Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Excise Levies Legislation Amendment (Sheep and Lamb) Bill 2020 and the Customs Charges and Levies Legislation Amendment (Sheep and Lamb) Bill 2020 align the definition of 'lamb', as the member for O'Connor has so well articulated, for the purposes of imposing sheep and lamb custom charges. They bring Australia's definition in line with international competitors, providing a definite signal for producers about when a sheep is no longer a lamb. I won't detain the House on that. I think the member for O'Connor knows much more about that than probably anybody else in the House!

The bills will provide administrative clarity for levy payers and support compliance with the levy scheme through ensuring consistency across relevant legislation in the definition of the animal upon which levies and charges are imposed. That sounds sensible, boring, straightforward, but it has taken this government two years to amend the definition in these bills. These bills are, by any definition, well into 'mutton' territory. I'm therefore grateful to the shadow minister for the second reading amendment, which allows members to bring to the House's attention the government's agriculture inaction over seven years.

I inform the House that a trade deal with Qatar for the export of 1.2 million chilled fat lambs has just fallen over, and I'm yet to hear anything from the minister about it. Qatar was providing an internal subsidy to make Australian chilled fat lamb more affordable for Qatari customers, but it has just ended that arrangement, taking our exporters completely by surprise. They had understood the subsidy was to stay in place until at least 2023. The fear, of course, is that without the subsidy Australia's premium product will be unable to compete in the Qatari marketplace, with much cheaper products from our competitors, including India. Tasmanian Quality Meats in my electorate has been sending 1,500 chilled lambs to Qatar every week for five years. It's been a terrific arrangement for both TQM and Qatari customers. The news comes as TQM starts a $9.5 million upgrade to its Cressy processing facility, increasing its weekly kill capacity from 10,000 to 20,000. I look forward to seeing what agriculture minister, Mr Littleproud, is going to do to repair this obviously fractured relationship with a significant customer of our lamb and sheep trade.

In March 2018, the sheepmeat sector committed to changing the definition of 'lamb' to bring Australia in line with other producing countries. But, of course, it's taken this government this long to legislate anything. That delay has meant real money foregone at the farm gate. Now, here we are again: two years and Sheep Producers Australia has agreed on the revised definition, amending legislation to give effect to this industry supported change. The government's go-slow on this issue is emblematic of its approach to agriculture policy more generally. Country people appreciate the joys of a slower pace than the city, but no-one likes a stalled engine. The government's failures to deal effectively with agriculture policy have done farmers, producers and regional communities no favours. Empty promises, inquiries, reviews—so many reviews!—and piecemeal and ad hoc commitments are a poor return on investment. In Tasmania, more than 10,000 workers dependent on agriculture are asking why the government talks itself up so much but doesn't deliver a lot. As Lord Byron once said, 'Self-praise is no praise at all.'

The government has a goal to increase the nation's agricultural output from $65 billion a year to $100 billion a year by 2030. It's an ambitious goal, made even more ambitious by the events of the past year. It's a goal that Labor supports. But we do scratch our heads at the government's inability to articulate a clear path forward. The National Farmers Federation has provided some ideas that the government should be looking at. The Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association says growth and productivity require more attention to a range of areas, including water security, skills and training, biosecurity, R&D, technology and—I know the government hates to admit it—climate change. In fact, it is the government's juvenile insistence on weaponising climate change for its culture wars that is arguably the most significant impediment to the nation achieving the $100 billion goal. Failing to recognise the threat that climate change poses to agriculture means the government is also failing to implement the measures necessary to manage its impacts.

The government's failure has been so manifest that farmers got together in 2015 to form the group Farmers for Climate Action. Now representing more than 3,000 growers across the country, Farmers for Climate Action is demanding change and is articulating practical, achievable ways to implement that change. Key to this is generating $10 million and creating 16,000 jobs from carbon storage, providing a significant income stream for many farmers while also improving our soils.

Labor knows that Australia can and should be a renewable energy superpower. Realising that goal would be good for the nation as a whole but even better for our regions, where much of the renewable energy infrastructure and jobs will be based. With our abundance of renewable energy resources, Australia should be the Saudi Arabia of solar. With wind, pumped hydro, geothermal, hydrogen and biomass added to the mix, backed up by fast emerging battery technology and plenty of run life still in our existing assets, Australia's energy future is bright, and that's good for agriculture. But this government continually fails to harness the potential. It doesn't have the long-term vision that is needed to build and grow a nation. The Liberals' inability to recognise the opportunities arising from meeting the climate change challenge fail the country as a whole. It particularly fails our farmers and Australians living in our regions.

