Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker May, may I congratulate you on your elevation to that position of high esteem.

Opposition Member:

An opposition member—Lofty esteem.

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Absolutely, and very well deserved. I look forward to being under your leadership in the chamber, Madam Deputy Speaker, in future times. I rise to talk about the report by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources, which I was a member of for nine years before this parliament. I regret not being on that committee anymore, but with a largely agricultural seat like mine, the seat of Barker, I of course take a great interest in the work the committee does even though I cannot participate in it. So I was very interested to see this report, Farming the future: the role of government in assisting Australian farmers to adapt to the impacts of climate change. We all know that climate change is here; it always has been. We can argue about whether it is anthropogenic or not, but the fact is we do have climate change and farmers for centuries or millennia have actually been adapting to climate change. In fact, people in Greenland took up farming in the medieval warm period when it was about two degrees warmer than it is now. That is why it was called Greenland, because it became green with the warming that was happening there between the 11th and 14th centuries. So farmers do adapt, and it is important that as a committee and as a parliament we look at how we can help farmers adapt to climate change.

I think it is rather ironic that in the chamber on 19 February 2008 I talked about the importance of adapting. I have always believed that the more important strategy for adapting to climate change was always going to be through direct action, which the coalition of course have put down as their policy on climate change, and this report talks about adapting. On 19 February 2008 I talked about how important it was to adapt, so I was quite bemused when, a couple of weeks after that speech, the then environment minister, Mr Garrett, tried to make fun of that in answer to a question on 11 March 2008. He said:

The member for Barker went on to advise that the most sensible approach to climate change would be ‘to adapt’—

in inverted commas, as if this was some revelation that it was a really stupid way to go. That was very interesting because, a couple of questions later, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Tony Burke, mentioned the importance for farmers to adapt to climate change. It really did make a mockery of the then minister for the environment, Mr Garrett, suggesting that I was somehow a bit loony to suggest that we should be adapting. That is exactly what this committee report is about. I will give you the title again: The role of government in assisting Australian farmers to adapt to the impacts of climate change. As a farmer myself, I have adapted all my life.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A very good one!

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to think so. Last year we had the best crops on record. That was not due to any work that I did; it was actually due to the fact that the climate gave us a great season. In fact, if you were writing a script for a season, in 2009 we had it in my area. So you do adapt. I remember in 2006 suggesting to my son that I had a feeling we were not going to get much more rain. That was in about June. The predictions from the Bureau of Meteorology were that we might have a little bit below average rainfall for the rest of the year. In fact, it forgot to rain after June. Normally, May, June, July and August are our wettest months in our Mediterranean climate. I am glad we stopped sowing crops because it was the driest year in 117 years of recording. So the crops were a disaster and my area, which is generally drought free, found it had a year like no other. As a farming family we adapted to those circumstances.

If you go through the recommendations, there are some very good ones. For example, recommendation 2 states:

… the Australian Government, as part of its overall response to issues affecting agriculture and climate change, take more effective account of the needs and decision making processes of farmers—

I have just given you an example of that—

and ensure that the delivery of adaptation programs—

please listen, minister for the environment—

is flexible and responsive to the needs of farmers and rural communities.

I think that is a good recommendation. I note the member for New England has been a long-serving member on that same committee, and we worked together very strongly for the nine years that I was on it—and I think that was six years for you; you are now in your ninth year.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Recommendation 3 is also very important because it says:

The Committee recommends that the Australian Government, as part of its overall response to issues affecting agriculture and climate change, invest research funding in the following high priority areas:

Soil carbon sequestration—

Hello: coalition direct action policy; great stuff—

Soil stabilisation and pasture improvements using methods such as perennial pastures, pasture cropping, rotational grazing, biodynamic farming, minimum/no till cultivation and controlled traffic farming;

I can say from my own experience that we have been using those sorts of programs on our farm. Some of them are very successful, depending on the soil, the climate and what you are trying to achieve. Another recommendation referred to soil-water retention strategies and water-use efficiency. I think there is no doubt that that is very important: to get more crop per drop—in other words, to use our water more efficiently. South Australia, I think, have a proud record of being the most efficient irrigator in Australia. They have upgraded their infrastructure, which unfortunately seems to have stopped in the last couple of years under this federal government. Even though there is $6 billion set aside for it, it actually has had proven effects in South Australia—for example, the Loxton irrigation rehabilitation scheme in my electorate, where it saved huge amounts of water. I think it was something like 44 gigalitres annually just by using pipes rather than open channels, which seep and evaporate. Unfortunately, the state government at the time, who I might add was Labor, decided to sell those savings of 44 gigalitres rather than return it to the river. It would have had a much greater effect if that water had through its savings been returned to the health of the river rather than being sold off for a cash supply by the state government at the time. But you can do those sorts of things, and quite successfully.

The report then refers to energy on farms, and recommendation 6 states:

… the Australian Government, as part of its overall response to issues affecting agriculture and climate change, increase its investment and support for research into energy efficiency in the agriculture sector and the development of alternative energy and alternative fuels on-farm, particularly in regard to:

Biofuels;

Biomass from agricultural waste; and

Biochar.

