Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

What an interesting contribution that was from the Leader of the Nationals—I mean, seriously! I'm actually pleased to be given the opportunity to stand up here and talk about our record investments that will support our critical industries of agriculture and resources, which is what this MPI is actually supposed to be about, because we do have record investments supporting both the resources sector and the agriculture sector. We have invested over $3 billion in new investments in agriculture since we came to office, including fixing up the messes that they left behind. You talk about a world renowned biosecurity system keeping out pests and diseases in this country; we've invested over a billion dollars in extra funding to be able to secure that. Those opposite left it in deficit and left it in a mess, and we had been cleaning it up. What about the APVMA? We all remember what a mess that was—an absolute mess. We had chemicals in this country that had not been checked for more than a decade.

We also have these two critical industries, resources and agriculture, which we know are going to pay a critical part on our road to net zero, and we have legislation that's being debated in the parliament—we just had some votes on it yesterday, and it's on its way to the Senate—called the Future Made in Australia Bill. What does the Future Made in Australia do? It supports the critical minerals industry, in Western Australia particularly. It also provides opportunities for our agriculture industry when it comes to low carbon biofuels. It will provide a lot of support to both of those industries to be able to actually make more here in this country, and, for some reason, those opposite are opposed to it. It will create more regional jobs, and those opposite are opposed to it—a future made in Australia. I cannot believe that even the Nationals—I can see a grin over there. This is a serious bill about making sure that we make more of the opportunities and our great raw products here in Australia.

Both the agriculture and the resources sectors provide great raw products in this country, and we want to do everything we can do to support them. When it comes to agriculture, this financial year, the agriculture sector will contribute $84 billion to Australia, the majority of which, over $70 billion, is in exports.

So what have we been doing as a government? We've been trying to open up trade markets and repair our international relations which those opposite decimated when they were in government. We all know that has actually been one of the things that our government has been recognised and praised for around the world—restoring those trade relations, particularly when it comes to places like China. Indeed, we had $17.2 billion in agriculture, fisheries and forest products going into China in the last financial year. But we know that, when those opposite were in government, there were some serious issues. The Prime Minister, today, talked about our red meat going into China. He talked about our bottled wine going back into China. He talked about our barley going back into China. He talked about our oat and hay going back into China.

We have worked diligently not just with China but to diversify our trade markets, so we've also maintained access to canola for the EU. We've got new access for live eastern rock lobsters for Vietnam. We've improved access for wine in Thailand. We've got new access for hass avocados to Thailand. Just yesterday, the trade minister and I announced access of plums to Vietnam. We've maintained access for queen bees exported to Canada. We've improved dairy access for products to Chile. We've got new market access for Australian honey and edible aquaculture products to be exported to Vietnam.

If you want to add it all up, we've actually got, just in the last financial year, 88 technical market access achievements, of which 10 are new markets, 44 are improvements to existing markets and 29 are actions to maintain and restore existing markets. These are worth $4.6 billion, just when you talk about restoring the existing markets we had and maintaining them. This is very significant support for our agriculture sector, because we know how important it is. It's important to the country.

We know what happened during COVID: our producers produced and kept this country going to make sure that we could keep our supply chains going and Australians were fed. We know how critical it is. What we need to do is continue to support them. Our National Reconstruction Fund will have specific money set aside for agriculture, forestry and fisheries, and, indeed, they're eligible to apply for that now. That, together with the Future Made in Australia, will provide enormous opportunities for the sector in this country to be able to continue to grow. We're working on the agriculture and land sector plan with the industry so that they can get the benefits from our Road to Net Zero. There are huge opportunities here for diversifying income on-farm. There are huge opportunities for increase in productivity, as we're going to need to invest in lots of research and development when it comes to reducing emissions on-farm.

We heard from the member opposite about scope 3 emissions. What we have said very clearly is that these need to be collected only where there's not a huge cost and they are available. That is the truth of the matter. The member over there, the Leader of the Nationals, has been running a bit of a scare campaign on this. We've also heard all sorts of rumours about how we're going to change the diesel fuel rate—again, untrue. He was up here talking about the 88-day working visa—they are the ones that removed that requirement when they did the trade deal with the UK. It was actually their government that removed it. Seriously! He talked about the ag visa; nobody came to Australia for nine years under their ag visa. It didn't actually do anything. We're serious about the workforce. We have changed PALM. Importantly, with our fee-free TAFE, we have also got more than 14,000 people doing agriculture studies that wouldn't have otherwise been doing it. We have actually been working when it comes to workforce. We've been working when it comes to improving our biosecurity system. We've improved the AMA. We've opened up trade markets. We are working incredibly hard to make sure that our agriculture sector continues to thrive.

I know my colleague Madeleine King has also been working hard when it comes to our resources sector. Indeed, modelling shows that by processing more onshore our critical minerals industry could generate close to an extra $70 billion in GDP. That would increase jobs in regional Australia. We've invested $3.4 billion for the Resourcing Australia's Prosperity program, for Geoscience Australia to identify the likely locations of the critical mineral deposits to make sure that we can access them and get the benefits. We know that other countries are trying to get onto the critical minerals because we all know that they're going to be vital for the road to net zero, but we want our country to take those opportunities. We do not want to be left behind as a country, which is why we're making these investments. The value of our resources projects is more than $13 billion in investments that we are making to support the resources sector in Australia. The Prime Minister and the cabinet have been over to Western Australia several times—I've been over to Western Australia, and I'll be travelling to Western Australia again in coming weeks—to work with the state government on the transition in terms of the phase-out of live sheep exports. We are very serious about engaging with the Western Australian community, working with the Western Australian government and making sure that we get the best for Western Australians.

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