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

With your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, can I say that, while one could never ever complain about one's participation in our democratic processes, I do lament the fact that while waiting to make a contribution I have missed the first speech of new New South Wales Senator Kristina Keneally. I apologise to her from the despatch box and say to the House that I have no doubt that she made a very fine speech and that she will make a very fine senator for the state of New South Wales. She comes with a lot of talent, a lot of experience and certainly a commitment to Labor ideals and values. I thank you for your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I remind the House that I'm in continuation. The bill that we are debating, at the risk of oversimplifying it, strengthens the capacity of statutory research and development corporations to raise or secure funds for marketing activities. Labor is supporting the Primary Industries Research and Development Amendment Bill 2017, although I will now move a second reading amendment, which I understand the member for Shortland will second at the conclusion of my remarks. 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 the Turnbull Government has failed to develop evidence-based policies to support primary industries through appropriately targeted research and development, and the efficient allocation of funding".

In fact, the timing of the debate is more fortuitous than would have been the case if we'd continued back on 1 March. I have moved this second reading amendment to broaden debate on this bill to reflect more broadly on the government's performance on agriculture policy over the course of the last 4½ years, but I say it's more timely because just recently, I think only a number of days ago, the Prime Minister launched what I think is a very good document for the National Farmers Federation. The document is entitled Talking 2030. It was produced and published with the assistance of Telstra and KPMG. I make that point because I think the PM's decision to launch the document is an admission of the failure of the government's agriculture white paper. All this time afterwards the PM has decided that we need to hit the reset button and has agreed to launch this report. I welcome the fact that he has done so, because this is a quality report and, I would suggest, something more like what you'd expect an agriculture white paper to look like. I assume that by launching the report—it's not always the case; I accept that—the PM has in effect given his approval to most of what, if not everything, the report says.

I'd like to quote from the President of the National Farmers Federation, Fiona Simpson. In the forward to the document, she says, 'Each of these is a momentous task'—she's referring to the key points or conclusions of the report—'requiring a willingness to embrace new ideas and cross-industry collaboration.' And I couldn't agree more, because it is true, as I've said here many, many times before, that the opportunities ahead for Australia's agriculture sector are very, very significant—the least not being, of course, rising demand for high-quality, high-value food in Asian markets. But it's also true that the challenges before agriculture are also very significant.

I want to paraphrase and draw out some of the key points of the document. We are facing a growing global population—to state the obvious—and that of course flows on to growing global food demand. We are also facing dramatically changing consumer preferences. Members of the House will be familiar with those. The third point I make is that new and higher value markets are emerging, as are market segments. And there is an important difference between markets and market segments. Fourth, we are facing a more challenging and a dramatically changing climate, which makes our task all the more challenging and difficult.

The fifth point is that we're facing strengthening competition. I was having a conversation only today about the emerging strength of producers of grains in the Black Sea area and what that means, what implication that brings for Australian growers and exporters. And the sixth point I make—not that I assume these points to be exhaustive—is that possibly we are also facing an emerging protectionism, with what has originated in the United States in particular and some of the implications and consequences we are already seeing as a result of that.

I don't want to repeat them all at length here again this evening, but I have recently talked about what I believe an agriculture minister needs to be focusing on. The NFF document goes more broadly. It goes to all the other important things that will be critical to agriculture's success: connectivity, trade agreements, transport, improved roads and rail links and better and more efficient ports. But none of those things are directly the responsibility of the agriculture minister. An agriculture minister has to work with his or her colleagues in those other portfolios for the greater good and for the good of the agriculture sector.

I've talked about the need for high-level policy guidance, the need to re-kickstart the COAG process, the need to do more to protect our greatest competitive edge, that is our reputation as a provider of clean, green, safe and high-quality food, and what that means for our investment in our biosecurity and traceability systems. I've talked about the need to develop and embrace a productivity agenda, without which we cannot hope to be successful, and the need to embrace better land-use practices in response to our changing climate. Then there is the further pursuit of mechanisms to ensure that we are efficiently allocating our limited natural resources; the pursuit of higher value markets; a greater concentration on non-tariff barriers that so many of our growers and producers face; a bigger effort in research and development, innovation and extension. These are the things we need to be concentrating on. I welcome the NFF report because it touches on each and every one of those, unlike the government's failed agriculture white paper.

The other thing I'll say about the NFF's report—or, more particularly, the Prime Minister's embrace of it—is that the embrace and launching of a report is fine, but the sector needs more than reports and papers now. In 4½ years the Prime Minister has embraced an agricultural white paper and an NFF report. We've had report after report on the forestry sector but still no action or policy of any great note in agriculture or the forestry sector.

Meanwhile, other concerns are emerging. At the beginning of my speech—on 1 March, before I was interrupted—I think I said that in recent times we've had the outbreak of white spot in Australia's prawn sector, blueberry rust in Tasmania, fruit fly more recently in Tasmania, and more recently again the outbreak of listeria in our rockmelons, a serious issue for the producers in that sector. I don't want to be too critical of governments—plural, because the rockmelon issue is largely a matter for New South Wales in the first instance—but what concerns me is a lack of urgency in helping sectors affected by these outbreaks when they need it most.

It is very relevant to this bill, because this bill is about helping research and development corporations that are statutory corporations, unlike industry owned corporations. I make that point because the bill's talking about statutory RDCs, and in horticulture the RDC is industry owned. Still, the capacity to raise funds when things go wrong is very important. I again contrast the government's response to the outbreak of hep A during the berry scare. Everyone will remember that; it was on the six o'clock news for days on end. The government's response was a very robust one, because it was an area where the government had very little control. Rather than fix it, they tried to switch the focus of the electorate to country-of-origin labelling, which was completely irrelevant to the issue, because the berries which had allegedly carried the problem were a clearly marked product of China. That was, from my perspective, a distraction by the government to rid themselves of any responsibility.

What has been happening with rockmelons is very much an Australian problem which will need to be overcome with a certain degree of marketing and public reassurance. It is relevant to this bill, because we're looking at how we might help research and development corporations in those marketing efforts. I again signal to the government that we're very happy to work with them in any way we can to restore confidence, because people out there are devastated by the outbreak in the rockmelon industry. They will need help, and we should be standing with them.

I close by reminding the House that the opposition will be supporting the bill. We think it's a worthy initiative, and I again appeal to the new minister for agriculture to accept my invitation to work on a bipartisan basis to overcome the significant challenges agriculture faces so that we can take up those enormous opportunities and meet our aspirations.

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