Hello: coalition direct action policy. What a great committee this is! It is actually adopting the coalition’s direct action policy in just about every recommendation. What a fantastic committee!

Recommendation 7 recommends:

… the Australian Government increase funding for research into improving the consistency and accuracy of weather and climate forecasting, especially at a seasonal and regional level.

Well, can I tell you, as a farmer probably the most important knowledge you can have is about the upcoming weather, whether it is trying to avoid rain because you are spraying or making sure that you sow at the right time and you have got the right moisture. So it is very important that more money is spent on that research.

I found recommendation 8 quite interesting. The committee recommended:

… the Australian Government develop an education and training scheme for farmers in the understanding and use of weather and climate information.

In my experience I am not sure that is necessary. Every farmer I know knows a lot about the weather. That is what controls their lives, and they use every bit of the latest technology, going onto the Bureau of Meteorology website to get long-term and short-term forecasts or sometimes to find out what is happening in just the next couple of hours. If you go onto the website you can find very accurate forecasts by looking at the radar—some of us would have seen that on the cricket forecasts—which shows the weather patterns and where the weather is coming from.. So I am not convinced that that recommendation is going to be all that necessary. I am not saying that it is a bad recommendation; I am just not sure that we actually need to do a lot in that area.

Recommendation 10 is good because the committee recommended:

… the Australian Government, as part of its ongoing strategy development to issues affecting agriculture and climate change, develop a strategy to capture, evaluate and disseminate the range of farmer driven—

and that is the important thing, that they are farmer driven—

innovations that have a significant capacity to increase the resilience and productivity of farm enterprises.

Farmers in this country have got a really good record of inventions and innovations, going back as far as the stump-jump plough, for example, or the Sunshine harvester, the first motor driven harvester. Certainly by today’s standards you would think: ‘An eight-feet comb?’, but it was better than what they had with the horse and dray. Of course now we have 40-feet combs and huge headers for reaping. From that original innovation they have expanded and obviously moved on to something better. That original innovation happened in Australia and of course it progressed from there as time went on.

Recommendation 11 says:

The Committee recommends that the Australian Government ensures that there is an overall body to receive and analyse research and co-ordinate research across the nation in relation to climate change adaptation in agriculture—

that lovely word ‘adaptation’—

and that said body is given the necessary resources of staff and funds to carry out its role.

I think it is very sensible that we have some coordination of the information we are getting that can be disseminated to farmers—and the ability to take up the latest innovations and technology. Look at minimum till. When I grew up, 50 years ago, you had to plough the paddock at least four or five times to kill the weeds. Unfortunately, doing that you used up a lot of the moisture. You may have killed the weeds but you used a hell of a lot of diesel running the tractors to plough those paddocks and sometimes you just did not get it in time. Now with direct till you go straight in, you do not waste the moisture, you use a lot less fuel and, if you believe in problems with CO2, you are reducing the CO2. In fact, farming in Australia is the only industry that has actually reduced its CO2. Farmers have done it not because of climate change but because they want to save money and do their farming better. It is the only industry in Australia that has done it and they have done it without government help. So if we can help a bit that is good.

The last recommendation that I want to refer to is:

The Committee recommends that the Australian Government give further consideration to the analysis of government policy and outcomes in the submission to the current inquiry made by the Future Farm Industries CRC, with a view to ensuring the better coordination of research and extension efforts and the delivery of effective policy outcomes.

That might sound a bit like a ‘program specificity’, which we have all heard about, but if you actually bring it down to plain language it is saying that we need the coordination by the CRC in farming, and that is important because that coordination will help get that information disseminated to the farmers of Australia to make them even better farmers. So put it in plain language and get away from the program specificity, but if you look into it deeply it is actually a very good recommendation.

Can I congratulate the committee on their work. They have done a great job and it has been a pleasure to talk on this issue.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too congratulate you, Madam Deputy Speaker May, on your appointment to the Speaker’s Panel and wish you the very best in keeping members under control. It is interesting following the member for Barker. The member for Barker unfortunately did not follow the practice of the committee in its attempts to keep this pretty much a bipartisan issue. The member for Barker would have us believe that carbon in our atmosphere could be stabilised to below five per cent of our 2000 levels just by adopting the recommendations of the committee. It is an interesting concept because most of those recommendations are focused on research and development, in other words, bringing to a commercial stage many of the innovations we would all hope collectively to see in place in the future. So it is an interesting angle and approach that he chose to take on this occasion.

I am not a farmer, unlike the member for Barker, and, indeed, I am not a member of the committee. But I have represented farming communities for some 14 years in this place and on that basis it should not be a surprise to anyone to see me seeking an opportunity to provide some reflection and some comment on the committee’s work. The report entitled Farming the future: the role of government in assisting Australian farmers adapt to the impacts of climate change is a report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources. I agree with the member for Barker on one thing: this is a good report. It is a practical and pragmatic report, and I too congratulate the committee on its very good work.

