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

Thank you, Deputy Speaker, for allowing us to go a little over time today. Can I start by thanking the members who contributed to the debate today. There are a couple of questions that have been raised which are outside the agriculture portfolio but also outside the infrastructure portfolio. The member who's just spoken may not be aware, but, under the administrative orders, water infrastructure has been transferred over to the Environment and Water portfolio. Opportunities in terms of being able to make sure we have a coherent national water policy and in terms of the national water grid would be matters that you'd raise with Minister Plibersek. But there are opportunities in the opening up of that to look at the surety of town water supplies. I am sure you'll raise that there.

I would also say, if you want to compare the agricultural visa, zero people came under that. As I understand it from the department, some 31,000 people have come under the PALM visa, so I'm pretty happy that we can stand on our record in terms of getting agricultural workers into our regions under PALM and actually making sure they're assisting out there. The ag visa, frankly, just did not work. It didn't work, and so we had to change it, and in changing it we've actually brought more people in than the number the previous government did, which was zero.

The member for Flynn raised a whole raft of issues, but I do want particularly to take him up on the heavy vehicle road user charges. He may not be aware, but that decision that states and territories made to raise the road user charge actually happened in April this year. We actually weren't in power at that point in time. It's a very small increase in the road user charge that is focused in particular on trying to make sure that we keep money flowing to look at the damage that is done by the substantial amounts of heavy vehicles, particularly on our country and rural roads. They're increasingly using much smaller roads than they were before, and the vehicles are bigger. We're seeing triple trailers using small country roads in some instances across the country. The road user charge helps us with the damage that is done to country roads. But I would point out to the member really clearly that that actually happened under the previous government while they were in caretaker mode. We actually weren't in government when the decision was taken. In relation to issues around Adblue, I'm really proud to say that Minister Bowen has been doing some terrific work in making sure that we've got surety of supply. We learned the lesson from the previous government. We don't want to be caught short at all In terms of environmental approvals for projects, the normal processes apply in terms of both state and territory governments, as they do through the EPBC Act under this government.

It has been really important in this budget to focus on the sharp end with biosecurity, because we know that, if we fail, when it comes to agriculture, it would be completely and utterly disastrous for the industry. What that has allowed us to do, through some tough decisions in the budget, is add an additional billion dollars, focused on biosecurity. With foot-and-mouth disease, lumpy skin disease and a range of other diseases that we know are in our region, or could be in our region, we know we cannot afford to be complacent. Increasing biosecurity was something those opposite talked about but they didn't do enough to make sure that we filled those critical gaps. As the member for Spence, who raised this issue in particular, has said, we cannot say strongly enough just how important it is to invest money through the budget in biosecurity. Injecting $134.1 million into the system ensures that we can continue to keep Australia safe. This investment is a down payment on our election commitment to deliver sustainable biosecurity funding so that we can respond to increasing threats. I think everyone in the agricultural sector would agree that, if we fail at that, it's all over. That is actually the most important thing that we can do in terms of agriculture.

We've, of course, invested money in national livestock traceability. The member for Spence, who visited a sheep farm just recently in his electorate, noted that we've included $46.7 million towards that livestock contact tracing, which, in the event of a disease outbreak, will be critical. Also, as the member for Paterson raised, we're investing $302 million in sustainable climate-smart agriculture. Our farmers are crying out for that. They are probably at the forefront of this fight, and they know more about the climate than anyone else in this country so I'm proud that we're contributing, through this budget, to putting money into that area as well.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Ordered that consideration in detail of the bill be made an order of the day for the next sitting.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:38

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