Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

Economic and demographic specialists REMPLAN say the Wimmera region, in my electorate of Mallee, has a gross regional product of $3.9 billion, almost a quarter of which comes from agriculture, forestry and fishing. In REMPLAN's Mildura region, covering the Sunraysia part of my Mallee electorate, $3.8 billion is the contribution to the GRP and 13 per cent of output is from agriculture. The Loddon region of Mallee has $464 million in GRP and 44 per cent of the total output comes from agriculture. In the Swan Hill region $1.6 billion is contributed to GRP and 21 per cent of their output is from agriculture. I could go on.

Agriculture is in the top three in all of those regions of Mallee and underpins many other regions in my electorate, so you can see why, as the member for Mallee, I have many questions about agriculture in this budget, and I have to start with the blindside attack on our farmers—namely, the new food tax, the biosecurity protection levy. The coalition government never considered taxing farmers to build a sustainable funding model for biosecurity. Our approach was to target those who created the biosecurity risk: the importers. The independent Craik biosecurity review recommended an importer container levy, and that's what we were working towards, so why has this government ignored the independent advice and whacked our farmers with a $153 million price tag instead? I would like an answer to that. That $153 million is equivalent to 10 per cent of what is raised from agricultural levies at present. The minister told Senate estimates he felt 10 per cent was 'a fair contribution to make'. Did the minister pluck that figure out of thin air? Were other levels modelled?

Does the minister think it fair that farmers who already contribute to bodies like Plant Health Australia and Animal Health Australia for biosecurity will have to pay twice for biosecurity through this new levy? And, let's remember, it's from imports, not from their own products. Is it fair that livestock producers, such as cattle producers, who already contribute to be National Livestock Identification System—sheep and goat producers soon will too—will also have to contribute to this new tax? If an outbreak such as, God forbid, foot-and-mouth disease gets in from a country like Indonesia, will farmers be exempt from contributing to the response action in recognition of their contribution under the levy? These are all questions the minister should answer.

Has the government modelled whether voluntary levy support in farming commodity groups would collapse due to the mandatory biosecurity levy? Can the government guarantee that not one cent will end up in general revenue to pay for pet projects to help them win seats in the cities? Can they guarantee every cent will be applied for biosecurity purposes? What legislative or transparency mechanism, which we know this government loves, will be used to ensure that the hypothecation—let's just say the hypothetical—actually occurs.

I want to turn to something close to home for me as the member for Mallee because I know first-hand how beneficial the Pacific labour mobility scheme has been for our horticultural industry. The Labor government asked, 'How high?' when their union masters said, 'Jump,' and imposed a 30-hour-per-week requirement on every week of the year. It is seasonal work, for goodness sake. Oranges don't pace themselves to suit the workforce. The rain does not fall at a rate of two millimetres a day. I mean, really! Has the government modelled the impact of the 30-hour-a-week change on the agricultural workforce? I project that a great many farmers who would have hired workers simply won't hire them in weeks when the crops aren't ready, or they might have to force them to work outdoors in a heatwave week when a cooler week is forecast the following week. Work health and safety?

The National Food Supply Chain Alliance said in October that Australia at that stage was 172,000 workers short from paddock to plate. Can Labor say honestly that this 30-hours-a-week policy for PALM workers will help to reduce the worker shortage? As at 30 April there were 38,180 PALM workers in Australia, less than a fifth of what was actually needed to fill that paddock-to-plate shortage. What has the government modelled that will actually increase PALM participation rates when the policy comes into effect? The National Farmers Federation's Horticulture Council says the PALM— (Time expired)

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