As the member for Lyons indicated in his chairman’s foreword, the committee was less interested in arguing the toss over issues like climate change because, as he indicated, there is a diversity of views among committee members. Rather, the committee was much more interested in seeking practical solutions to some of the challenges that farmers face particularly as they relate to dramatic changes in our climatic conditions here in Australia. This approach underscores the great value of our parliamentary committee work. It is often underappreciated. It is an environment in which members can work in a bipartisan way towards the common good and, again, I congratulate the committee on doing so on this particular occasion.

Very much underappreciated in the Australian community also, I think, are the challenges that our farming communities face, for example drought, salinity, water allocation issues, declining commodity prices, rising input prices, and monopsony buyers, which is something close to my heart in terms of my own electorate. Then there are the difficulties in securing the services of skilled employees, and conflicting land use issues which are increasingly encroaching on some agricultural pursuits, and of course there is globalisation and industry rationalisation. In the wine industry, for example, oversupply is a big issue and of course for farming communities we also have isolation and all the social issues which go with that. I was particularly pleased to see the committee focusing more broadly on those social issues and not just looking at things which people would come to understand as issues pertaining directly to the challenges of tilling the soil and producing crops.

The committee took a year to make some 15 recommendations. During the year it considered 73 submissions and held 14 public inquiries. It also visited five states, looking at innovative farming practices in particular. The report very much focuses on the way in which climate change makes life more difficult for already challenged families. It highlights the need to provide greater counselling support and to listen more to what farmers are saying and to look more closely at their local innovation.

The report places great emphasis on the need for a greater investment in research and development, particularly in areas like soil carbon sequestration, something we have spoken about already; and soil water retention strategies and, of course, water efficiency. Carbon sequestration has the potential to both increase crop yields and, of course, reduce carbon in our atmosphere—really good news for food security and really good news for our environment, if we can get that technology to commercial use.

Those who produce our food are part of our most important economic sector. Yet they face all the challenges which I spoke about earlier in my contribution. I want very briefly to highlight one of those challenges, and that is land conflict. In my own electorate this is a big issue, particularly in the upper reaches of my electorate. While there is no lack of appreciation of the wealth that has been provided by the coal industry—and may it long continue to provide that wealth—there is also an increasing concern that unsustainable or limited-time industries like coal are increasingly starting to threaten sustainable industries in agricultural pursuits, particularly the wine industry and, in particular, horse breeding in the upper Hunter, which is an important economic driver in my electorate.

I believe, as the local member, those concerns are growing and those voices of concern are growing louder. Demand for our commodities—from China, for example—is driving, firstly, a greater investment. That, in many ways, is a good thing. But that demand is also driving further and further expansion of coalmining, particularly open-cut coalmining, in the upper Hunter. Our coalmines are getting closer to our horse-breeding studs, closer to our agriculture, to our farms, and also closer to those who produce the fruit for our very, very important wine industry. I think it is time for government to sit up and take a bit more notice of that and to work harder at getting the balance between these various pursuits right.

Interestingly, the New South Wales government recently took the very good decision to finally move forward with investment in new power generation in New South Wales. This is critical: if we do not get it, the lights will go out by 2015. One of those power stations will be in my electorate, around the Bayswater area in the upper Hunter. That is all good news.

What did surprise me was the decision by the New South Wales government to keep open the option of a new coal-fired power generator. I think that is a mistake. I think it is very important to put in place a gas-fired power generator in the upper Hunter. Not only would this be very good for the environment, it would provide the foundation for a new pipeline coming from South-East Queensland right through the Hunter and down into Sydney. This would provide, for the first time, competition in pipeline supply of gas in both of those areas. That would, in turn, provide greater opportunities for those seeking to invest in energy-intensive industries in the Hunter because they would then face the prospect of competitively priced gas—something industry in the Hunter has not had the opportunity to secure at any time up until this day.

I think also that the decision to pursue a gas-fired generator would send a good message to those people who have expressed those concerns I mentioned earlier—the growing concerns about land-use conflict and the impact of coalmining on those various agricultural pursuits in the valley. These issues are much broader than those covered by this report, but they are very important issues and issues appropriate to raise here in this debate.

Again, I congratulate the committee on its work. I see that Tony Windsor, the member for New England, is here. I know he is an active part of that committee and I know that these are issues in which he shows a great deal of interest. I commend the report both to the parliament and to the broader Australian community.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with pleasure that I speak to the report of the House Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources entitled Farming the future: the role of government in assisting Australian farmers to adapt to the impacts of climate change. I thank the member for Hunter for his comments. This is a very well thought out report which identifies a whole range of issues in relation to agriculture, climate change, climate variability, drought and rain. Irrespective of what people think or do not think is happening in terms of the climate, I think this document is quite valuable as a policy document in a whole range of areas relating to things like landscape management through to various types of land use, right through to the sequestering of carbon in the soil and all the other issues that revolve around the climate change or global warming debate.

