Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024. Let me start by saying that biosecurity for this country and the agricultural sector is paramount. We're an island; that gives us enormous advantages over our competitors, and our clean, green image is second to none anywhere in the world. That's why it's so important that we protect our borders and make sure that diseases, pests and insects that are impacting other parts of the world do not come here.

Thirty years ago in Florida I saw the impact of fire ants in that part of the world. At the moment, the fire ants have a bridgehead, if you like, coming out from South-East Queensland. If we can't contain that outbreak and it spreads across to other agricultural areas, then it will not be possible to run small animals like sheep, goats or poultry in free range, because fire ants, from my observations, completely obliterate any industry that is vulnerable on the ground. Lambs or goats or whatever would be incredibly vulnerable to them.

At the moment, we have an explosion in wild pig numbers. Just in my electorate, there are millions of feral pigs. Just on my own little farm, in the last break when I was home, we put out considerable kilograms of bait, and we still are battling those feral pigs. I am convinced that, if we got foot-and-mouth disease in this country and it got into the wild pig population, we could not eliminate it. We could not eliminate that.

I'm just saying this to reiterate that security of our borders, for biosecurity reasons, is paramount. That's why, in the last government, the agriculture minister, Mr Littleproud, had got to a point of getting an agreement that importers would pay a levy to make sure that there were appropriate amounts of scrutiny placed on our borders. It only makes sense that the people that are supplying the risk factors pay the price. Things like the varroa mite, fire ants and noxious weeds mostly would come in on an unclean container, and that needs to have the correct scrutiny.

To ask Australian farmers to pay for the risk that their competitors are posing to their own industry seems incredibly bizarre to me. To put it into context, if you sell a load of cattle to a saleyard, a feedlot or an abattoir at the moment, a levy is paid on that consignment. I'm assuming—because some of the guidelines are not particularly clear—that this extra $50 million that is to be raised will be tacked on, and that will be the point where that will happen. If the cattle are going to an overseas market, then there would be an obligation for that consignment to be paid for by the Australian connections, whether it's the processors or the farmers going into the other country. It should be the same when products come back again. We're subsidising products that are coming in to compete with the products that Australian farmers are producing, whether processed meats or the like.

In some cases, the information is very vague. In some of the emerging smaller industries, there is not really a process identified as to how this will be delivered. One of the concerns is that the cost of putting in a framework for compliance will actually exceed the income generated from that industry. The other issue around these levies is that it appears that they will go into consolidated revenue rather than going directly to where that money needs to be spent to protect our borders. It's just another case of how this government really has contempt for regional Australia and farmers.

The fact that I'm speaking today in the Federation Chamber on such an important issue as this while downstairs there is a debate about an issue that quite frankly the Australian public would not know or care about, I think, is a clear indication of the contempt for the agriculture sector. There is no reason for this. I have been here for a long time. This is my 17th year and, quite frankly, I have never seen legislation as important as this debated in this chamber. Don't get me wrong; this is a very important place for debate, and for a while as Deputy Speaker I had the responsibility for this Federation Chamber. But it was never, ever designed to debate legislation that will have a critical impact not only on the farming sector but on the rest of Australia as well. But it ties into a pattern that we are seeing on the lack of understanding of regional Australia. The attack on the Murray-Darling Basin, on the farmers and communities in that area, is just a clear indication of the lack of understanding. We're now seeing advertisements on TV saying this government is going to stop the rivers from ever drying again. They are ephemeral rivers. They have been since time began. Good luck with that! But that's the sort of blind ignorance and misinformation we are seeing from the government on this.

This can be fixed. We need to make sure that we do have the processes in place. There's no argument about that. But this is having the farmers paying for their opponents, and there are already levies paid. Just on our little farm, we pay a levy now for biosecurity to the local land services that provide a great service. The farmers are paying for that. Just in the last two days in this place I have been talking to grain growers from all over Australia, from Western Australia right through to Moree in my electorate. They are terribly concerned about what it's going to cost them—whether it's in a container or whether there's a levy to what goes out in bulk. I also had a meeting today with representatives from the wool producers. They are terribly concerned about what it's going to mean for them. They have some other issues that the government needs to work through around a national identity scheme. Now that the price, particularly of mutton, has come back in the saleyards, we are seeing that sometimes the electronic tag that is compulsory in Victoria is nearly half the value of the sheep that is being sold. So farmers are copping it from every direction.

I represent a large agricultural area and a large livestock area. The Pastoralists' Association of West Darling represent those big stations, as the name would suggest, west of the Darling River. They have incredible concerns about the costs that are being inflicted on their industry in an area on fairly steep margins. It's low-rainfall country. Their management skills and ability to care for the land mean that they can operate in that part of the world. But they don't have a surplus of cash that will enable them to be paying levies willy-nilly.

In just this last couple of weeks we have seen the other impost—and the member for Dawson mentioned this—on the essential tools that livestock farmers rely on: the utes and SUVs that they need. There's no replacement for them as yet. They are going to be hit in the neck again when it comes time to replace those vehicles because they'll have no options. The electric ute that's on the market now wouldn't even get you to town if you lived on a station near Broken Hill. It's got a range of 150 kilometres with a half-a-tonne load on it.

I'm incredibly disappointed that we have got to this point where we are debating such an important issue and there appears to be a complete lack of empathy or understanding of the issue. This just seems to be an easy hit that makes it appear that the government is doing something—and why not let the farmers pay for it? If you're cynical enough, they're saying, 'They don't vote for us anyway, so they can pay for this.' The short-term impact on farmers is great, but the longer term impact of not having a biosecurity system in place that's robust, paid for by the people that use it and paid for by the people who are introducing risks to this country is greater. This is a very poor, second-rate proposal compared to what we could have. I'm thoroughly disappointed that we've got to this point, and I will not be supporting this bill.

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