Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Farm Household Support Amendment (Debt Waiver) Bill 2021. As we've heard, in relation to the farm household assistance program, which provides time-limited, means-tested income support to farmers and their partners experiencing financial hardship, this bill outlines the criteria for debt waiver for people who have overestimated or underestimated their income during the period of assessment. Farmers are eligible for the farm household assistance program for a maximum of four years, recorded as a 1,460 day clock, in every 10-year period. These days do not need to be consecutive and can be taken only if, and when, needed.

Previously, farm household assistance recipients' income estimate was reconciled annually through the business income reconciliation, and that determined whether a recipient received a top-up payment or no adjustment or had incurred a debt. This was removed from the act with effect from 1 July 2020 as part of a process to simplify farm household assistance following a 2018 independent review. While this business income reconciliation was removed in 2020, some farm household assistance recipients incurred debts from this process between 1 July 2015 and 30 June 2020 or have not yet been assessed. This bill will waive certain classes of debts, and I'm sure that will be an enormous relief to those people who have had this hanging over their heads for some time. This will certainly assist farmers suffering financial hardship and eliminate the negative effects of the BIR process.

Whilst this will assist farmers, there is far more that the government should be doing. You don't have to look far today to see that the National Party, who are meant to be the party for farmers and who are meant to be looking after the country's farmers, have been a bit distracted and are not doing anything about the mice plague because they've had leadership issues happening. What we've been seeing, unfortunately, is a government that is so focused on itself, so focused on its internals and so focused on the politics that it is not actually helping people. When it comes to our farmers, it's hard to imagine anything more devastating than the plague of mice we're seeing across New South Wales. It's in huge proportions and, for farmers, it's absolutely devastating. It needs federal government action, but Senate estimates last month revealed that the Morrison government had no plan for a national response to this plague at all.

Labor has written to the Minister for Agriculture, Drought and Emergency Management—presumably he is still the minister for agriculture and will not change portfolios, but who will know?—calling for a national response to this growing crisis, which is costing farmers millions and hurting regional communities. This week it was revealed that the Nationals New South Wales minister for agriculture had also called for a federal response. It is beyond the capacity of the state of New South Wales to deal with, and it needs national assistance. The Morrison government needs to listen to the growing caucus of voices calling for a national response to the horrific mouse plague. They really need to do this now. But, as I said, unfortunately, when we've had an obviously distracted National Party not standing up for the interests of farmers, you can see what's been let go.

All year the government has criticised the states, but as soon as they ask for help this government just says, 'Well, it's not our problem.' We saw it over COVID and now we're seeing it with mice. In the next meeting of federal, state and territory agricultural ministers they need to have dealing with this plague on the top of their agenda. It's time for the minister for agriculture to show some leadership—perhaps that's somewhat ironic today—and help farmers facing this plague. Last week the former Acting Prime Minister outlined his solution to the mouse plague when he claimed that the best way of doing that was to perhaps rehome mice into cities. He said:

They should be rehomed into their inner-city apartments so that they can nibble away at their food and their feet at night and scratch their children at night.

That is a disgraceful response from the former Acting Prime Minister, who refused to lift a finger to help communities in need. Let's see if the new leader of the National Party is going to be any different. The absent Prime Minister doesn't hold a hose, the then Acting Prime Minister doesn't set a mouse trap. Instead of letting the mice scratch children in the cities or the region, how about we try to eradicate them? How about the federal government does its job and assists farmers in ending this plague?

The reason I really wanted to speak on this bill is I particularly want to speak about an issue that is deeply affecting the farmers in my constituency, and particularly the magnificent potato farmers that are on some of the most productive, beautiful land that Victoria has and are producing spuds around Newlyn, Dean, Mount Prospect and areas in that community. It has rich, beautiful, volcanic soil, and we've been producing potatoes out of that region for almost five generations in the well over 100 years that families have farmed in that area. My home is very lucky to have avoided some of the challenges of drought and other issues of late that have beleaguered some of our other states, but it doesn't mean that we don't have issues. I'll talk in a separate forum about some of the horrendous storm damage we've had across our community, including across some of our potato farming communities. But today I particularly want to talk about a project that is really hitting home, and that's the Western Victoria Transmission Network Project and what that's doing to farmers in our community.