I would particularly like to congratulate the chairman of our committee, Mr Dick Adams, for the way in which he has chaired the committee. As the member for Barker mentioned, I have been a member of this committee for some years now and he was a previous member of the committee. Irrespective of who has been the chairman—the member for Hume, Alby Schultz, did an outstanding job—if an individual came in, they would not be able to pick the partisan politics in relation to the issues. That is to the committee’s great credit and I think that is reflected in this report. I notice the member for Barker was trying to score a few political points in relation to some of the things that are mentioned in this report, such as biochar and some of the technologies that farmers have adopted. He saw that as an endorsement of coalition policy. That may be the fact but I think it says more about the committee than about partisan politics in that the committee has taken evidence from the community and made certain recommendations in its report as a result of those findings. In no way has anybody—

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I seek to intervene.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the member willing to give way?

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.

Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, is the complete absence of any reference to an ETS in this document the reason why it is bipartisan; and, secondly, does it reflect the fact that in the farming community there is almost no appetite whatsoever for an ETS?

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I was saying, the committee reflected on the evidence that was given to us. If the member would like to go back through the whole range of evidence that was given, he will see that the issues of carbon emissions and nitrous oxide emissions are in the document. There is quite a lot about the sequestering of carbon dioxide and the way in which agriculture can play a role in reducing its emissions. As to various market mechanisms or preferred market mechanisms taking care of those particular issues, the great bulk of evidence was around technologies and how agriculture can have a significant influence on reducing emissions. But it raises an interesting point. Irrespective of whether there is an emissions trading scheme or whether global warming, climate change—whatever you want to call it—were to go away tomorrow, many of the technologies that are talked about in this document should be looked at very closely by both sides of the parliament. I have my own personal views in relation to carbon pollution reduction schemes and emissions trading schemes. I believe that, eventually, if the globe does go down the path of some sort of emissions trading arrangement, there will have to be a price on carbon. I do not think you can really come to grips with that. I say that as one who raised the issue of soil carbon some three or four years ago before the buzzwords ‘carbon pollution reduction’ had actually entered the building.

The significant findings of this report as they relate to climate change, particularly in relation to carbon and the potential to sequester carbon in the soil as a way of ameliorating some of the issues in the atmosphere, should be looked at very closely, irrespective of what stage the emissions trading debate happens to be up to. It relates to the accumulation of humus and organic matter in the soil, and thinking farmers have been doing this for many years. If you accumulate humus and organic matter in the soil, which is in fact carbon, there is debate on whether, if there is a long dry spell or a drought and the soil cracks, that carbon is again released into the atmosphere—obviously part of the cycle. There are techniques, whether they be grazing or farming techniques, where the amount of soil carbon, which in most cases has been depleted over the years through various farming methods, can be increased. That may have a positive impact on global issues. Personally, I have some doubts as to how it will fit in a market mechanism. There are now some arrangements in various parts of the United States and in Australia where soil carbon is being traded in a voluntary market.

As a farmer, I believe that the great benefits of the carbon debate will not be in the carbon market but will be in the increased productivity that will come about by accumulating humus and organic matter in soils and with other practices, whether they be pasture technologies, no-till farming, conservation farming or a range of other things. The combination of technologies will allow more moisture to be retained at depth in soils, technologies such as GPS and practising controlled traffic where the movement of tractors and headers takes place over one portion of a paddock, time in and time out, rather than trampling down the top soil, as traditional methods have done.

There are other policy issues which start to come to the fore. The document addresses those and I am sure there are members of the committee who personally do not agree with some. It is to the credit of the committee that they have built what the community is saying into the document rather than trying to politicise the document itself with partisan political positions. This is a very valuable document in terms of drought policy because it identifies a lot of the technologies which farmers are using, can use, can modify and can adapt, which will ameliorate drought. By using some of those technologies, I have seen in my own electorate, and in others, where drought starts and finishes on the boundary. Drought is not necessarily about a total lack of rain; it is about how you manage the water when rain occurs.

Further down the track, there will be some policy issues which we will have to look at very closely. For instance, the terms ‘interception’ and ‘diversion’ are very much part of the 2007 Water Act and as we speak the Murray-Darling Basin Authority is putting in place the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Could some of these technologies be interpreted or defined as being interceptions of water that would otherwise have run off into our river systems? For instance, because no-till farming is changing the nature of the topsoil and increasing the capacity of the soil to take in moisture when it is raining, that means, in effect, that there is additional storage in the better soils of up to six inches of available moisture—six inches of rainfall moisture, not six inches in depth.

Agroforestry is carbon positive and water run-off negative. Could that land use be interpreted as an interception? The Murray-Darling Basin Authority are currently looking at what is going to be the volume of water falling in valleys. How does groundwater relate to surface water? How much will there be at the end of it—how much for the environment, how much for farmers and how much for anybody else at the Murray mouth?

