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

I thank the honourable member for his question, because he knows full well the impacts this drought, in particular, is having even on his own electorate of Flynn. To answer his question: quite simply, it's because agriculture underpins every regional rural economy out there. It is a $60 billion industry with nearly $50 billion in export, so it underpins so much. And despite the rain we've received recently, let me make it clear, one shower of rain will not break this drought. So we'll continue to support our farmers with drought assistance.

We're putting $1.8 billion on the table to help farmers. And I'm pleased to announce that we are now cutting the farm household assistance application by a third. We're cutting it by a third to make it easier. But we're going to complement that with an extra 39 rural financial counsellor services. They are the angels of this drought who sit around the kitchen tables of our farmers and help them fill out the form. They complement the already 116 who are out there doing the job for us. But we've gone further to look for the resilience of this industry to make sure we're prepared for further droughts. I've been able to bring the banks with us on the journey and now they're prepared to offset farm management deposits against their debt, saving our farmers tens of thousands of dollars every year.

We're also investing in exclusion fencing, improving the efficiency of our primary producers and making sure we're giving write-offs for those who want to invest for the preparedness of fodder storage. This is making sure that agriculture has a good story. The story of agriculture is: just add rain. What we want to do is bring our young people home. We've had a generation-drain of young people because the story of agriculture has not been as positive as it is today. It's positive because of the work we've done around the trade agreements—the 'big three'—with China, Japan and Korea. Now, with thanks to the member for Moncrieff, the former trade minister, who put in place the TPP-11 and Peru, there are real returns to the farm gate, meaning that farmers and their children can now make a quid.

But we don't want to bring just young people home; we want to bring women back to agriculture. I am proud to say that we, at long last, are bringing our women home, because the jobs in agriculture are not just the traditional jobs; they are now in research and development and science. We are at the cutting edge of technology in agriculture and we are taking agriculture to a $100 billion industry because of the investment we are making. But the government have gone further. I am proud to say that, in the last 10 months, since being the agriculture minister, I've taken female representation on government boards from 37 per cent to 47 per cent. That's an investment in the women of rural and regional Australia, and we're damn proud to make it.

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