It is years of climate policy failure that have given rise to groups such as Farmers for Climate Action. We are talking about farmers leading the demand for strong climate change action—people living in the regions driving the agenda, because it is the regions that suffer most directly from the impacts of climate change. Let's be clear: anyone who thinks that it's only people living in the inner cities who care about climate change have a few sheep lost in the paddock. Climate change doesn't care if you wear sandals or steel-capped boots. It affects us all, whether we live in the city, the suburbs or the country, but it is country people who are exposed to its impacts most directly—hotter bushfires, dryer droughts, more extreme floods. It's the regions that suffer. It's the regions where people die and where livelihoods and homes and businesses are destroyed. So the requirement to take strong climate change action should never be narrowed to identity politics. Real leadership demands so much more.

In Tasmania, primary industries underpin prosperity across our state's rural and regional communities, particularly in my electorate, which covers half the state's land mass. Labor understands the importance of primary industries and has led the way in transforming the sector. It was a Labor government that started the state's irrigation schemes in collaboration with farmers. These schemes have opened up vast tracts of previously marginal land to high-value production for horticulture and dairy. It was a Labor government that started the state's aquaculture industry, a sector that provides well-paying full-time jobs to hundreds of Tasmanians in regional communities. It was a Labor government that started the state's forestry industry and which is rock solid behind the sector's sustainable growth, particularly in value-add processing. The Liberals make a lot of promises and noise on forestry, but they consistently fail to deliver.

Combined, agriculture, forestry and fishing employ around 16,400 Tasmanians, representing seven per cent of the state's workforce, and they contribute $2.6 billion to the state's economy, accounting for nine per cent of the state's GDP. And, the now broken dry notwithstanding, it's been a few good years to be a Tasmanian farmer. High lamb and mutton prices, coupled with increased output, saw the value of sheepmeat increase by $40 million in 2017-18. Mutton was the saviour for farmers during the 2019 drought, with seven-year-old sheep bringing in $160 to $180 each. It was a cashflow lifeline when farmers needed it most. Cash income of Tasmanian sheep industry farms increased by 47 per cent to $208,000 in 2018-19, mainly due to increased turn-off, higher prices for sheep, lambs and wool, and increased production of grain.

We know already that the quality of Tasmanian produce is second to none. Recently, lamb from Arundel Farm at Macquarie Plains, in the Derwent Valley, in my electorate, was judged among the best in the nation, collecting the gold medal in the From the Paddock category in this year's Harvey Norman Produce Awards. Owned by the Hume family, who have been farming in the Derwent Valley for more than 100 years, Arundel Farm was one of four Tasmanian producers to win a gold medal.

Another big vote of confidence in the quality of Tasmanian produce came early in the year, with premium grass-fed lamb being sold in Coles stores across the country. Under this deal, the retailer is offering Tassie lamb in 800 of its supermarkets for 10 months of the year, expecting to buy 100,000 lambs from 40 Tasmanian producers. Scott, who farms at Blackwood Creek in Tasmania's Northern Midlands, has been supplying Coles for several years and he says the new deal will allow him to expand. It is a similar story for Richard and Bec, from Highbrae Farm at Westwood in the Meander Valley, who are supplying Coopworth Poll Dorset cross lambs into the Coles Graze program. This is a real opportunity for Tasmanian lamb producers, especially considering some of the challenges they have faced over the past 12 months, including the closure of abattoirs in the state and the drier weather through 2019.

Looking forward, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences forecasts the average saleyard price of lamb to fall by nine per cent in 2021 to 734c a kilo and sheep to fall by six per cent to 549c per kilo. ABARES also predicts that the income of lamb producing farms will fall by 12 per cent in 2019-20 because of drought and COVID-19 suppressing international and domestic demand. We have also seen fine wool decline during COVID.

Markets go up and down, the weather is fickle, droughts come and go, but you won't find a more resilient bunch of people than Australian farmers. They can't count on the weather but they should be able to count on good policy from government, a steady hand on the tiller. Instead we've had seven years of stalling, seven years of review after review, seven years of stop-start, seven years of delays, seven years of do-nothing government when it comes to agriculture. Agriculture legislation this government has failed to prioritise includes this bill and the wine amendment bill scheduled for debate soon after. Both bills were brought on by the government at the back end of the parliamentary year, when they had had two years to act. That's the priority this government places on agriculture legislation. Other bills that the government has failed to prioritise includes the Agriculture Legislation Amendment (Streamlining Administration) Bill and the Export Control Legislation Amendment (Certification of Narcotic Exports) Bill. Both were written last year. Where are they?

Then we have the minister's failure to respond in any meaningful way to the $2.6 billion review into RDCs. The report, paid for by taxpayers, was delivered before the election last year. When is the minister going to implement the necessary changes to these important bodies? Farmers need real leadership. That means more than putting on an Akubra and RMs and wandering around the paddock in a checked shirt. Leadership isn't about where you live; it's not about your political pedigree, which boarding school you went to. Leadership is about action, not announcements; it's about delivering solutions, not slogans. On that score, this government and this minister are sadly wanting.

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