Could those very technologies that this document identifies that are carbon positive be in fact negatives in terms of water policy? There are a various number of collision courses that I can see happening throughout agriculture and the way it interfaces with policy making. Not the least is this issue of food security. There is this preoccupation that the world is running out of food and that we need all our agricultural land to go towards food production. That would be all right if you could make some money out of growing food, but we export 80 per cent of what we produce in this nation, so in a sense we produce too much of the stuff and occasionally we have to bribe an Arab or two to get rid of some wheat, as has happened in the past.

So the debate comes round to what is the best land use: is it necessarily agriculture? If we are talking about methane from animals as being a negative in terms of the carbon economy, and nitrous oxide, which is nitrogen fertiliser, and carbon emissions from heavy use of machinery, are we better off to look at other options for land use? What about agroforestry? It is carbon positive but it interferes with water policy. How do we reconcile those water budgets? What about third-generation biofuels where you actually plant a crop once and then annually harvest it? It has the capacity to sequester carbon at depth, which a lot of crops do not have. It is carbon positive with depth storage of carbon. It is soil erosion positive. It is a biofuel, so it ticks the boxes in terms of the carbon world again. If it was land that used to grow food, wheat for instance, all the negatives from Australia to our marketplaces are transport negatives, carbon negative, carbon negative—real costs.

This is what we should think about in terms of an emissions trading arrangement: how agriculture fits in that and where the interface of food from land use and energy from land use starts to collide. I do not think at the policy level we have really looked at that too closely. For instance, the major part of wheat, the starch in wheat, is carbon. If we are growing massive quantities of wheat using massive quantities of diesel and then massive quantities of transport fuels et cetera to create an export economy so that we can exchange that wheat for money and then buy fuel, carbon, and bring it back again to have the fellow going round in circles on his tractor again, would we not be better to consider the option of cutting the corner and saying, ‘Well, if we are only doing it to buy fuel, why not grow fuel?’ Why not grow a biofuel which sequesters carbon at depth? There are massive areas around Walgett through to Narrabri, vast areas of black soil in Australia that could be quite effective at sequestering carbon at depth, irrespective of whether there is a market for that or not.

I think this document raises a whole range of issues but it is very important in terms of the drought debate, it is very important in terms of the emissions debate and it is very important in terms of the water use efficiency debate and how that relates to the total system. What it does show very clearly, though, is that the farmers who have been at the cutting edge of technology are a long way in front of the researchers. I think government has got to start to take the leash off some of these researchers. Soil science has been ignored for 30 years, and here we are talking about the very basics of life: what makes up the soil, what makes it live, how that relates to carbon and what the interactions with the atmosphere are. We are starting to look at that again because of the climate change and global warming debate. It is a debate that we should have had years ago, irrespective of climate change, and it is something that government should take account of now. (Time expired)

Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The report by the Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources entitled Farming the future: the role of government in assisting Australian farmers to adapt to the impacts of climate change is an important document for now and for the future. One of the great things about where my electorate is located, on the beautiful Central Coast—and I acknowledge the member for Robertson, who shares the beautiful Central Coast with me—is that there are many areas where residential suburbs interface with picturesque rural land. One minute you can be driving through typical suburban streets with brick houses, well-kept lawns and curbs and guttering and the next minute you can have expansive views of farmland with cattle grazing and undulating hills in the background. It is a very mixed area in terms of the environment.

We do not have extensive areas of farmland, unlike many other parts of New South Wales, but we do have some important agriculture on the Central Coast. For instance, the region has the largest kiwifruit farm on the eastern seaboard of Australia, and there are extensive properties specialising in cut flowers for both the domestic and overseas markets. In fact, I was recently talking to a Zimbabwean couple who picked out the Central Coast as having the perfect climate for roses. They were planning to set up a business and were looking at all sorts of countries around the world, looking at the temperature and so forth, and they have now set up a successful rose growing business on the Central Coast in my electorate. Following along the lines of selling coal to Newcastle or supplying champagne to the French, we actually have Japanese companies now buying green tea grown on the Central Coast. It is another important area of agriculture that we have. So, while the Central Coast is a relatively small agricultural area, it is a very diverse agricultural sector.

While the Central Coast is probably the most beautiful area of Australia, we are also an area that is susceptible to the effects of climate change. Unfortunately, the environment in this region is very fragile. We have a thin coastline with developments there. In the middle of my electorate there is a beautiful lake which is prone to flooding, as it has access to the sea. An issue such as rising sea levels affects everyone on the Central Coast, particularly those in my electorate. When I walked along the beach at North Entrance earlier this year inspecting the damage done by a major storm—the sorts of hazards that many of my constituents face living so close to the ocean—it hit home to me just how fragile our environment is. A whole street of houses had lost large chunks of their backyards. There were bits of fences overhanging the beach, concrete pathways sticking out going nowhere because the backyard had been washed away. There were broken rails and trees uprooted along the fence line. In the backyard of one of these houses there used to be a beautiful glass fence. The glass fence had been completely washed away. The residents had over four metres of their backyard washed away because of this storm surge. These storm surges are becoming more regular as our climate is changing.

