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

I've got a really great question. It harks back to the great vision of going from $60 billion worth of agricultural exports to $100 billion. We have the current minister, who wants to grow opportunity, and this is how you grow opportunity. In my patch, we had the overhang of Senator Penny Wong as the water minister, which was shutting down our irrigated agriculture, and we saw the investment of $103 million so that we could grow more product. We had a trade minister who wanted to take our product overseas, and we've signed free trade agreements with Korea, Japan and China and signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I used to be on the Treaties Committee, and we did inquiries into these free trade agreements. Time after time, the unions would come in and say, 'These are terrible agreements.'

The alternative minister for agriculture used to be in the right faction, but he's moving across to the left faction, because he already wants to ban it, he already wants to tax it and he already wants to shut it down. This is the same old, same old Labor. Can I just remind people of a little bit of history here? In 1974, under the great Gough Whitlam, 40,000 cattle in Victoria were shot because there wasn't a market for them. Ban it, tax it, shut it down. Same old Labor. In 1992, thousands of sheep crossed Australia. Who was the Prime Minister in 1992? I think it was a Labor Prime Minister—that's it. Ban it, tax it, shut it down. I had great visions for Joel.

Mr Fitzgibbon interjecting—

I really had great visions for you. 'Here is a man,' I thought, 'for the first time in the Labor Party that actually has a passion for regional Australia.' At his core, he actually—I know this; I shared a COMCAR with him and we drove down to—

An honourable member interjecting—

No, no. I shared a COMCAR and drove down to the Nuffield scholarship. We talked about agriculture. I thought, 'This guy has actually got a vision.' Unfortunately, he's moved from the right to the left faction. Not only has he moved from the right; he's moved to the wrong faction. He still wants to ban it, tax it and shut it down. In our policies—

An opposition member interjecting—

Think about this for a moment. We invested in irrigation infrastructure—a great thing. The next thing was that we needed to take these products to the market, so we've spent $240 million on rail to get those things to the market. People have got confidence. Of course, when you've got confidence, what are you going to do? You're going to spend a little bit of money. If you're going around the vineyard, Dave—you'll have to come and have a look at this—you hop on those little mule things. Do you know those things?

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