you are from the United States, you get screened at $1 billion of investment. But, if you're from Asia, you'll get screened, for ag land at least, at $15 million. What sort of signal does that send to potential investors in Australia? We should remember that it's a highly competitive market for global capital out there. People tell me every day that they are turning away. They are saying that Australia is all too hard and the sovereign risk is all too great.

Only a few weeks ago the Treasurer decided that he'd have another thought bubble and play to the crowd as the government sunk further into the mud of its own disarray and division. He said he'd make sure that people would advertise domestically if they're selling agricultural land. I would have thought that a seller of land would market that land wherever he or she thought they could secure the best return. I think in the future that's what they'll continue to do. Now companies and individual owners are going to have to spend big money advertising in markets in Australia where they know there is no prospect. They know the market; they know who the buyers are. They don't have to advertise. If they think there is a domestic buyer who is going to pay them more money, they'll go to the domestic buyer. If they think an international buyer is going to give them more money, they'll go to the international buyer. They are now forced to advertise—and it's very expensive to advertise in Australian newspapers at the national level—just to satisfy the political needs of the government. This is an outrageous proposition.

But there is another point there. The former minister was very fond of saying that our super funds wouldn't invest in agriculture. He was fond of saying it, but in four years he never did anything about it. But there's a key point here: Australian super funds are nervous about this crackdown on foreign investment because they want their investments to be liquid. They want to be able to move them when they want to, and the crackdown from this Treasurer, in partnership with the then minister, is making it harder and harder. I'm not making this up; I've spoken to the Australian industry funds. They are saying, 'Investment in agriculture's getting too hard for us.' It's all too hard. The risk is too great because the foreign investors are running away. They're giving up on Australia and, of course, that impacts on the market, and that, in turn, impacts on the views of those who are managing the funds of hardworking Australians.

This has a hugely detrimental effect on the agriculture sector, and I appeal to the Treasurer to have another think. We've had a bipartisan approach to foreign investment in this country generally, including in agriculture, for as long as I can remember. If I were to go back to 'Black Jack' McEwen, the member for Mallee might be able to tell me different about those days, but we've had a bipartisan approach. The Treasurer did a great disservice to the agriculture sector when he broke from that bipartisan approach, so I appeal to the Treasurer and the new minister to have a rethink. I've extended the hand of bipartisanship, as I did with the member for New England. He rejected it. He only wanted to play politics. He wanted to divide the community and back the side that played to his base. The new minister and his new leader have an opportunity to do it differently. We stand ready to work with them on a bipartisan basis to ensure that our agriculture sector meets its aspirations into the future.

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