The transmission lines are to stretch about 120 kilometres from Melbourne's west to north of Creswick before carrying on to Bulgana. They're pretty big, with towers that are going to be the height of the MCG. They're not normal powerlines but are designed to carry far heavier voltage, and they're substantial. They're huge and are going to cut through residential growth areas. But particularly I want to draw the House's attention to their cutting through some of the most productive land in this country. One of the problems that we've seen with the way in which this project has been undertaken is that there has been no assessment or understanding of the value of horticultural land to this country and the impact of putting industrial sized powerlines across this productive land. In particular, there is the issue of the new terminal station. This is not a small terminal station; this is a substantial piece of infrastructure. Some have said it will be about 12 MCGs in size, taking up substantial acreage. You would think, if you're building a terminal station, that you would look to build it on industrial land or industrial zoned land; it is an industrial project. But, no, AusNet, who've won the tender for this project from the Australian Energy Market Operator, have decided that they're going to put this terminal station right smack in the middle of some of the most productive horticultural land in the country.

They're putting a terminal station in the middle of Mount Prospect. There is no industrial zoned land anywhere near this. It is right in the middle of farmland, where we grow potatoes for McCain and farmers have been growing potatoes for over 100 years. It is beautiful soil. It is not marginal farming country. It is not farming country that is being grazed. I understand that when you have powerlines or wind farms it's often easier to do grazing under them. We've got headers going under there and we've got watering systems that need to go under there. It is a substantial impost on the community to put the powerlines there, let alone to put this massive terminal station in the middle of that area.

Last Friday I headed out there and I met with the Stephens family, and I thank Frank and Colleen for hosting me at their home. I also thank Matthew and Peter for drawing my attention to what this means for their farmland in particular and to their concerns about not only the terminal station and what that means for their community but also what that means for future powerline projects and for their area.

I call very strongly on AusNet to reconsider this. What they've done—which I knew they would do from the start—is basically draw a line on a map to look at the easiest and most cost-efficient way to get this line across the countryside. They have then gone and tried to negotiate, as best they could, and they managed to find a farmer and worked away on them and got them to agree—for reasons that are deeply personal to them, being the last in their line of being able to farm on this land—to potentially sell their land. So they've just gone the easiest pathway. This is just ridiculous. In 2021 we should be looking at protecting and preserving our horticultural properties, because we have to produce food in this nation. If we don't produce food in this nation we will be heavily reliant on it coming from overseas—something that we learnt in COVID we should absolutely avoid at all costs.

In this community in particular we have McCain, where all of the growers contract and sell their produce to. McCain are saying that the impact on the farmers, in particular, is that it will substantially threaten the viability of the McCain's plant in Ballarat and hundreds of jobs; that it will substantially limit the farming activities that can be undertaken on this land; that, whilst it's not prohibited entirely, it precludes certain forms of watering systems; and that it will have a significant impact on the financial viability of some of these farms. If you care at all about having McCain's hot chips, you will have a bit of an interest in this project, because it will mean that there will be farms that will become less productive and certainly far less efficient.

Another thing that I find incredibly frustrating about what AusNet have done—and I think this is something that, as a country, we are going to have to look at really seriously—is the fact that we are just doing the same thing other and over and over again when we are building powerlines. Why are we not thinking about where we can build this technology underground, where we can use battery storage to allow the fantastic renewable energy sources that we have throughout our country to be utilised in the areas in which it is being generated, so that we are, as country people, able to get access in a better way to the renewable energy sources that we have? But instead what we see with this project, and projects right the way across the country, including in the electorates of other members here, is that we are just going to build these great big powerlines smack across the country, including across horticultural land, without any thought to productivity or whether these powerlines would be better built underground or whether there is better technology we should be using for the transmission.

So I call on the government, who is one of the decision-makers in this process, along with the Andrews state government—they are both the planning authority for this project—to actually tell AusNet to go back to the drawing board, particularly when it comes to this transmission station to be placed smack in the middle of Mount Prospect, some of the most productive farming land in the country. The community is up in arms about it and absolutely furious. I'm furious about it. It is not something that should be done. I suggest really strongly to AusNet that, whilst you think that you've taken the easiest pathway, it's not going to be an easy pathway at all, because those farming communities aren't going to sit by and just allow this to happen; I, as their federal member, am not going to sit by and just allow this to happen; and the communities that support and care about those farmers are not going to sit by and let this happen either.

So, whilst I'm very pleased to speak on this bill, which is about farm household assistance and debt waivers, I'm not so pleased to have to raise in this place that the very livelihoods of the farmers at Mount Prospect, Newlyn and Dean—whose incredible work has kept us fed, and kept us fed through COVID—are now under threat.

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