Because of this issue I made a submission to the Standing Committee on Climate Change, Water, Environment and the Arts, which delivered a very comprehensive report to the House last year. One of the places they visited—in fact, the first place they visited—was the electorate of Dobell. Dobell has three areas in particular that have been hit hard by the storm surges. The beaches at Wamberal have been washed away on a number of occasions, as have the beaches at North Entrance, which I have just been talking about. These beaches have extensive development on them. The beach at Little Cove at Cabbage Tree Bay at Norah Head has been closed now for over two years because there are houses on the clifftops that are literally falling into the bay as the erosion has occurred around this area due to the storm surges, and it is dangerous for people to go on that beach in case these houses do in fact fall off the cliff.

My electorate bears the full brunt of the storm surges on the coast, but it also bears the brunt of storm surges that come up through The Entrance and into the Tuggerah Lakes system which they did in 2007, causing extensive flooding inland around the lake where most of the population in my electorate live. This resulted in over 1,000 people having to be evacuated and moved in a massive coordinated response that was undertaken.

As was the report on the impact on climate of coastal communities important, so too is this report on how we assist farmers with the impact of climate change. That report on the impact on coastal communities made many recommendations in relation to us being prepared, action that we would need to take to mitigate these natural disasters, and why we need to act in relation to climate change. It was a very important report that brought home to everyone who lives on the coast the need to act. We cannot put our heads in the sand and hope that this issue will go away. It is affecting my community right now.

The report we are talking about today, on how we can assist farmers when it comes to dealing with the impacts of climate change, should be commended and its many recommendations should be endorsed. I will not go through all the recommendations, but some of them are particularly relevant to my Central Coast electorate. Part of a recommendation, which deals with investing research funding, is an overall response to issues affecting agriculture and climate change, and it recognises as a high-priority area soil water retention strategies and water use efficiency. I am happy to say that, on the Central Coast, water efficiency has become a very strong culture, especially amongst its residents.

Our region—the region that the member for Robertson and I look after—sank to a very low point in water storage only a few years ago. In fact, our main dam was down to about 11 per cent capacity. We also had a pipeline from the Hunter, piping water into our electorate to ensure that we did not completely run out of water. Thankfully, that is not the case now but, as the total water storage level currently hovers around the 30 per cent mark, we have to remind ourselves that in terms of water storage we are still 70 per cent empty.

One thing that the Rudd government has done—one of the promises that we have acted upon—is to build a pipeline between the coastal dam and the water storage dam which, hopefully, we will be turning the sod for in the weeks ahead. That will, over time, ensure that the Central Coast is drought-proofed because of this good infrastructure that the Rudd government has put in that affects those two seats on the Central Coast. The whole subject of water efficiency, from areas such as water harvesting and recycling to cutting evaporation rates on farms, is increasingly being embraced by businesses that include farms. I know of at least one hydroponic salad/vegetable farm which built new greenhouse structures, incorporating rainwater collection and storage, making themselves almost completely self-sufficient in water use. Quite a few orange and other fruit growers on the Central Coast have already adapted their fields so there is better water retention in the soil. They have certainly improved their water use efficiency.

The committee also recommended that the Australian government support further research efforts into the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. In another recommendation the committee said that the government should increase its investment and support for research into energy efficiency in the agricultural sector and the development of alternative energy and fuels on farms, particularly in the area of biofuels, biomass from agricultural waste and biochar.

There is another recommendation that is very interesting from the point of view of the Central Coast area. The committee recommended that the government:

… increase funding for research into improving the consistency and accuracy of weather and climate forecasting, especially at a seasonal and regional level.

Following that is the recommendation that the government develop an education and training scheme for farmers in the understanding and use of weather and climate information.

Currently, weather forecasts on the Central Coast are included as part of the larger Hunter area. Clearly, the Central Coast is not the Hunter area. One of the things that I am pushing for is to ensure that we have our own weather forecasts that are tailored to the Central Coast that will have the effect of giving greater accuracy and consistency in forecasting for the area. That is one thing this committee recommended: ensuring that there is greater accuracy and forecasting at a regional level. That is something that has a direct effect on my electorate. The committee also recommended that the government:

… maintain its commitment to climate change research pertaining to Australia’s agricultural industries, ensuring that the funding is committed, sustained and pays due attention to regional as well as national needs and priorities. Climate change research must reflect the changes affecting different regions, soils and topography—as all have an impact on changes in farming practices to deal with them.

I am certain our farmers on the Central Coast will welcome this recommendation, as they will many of the others in this report. Another recommendation is that the Australian government:

… develop a strategy to capture, evaluate and disseminate the range of farmer driven innovations that have a significant capacity to increase the resilience and productivity of farm enterprises.

The member for New England was making that point in his contribution and I think it is a point well made. It is not just in the area of research that innovative issues are developed; more often than not, it is through dealing with issues of a practical nature on farms where these innovations first take place. That is something this report acknowledged, and it recommended that we make the dissemination of those innovations that have grown up through practice on farms easier so that the farming community as a whole can benefit from some of those innovative practices.

