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

No, he's walking away from it now, I see. It's just like magic. He was elected in 2013, prices go up and he stands at the despatch box on a daily basis as agriculture minister and claims credit for them. I don't really know who he thinks he's talking to, because the producers know something very different. Then of course he tried to take credit for all the free trade agreements—projects commenced by a former Labor government. They have been important, and I congratulate the current government for completing them, as we would have done. But of course he doesn't ever talk about the significant non-tariff barriers that still stand in the way of those seeking to expand their interests in export markets. What a lazy approach to policy development to suggest that gaining access to a market on the same terms as our competitors is 'mission complete'. Of course it is not.

Competition remains the operative word in export markets, and our focus in policy development has to be on sustainable profitability. There also has to be as much focus on value, or the return we receive on our investments, as we have on volume. The member for New England likes to cite the value of production, but, as every first-year economics or accounting student knows, value doesn't mean profit by any stretch of the imagination. Profitability in the farm sector is very patchy. That is the reality.

As the president of the National Farmers' Federation, Fiona Simson, said in her National Press Club speech recently, 'Australia lacks a strategic plan for the agriculture sector'—hardly an endorsement for the member for New England's 2015 white paper, a white paper that is now considered to be a failure by all those who operate in the sector. We in the opposition also commend the hardworking men and women of the agriculture sector and other rural industries. Of course we do. But, as Fiona Simson also put it at the Press Club, 'We don't have a comprehensive national strategy to deal with drought.' They are not my words; they are the words of the president of the National Farmers' Federation. Why don't we? Because, unless we have a government prepared to acknowledge that climate is changing and prepared to act on both mitigation and adaptation, we will not have a comprehensive drought policy in this country.

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