David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

May I say, the opportunity has been there. Unfortunately, we worked in a bipartisan way, but, no, they knew best. They knew best and turned their backs.

But it gets worse. Next week this government is going to bring in a fresh food tax. They are going to charge Australian farmers a tax to pay for the biosecurity costs of their foreign competitors bringing their product into this country, putting it on the shelves and competing against them. In what parallel universe would a government impose a tax on its own farmers to pay for their foreign competitors to bring their products into this country and put them on a shelf to compete against them? We don't get that treatment when we export to other countries. We pay for the export risks that we pose when we take our products into those export markets. But, no, not here in Australia. In its wisdom, this government is saying, 'No, farmers, you can pay for those biosecurity costs of your foreign competitors. That's the way that we work here.'

That's going to be passed on to every Australian consumer. Farmers cannot absorb another tax by this government—and that's after the government have already put on a truckie tax. I understand that the road user charge has been increased by over 16½ per cent since this government came into effect. That means that it costs more to get a product from a paddock to your plate. That means Australians are paying more. When you look at what's driving inflation, the drivers of inflation are your energy bill and your food bill. This government is only driving up the food bill because of the way in which and the disdain with which they have treated regional and rural Australia and our farmers.

When you look at the supply chains, the reason the supply chains are in trouble is that they abolished the agriculture visa. That was the first step, and now we have the skills commissioner saying, 'Lo and behold, we might need an ag visa to be able to have the labour supply to pick the product that gets onto your plates.'

Then they made the PALM scheme so unworkable that farmers now have to pay for workers to lie on the couch and do nothing when it's raining. They haven't heard of this thing called rain and that, when it rains, no-one works and that you pay somebody who's not working? No, not this government, because it's being run ideologically off the AWU and everyone else.

Australians are paying more because of the breach of faith of this government with regional and rural Australia. If regional and rural Australia hurts, all of Australia hurts.

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