Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As the federal member for Braddon, I represent the agricultural powerhouse, in Tasmania. It's the epicentre of agricultural excellence. But I also stand here as a farmer. I run a co-owned agribusiness operation where we breed black cattle on the north-west coast of Tasmania. We grow crops, including potatoes, and my family has been farming in that region since 1852. So I know a little bit about agriculture, and I've got quite a network involved when it comes to agriculture.

As a farmer, I can say that what I've had to listen to over the last 10 minutes or so has been quite the metric truck ton of excrement. However, when you talk to our farmers, it's a far more positive situation that they paint. When a farmer is faced with an issue, a farmer rolls his or her sleeves up and they farm around it. They find a solution, they find an outcome, and they get about their business. They don't whinge, they don't bleat, and they don't carry on like headless chickens. I think there's something in that for all of us here today.

The ABS commodity figures out for Tasmania for 2019 and 2020 indicate that Tasmania's agricultural production was up by 14.7 per cent compared to a national figure of just 0.4 per cent—quite a staggering difference. I would suggest that the reason for that is that we've made a significant investment into the agri sector in the state, and, together with the Gutwein government—which has been in for quite some time and has established protocols around supporting our industry—in conjunction with the federal government, we are producing results and we're giving that agribusiness sector the confidence it needs to grow, to thrive and to better itself.

If we look at our investment in agricultural irrigation in Tasmania, we seem to be the only state or territory in the nation to be serious about building dams. Irrigation water is liquid gold, and that's the message I have for everybody out there today. If you're not building dams then you're not in the race. We've invested $100 million into tranche 3 of Pipeline to Prosperity, delivering 10 irrigation schemes—78,000 megalitres; thousands of jobs. And $114 million has been projected in increases in agricultural outputs, in the ag sector alone, due to that $100 million.

But it's not just that. We've backed that in with a further $80 million, just in the last budget. We're going to back this in even further. We're going to augment it, because our farmers can see that this is turning marginal country into good country. That's my message for the nation today.

When it comes to supporting the fiscal situation around our farming operations, I know, with COVID, we've done it hard—I know our farmers have done it tough. They've had to cut corners and they've had to make adjustments. But they've done it with the federal government's and the Tasmanian state government's support. We've stood by them, right by their side, the whole time. Just recently, we've spent $1.2 billion in the agriculture sector, supporting them, as the member for Cowper just alluded to.

As to that money, when we start looking at JobKeeper, and JobSeeker, and the instant asset write-off—I mean, the amount of machinery that's coming into the great state of Tasmania is incredible. There's more machinery than we can get on the ships. A mate of mine runs the local John Deere dealership down there, Midland Tractors—a bloke by the name of James Darcey, a terrific fellow. He can't get stock, because farmers are making the investment in capital equipment, sponsored by the federal government. But what that does is to add to their bottom line; it improves their processes; it makes it easier for their farming operation to survive.

As well as that, we're making great progress with free trade agreements and diversifying our trade commodity markets throughout the world, as we see shifts in the international commodity market, particularly for our dairy industry. Our dairy industry in Tasmania had a record year, with 960 million litres—that's 11.2 per cent of the national milk production, right in Tasmania, right in my backyard. The electorate of Braddon punches well above its weight.

When it comes to the beef industry, the lamb industry, the pork industry and the seafood industry, again, the figures that we're seeing from the ABS data are incredible increases. The only ones not doing any good are the poor old poppy farmers—and a big shout-out to all our poppy growers out there today; the bottom has dropped out of that market, due to the lack of operations being done throughout the world during these COVID times. So, again, our poppy farmers will have to diversify. But they will, because they're 'can do' people and they get the job done. (Time expired)

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