The committee has also recommended that the government:

… ensures that there is an overall body to receive and analyse research and co-ordinate research across the nation in relation to climate change adaptation in agriculture, and that said body is given the necessary resources of staff and funds to carry out its role.

I would encourage our farmers on the Central Coast to become involved in any such organisation and make valuable input. It is further recommended in the report that the government:

… give greater consideration to better integration of local and regional organisations into its overall response to the issues affecting agriculture and climate change, and provide additional funding to support the management role of these local and regional organisations.

On the issue of incentives for industry in agriculture, there is a recommendation that the government:

… explore further opportunities to facilitate adaptation to climate variability and climate change through the use of targeted, industry and issue specific, incentives.

Recommendation 15 calls for the government to:

… place funding for local and community organisations engaged in the work of supporting farmers in adapting to climate variability and climate change upon a permanent and regular basis.

To sum up, I would strongly urge those involved in our rather small but very diverse agriculture sector on the New South Wales Central Coast to have a close look at the report by the Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources and its recommendations. While not all of the recommendations will be relevant to them, there are some very important ones there that will be. It is essential that the farming sector on the Central Coast work closely with the federal government to ensure that their voice is heard when it comes to implementing the measures to deal with the impacts of climate change on farming.

One of the key features of this report was the continual recognition of making sure that there are regional and local solutions. Where those solutions exist, they are adapted to the local environments of the various regions around Australia. In my area on the Central Coast, we have always felt that we get lumped in either with Sydney or with Newcastle and the Hunter. The Central Coast is its own area. It has its own particular and unique problems. It has its own challenges in relation to many issues, not least of which is climate change. The committee should be commended for the many recommendations in this report that focus on a regional approach and on looking at the particulars of regional difficulties. There are few areas in Australia that face the variety of challenges in terms of climate change that my electorate faces. From the eroding coastlines and the flooding of the lakes through storm surges to the lack of water, these issues have greatly affected the lives of people living on the Central Coast, none more so than those people seeking to make a living from the land, who are perhaps even more vulnerable to these issues of climate change. This report has recommendations that are important for now, but it also has important recommendations for the future. I commend the report and its recommendations to the House.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to make some remarks on the Farming the future: the role of government in assisting Australian farmers to adapt to the impacts of climate change report from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources, a committee that I used to be a member of. I commend their work and the good people who make up that committee. This report is important to my electorate and there are some messages around climate change and farming that I would like to deliver to the House today.

People often think of farmers as being climate change sceptics and I appreciate that because, when I talk to the farmers in my area, they can be ambivalent about climate change and they can be concerned, curious and bewildered. It is not fair to say that they have turned their back on climate change. It is not fair to say that they reject the science out of hand. But, as they are very much at the cutting edge of what is going on and it is their livelihoods and families that are on the line, it is totally appropriate that they be healthily sceptical.

I think that when the government has responded to the challenge of climate change it has gone about in somewhat the wrong way. It has labelled many of the agricultural programs that we used to see in rural Australia as simply attaching to climate change. The issue of being soundly environmental—of saving energy, saving water and conserving soils—seems to take a secondary order of preference to climate change, and everything is up in lights under this big banner of climate change. The problem that farmers have with that is that they do not necessarily see the link between a grand, global strategic discussion and what they are actually doing in their back paddock—even though there very definitely is a link, and it is an important one.

So I have been disappointed to see some of the programs that the government has rolled out and the rebadging. When you look at the detail, I acknowledge that the content of some of those programs is valuable and useful to farmers. But what I noticed in a previous farming life and in the previous government where I had more contact with the agricultural portfolio is that we are losing a lot of our on-ground research extension and development. I note that recommendations 9 to 12 of the committee’s report focus on the research and extension—and I really want to commend that. That is a really good thing.

It is not just the role of federal governments to manage research and extension, but over the years we have seen the role of state departments of agriculture—which have often been rebadged as departments of climate change, too—their on-the-ground, practical role, vastly reduced. Consequently, there has been a vacuum and we have not really had enough agencies, enough funding or enough organisations to take the research and extension work up to farmers in the way that they really need to have that done.

I note the good work of the catchment management authorities in my area—the Murray Catchment Management Authority is one in particular, as is the Lower Darling and the Western Murray. The catchment management authorities have been left to pick up the ball and run with it on a lot of these projects. One of the ones that they are running in my area concerns some comparisons between different farms to try to evaluate the degree of climate change adaptiveness and the farming practices. What it comes down to is what the farming practices are that are being used and how they might best respond to climate change.

An example that I was told about recently concerns a selection of three different farms—one that would be using a rotational grazing and a mixed farming enterprise; one that would be using continuous cropping with stubble retention and minimum tillage; and another that might be using very old-fashioned plough, plough, plough farming methods—and looking at how soil carbon could be sequestered and the effect on the total farming enterprise from these different types of farming activities. You might think that this is something that we already know and that the science is already settled on, but it certainly is not because, in every different area of Australia, farming practices and responses are completely different depending on the soil types, the landscape, the rainfall and the level of technology that is employed.

