Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to again rise in this place and talk about what the Albanese Labor government is doing for our agriculture sector, delivering for the agriculture, fisheries and forestry sectors in the 2024-25 budget. The budget includes almost $800 million over the next eight years in new programs to support agriculture, fisheries and forestry. Measures in this budget build on the more than $3.1 billion—with a B—worth of new investments in agriculture. The Albanese Labor government is delivering for agriculture, fisheries and forestry in a way that the former government could only dream of and, to be quite frank, did not.

The Nationals sit here, carping from the sidelines about how they alone own this portfolio and only the National Party can understand agriculture. But it has taken a Labor government to deliver critical programs that the Nationals never could because they could not wrestle the purse strings from their coalition partner, who clearly had more control over the money than they ever did.

New data from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences—known as ABARES—forecast the gross value of agricultural production will rise to $84 billion in 2024-25. Livestock production will increase with better seasonal conditions and a positive winter outlook will support crop production next year—and that is a good thing. This is due to the hard work of our farmers, fishers and foresters, the workers in this industry, and those who supply the supply chains, including those who work so hard in these sectors who are my own electorate of Paterson.

For the last two years, the work that has been going on as been supported by government—a government that understands the importance of an industry that feeds us, clothes us and generates enormous wealth for our country. We do get farming. The Albanese Labor government has laid the groundwork to protect and grow this sector through record investments in priority areas like biosecurity, workforce, trade and adaption to climate change. It's delivering real results in partnership with industry.

The government has drawn a line under years of neglect, quite frankly, and stopgap bandaids, particularly in biosecurity, which is supposed to be a strong and fundamental net not only for our agriculture sector but also for our entire nation. However, the Nats were only able to pick up from the bottom of the cage what they could to bandaid together the net. The net was in tatters when they left government. It has taken the Labor Party to come to the fore and pick up that net, fix the net and make sure it is secure for all Australians. National Party ministers thought that good outcomes consisted of getting out the chequebook and having a grant here or there, rather than sustainably funding the one thing that farmers do depend on, and that is strong biosecurity. They were selling you a furphy, quite frankly.

Our sustainable biosecurity funding model is more broadly based than ever before, maximising available funding for our critical biosecurity system. It took the Albanese Labor government to deliver this. The coalition 's legacy was a $100 million annual funding cut in biosecurity every single year. The coalition left biosecurity a budget of less than $500 million a year in 2025. In contrast, our government will invest $800 million in biosecurity in that same year, $300 million more than under the coalition. They are just the facts.

They say, 'Follow the money,' in all of these arguments. There's the cold hard fact of it. We're putting $300 million more into biosecurity than those who came before us did. They talk to us about biosecurity all the time, saying: 'No, we were doing it. It's all fine.' It wasn't fine. You don't need to be an agriculturalist to understand we need to keep Australians safe from things like lumpy skin disease and foot-and-mouth disease. It's not only for the ag sector; it's for us all. This government is delivering not only for agriculture but for all Australians.

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