Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

This week we saw more promises from the government for Australian farmers. They make so many it's hard to keep up. But of course in this case as in every case they deliver so little and always too late. What we've seen in Australia from this government is the complete dereliction of duty when it comes to the workforce shortfall for agricultural farmers and producers across Australia. We know that these people have been struggling to get workers for a very long time. There has been a real structural issue when it comes to the workforce on farms, particularly across regional Australia. We know that, during this pandemic, this government has done nothing about trying to ensure that these farmers have workers to pick the produce. What we saw last year and what we're seeing this year after the droughts and bushfires is, finally, a lot of rain, which has resulted in bumper crops. But, of course, farmers don't have the workforce to be able to get these crops off the farms. What we are seeing still are massive workforce shortages right across the country.

I was talking to some farmers just last week about what's happening on farms in Australia today, and I was told that they are worried yet again that this season they are not going to be able to get their crops off the farms. This is because this government didn't do its job and this Prime Minister didn't do his two jobs when it came to hotel quarantine and vaccines. We know that there are visa programs whereby the government can bring workers into this country, but, because it didn't do its job on quarantine, it hasn't been able to get enough workers into the country. We also know, of course, that this has been a structural issue for a very long time, and the government hasn't done its job of training young Australians for and encouraging them into a career in agriculture in this country. They have done absolutely nothing about it. They've got a workforce strategy that's been sitting on the desk of the minister since October last year. They have known about this for a very long time. We should not have Australian farmers in the position where they are today, where they are still worried that this government hasn't done enough.

Let's have a look at this new, great big ag visa that they've re-announced this week. It was first announced almost three years ago. Answers to questions on notice showed that the department of agriculture handed a series of briefs to the minister in 2018 but then did nothing until June this year. Absolutely nothing. That is what this government has done: sat on its hands when it should have been doing more for Australian farmers. And we know that they only announced this ag visa because of the UK trade deal, because they were doing a deal to, quite rightly, stop backpackers coming to Australia and being exploited.

But what we don't know about this new ag visa is the detail. We don't know if workers are going to be protected on farms. We don't know what the conditions of these visas are going to be. What we do know is that, on some of the other visas, workers have been exploited. We've heard terrible stories of people working on farms earning next to nothing. It's not good enough, and this government needs to come clean and it needs to tell Australian farmers and Australians what the conditions of this new ag visa are. We need to know. Everybody wants to know what the detail is of this new visa.

We've also seen, or course, the government derelict in its duty when it comes to biosecurity. We've heard from the National Farmers' Federation that incursions from biosecurity cost the sector billions of dollars—billions! And just last night we had another report from this government about biosecurity breaches. It doesn't relate specifically to agriculture, but it is the responsibility of the department of agriculture. This, of course, was the Inspector-General's report on the Ruby Princess. Again, when it came to the Ruby Princess, this government didn't do its job. The one boat the government didn't stop was the one that mattered. In my home state of Tasmania, on the north-west coast, last June we were in lockdown. We had to close the hospital and get the army in, because this government didn't do its job when it comes to biosecurity in Australia.

We have also had the Auditor-General's report on biosecurity. I want to read some of what that report says:

The department's arrangements to respond to non-compliance with biosecurity requirements are largely inappropriate …

The department's compliance framework is largely inappropriate to support its response to non-compliance with biosecurity requirements.

The report also says:

There is no established framework for assessing and managing risk across the biosecurity system

None! No framework at all! No wonder the Ruby Princess was able to come in like it did. No wonder biosecurity didn't stop people who had an infectious disease from going all over the country. That was because this government didn't do its job, and we're seeing it when it comes to the biosecurity system for plants, animals and pests. We know that farmers are worried about this. The two things farmers raise most with me when I talk to them are workforce and biosecurity. They are terrified that this government is not up to the job. They are terrified by the announcement in the budget—prior to that, biosecurity funding was going backwards, by the way—where the government said that they would put capital investment into biosecurity, because it's going into artificial intelligence and ICT.

We know how good this government has been at ICT! We know that after eight years we're still getting huge failures and we know, from the Auditor-General's report, that there was no established framework for assessing and managing risk across our biosecurity network. So how do we possibly trust them to do their job? How do Australian farmers have any faith in this government? The government sit over there and pretend that they represent regional Australians and farmers. Well, they don't, and they haven't for a very long time. They really haven't. They can sit over there and pretend, and use the word 'regional' and use the word 'farmers', but they actually need to do something. They actually need to deliver for farmers, and they are not.

Then we come to the mouse plague. We had a very large mouse plague in Australia this year, and now we're getting reports that the mice are back. We're getting reports in Queensland and New South Wales, and even in Western Australia, that, with spring coming, the mice are on the rise again and we're going to get mouse plagues right across the country again. Of course, what we heard from those opposite, particularly the Deputy Prime Minister, was: 'This is not our job. It's nothing to do with us. We don't want to do anything.' Even when the mouse plague got across four Australian states they still didn't want to do anything. When farmers are already struggling with workforce, have had to deal with years of drought and bushfires and have finally been able to get back on their feet, they have a workforce shortage, they have concerns about biosecurity and they're dealing with a mouse plague—and this government, again, sits on its hands and does nothing. That's all we get from this government when it comes to its responsibilities to deliver for the urgent needs for farmers in regional and rural Australia.

We know from their previous history, and we know from how slow they are to act on absolutely everything, that the government are not up to the job. But we also know that some of these issues wouldn't be happening if the Prime Minister had done his two jobs, particularly when it comes to the workforce. We know that Australian farmers, with this workforce, are concerned about this new ag announcement. Will it deliver any workers on farms by the end of the year? We highly doubt it, because the government haven't done their job on vaccines and haven't done their job on fit-for-purpose quarantine. Where are these workers going to go and quarantine? The government say, 'Oh, we're doing a deal with the states.' Well, we heard previously they had 25,000 workers under the Pacific islander program and the Seasonal Worker Program ready to come into Australia. The minister's own admission in June was that about 7,000 of those workers had arrived in Australia. Now it's about 9,000—so 9,000 out of 25,000 have turned up. This is what they promised ages and ages ago. So how can we have any faith that this new announcement is going to deliver the workers the government says it will? We can't. We don't know what protections are going to be there. We don't know whether any workforce is going to arrive under the program because we still haven't seen the detail. We get promise after promise after promise, but no detail—very little from the government when it comes to delivering for farmers and regional Australia. It is a recurrent theme.

I have stood at this dispatch box and raised the mouse plague issue. I have stood here and raised biosecurity. I have stood here and raised issues around the workforce. And I get no responses from the government—no proper plans, no responses to workforce questions sitting on the minister's desk for ages. I get absolutely nothing. This government likes to pretend, as I said earlier, that it is on the side of farmers and regional Australians, but we see in reality that it is not and hasn't been for such a long time—and the farmers are onto them. They know that this side of the House is on their side. If they want a government that will actually deliver for farmers and regional Australia, if they want a government that will actually help them get to $100 billion by 2030, then they need Labor in government. They need Labor, because, unlike the government, we are on their side.

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