By having these simple, practical demonstrations and experiments in an area and then publishing the results to all farmers and, most importantly, allowing farmers to actually look at the demonstrations, look at the on-site work and talk to each other about what is going on, you will spread the knowledge far better than grand plans and scientific programs. With all respect to the CSIRO and our other organisations, I do not believe that the work that they do is rooted sufficiently in practical farming. The response that many farmers have to multimillion dollar CSIRO studies and the glossy brochures that accompany them is, ‘What does this really mean for me? How does this affect my farming enterprise?’ I can hand any farmer that I know one of those glossy brochures and they can turn to any page in it and they can find a glaring error. That is because they know what they are doing and they understand what is required of them in their family farming business. And if they have survived the last 10 years of drought, I can pretty well say that they do what they do very well indeed.

Research and extension are the keys to helping farmers adapt to climate change. Because the state government has vacated the field to the extent that it has, the federal government has an obligation to step in. But, after the election of the current government, we saw a cut to the research and development corporations and the complete elimination of one of them: Land and Water Australia. That funding was and still is, though reduced, a very valuable source of funding direct from the federal government that receives a matching levy contribution from farmers—so they are strong stakeholders in it—and results in practical, on-the-ground projects that make a real difference to farmers.

There is a list of recommendations in this report and I am most attracted to the ones that relate to extension. I note that the previous member spoke about the risk of living on the coast and the problems with climate change and rising sea levels et cetera. That is something that nature may or may not produce, but in the area that I represent, the southern Murray-Darling Basin, other forces of adversity are at work. They consist of the Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water, the water buyback that she is imposing on rural communities and the complete lack of response to our urgent representations about looking after the social and economic effects of those water buybacks—the so-called triple bottom line—and the resulting devastation these Rudd government policies are generally having on farmers in western New South Wales.

When a committee such as this looks at farming for the future, and I know that they looked at the role of government in assisting farmers adapt, it is certainly appropriate to make some remarks about how governments could get out of the way in examples where farmers are struggling against drought, low or zero water allocations and the accumulated effects of 10 years of this existence on their bank balances when government policies are making it more difficult. And I do not want to just throw brickbats without throwing some bouquets. I thank the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry for extending exceptional circumstances across nearly all of my electorate and recognising that farmers simply cannot move into profitable situations once rain falls—and it has been patchy in some areas. Farmers do need that extended support, and that comes in the form of interest-rate subsidies and household support, which is a fortnightly payment through Centrelink. Without that we really would not have managed to get through the last five years. I appreciate the fact that the minister for agriculture accepted the recommendations of the National Rural Advisory Committee and extended exceptional circumstances for a further 12 months, starting on 1 April this year.

However, one area east of the Hume Highway, in what was the old Hume rural lands board but is now a livestock health and pest authority—it is hard to keep up with the changing names in the New South Wales government—has been taken out of exceptional circumstances. I met with the minister for agriculture and I have been encouraged by his willingness to have another look at this. Although he is not personally responsible for the inclusion or noninclusion of zones into exceptional circumstances—the National Rural Advisory Committee advises him on that—he said that if New South Wales comes forward with a case to his department then whatever can be done will be done.

We really do need that to happen, because that particular zone of my electorate of Farrer east of the Hume Highway, containing the towns of Holbrook and Tumbarumba—which is just outside my electorate; it is in the electorate of Eden-Monaro—has been badly affected by drought. There has been a very poor response to the small amount of rain we have had. The area has quite acid soils so it does not recover easily. The temperatures are about to get quite a lot colder—it is the upper Murray—and the area around Tooma was very badly affected by fires a few months ago and was completely burnt out. I appreciate that exceptional circumstances cannot necessarily respond to bushfires, but that has added to the significant load that farmers must bear in this situation. I do hope that some help and support can be given for that remaining zone of western New South Wales to be included back into exceptional circumstances and that we do get the support we need. Meanwhile, I commend the report Farming the future to everybody. It is an important contribution to the public policy debate in this area.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I agree with many of the comments the member for Farrer has just made in relation to this overall topic and the object of this report from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources, Farming the future: the role of government in assisting Australian farmers to adapt to the impacts of climate change. Like the member for Farrer, I hope that people find this report of use. I can say as a proud member of this committee that it was a real eye-opener to listen to the face-to-face submissions that were presented to us, to read a number of the submissions and visit many of the sites.

I will make a few comments in relation to the report, adding to what I mentioned yesterday at the media release and media event associated with it. Before I do, I congratulate all the members of the secretariat involved with the report. I have been on this committee for a number of years and I find them to be highly professional, very supportive and very good at their job.

Irrespective of the political, public debate that was going on, is going on and will continue to go on—unless some people think that the issue has somehow disappeared because of Copenhagen—about the extent of human contribution to carbon dioxide levels and greenhouse gases, the majority of farmers that we met have been going about the practical business of adapting to changes in weather patterns. People argue about what has caused the changes in weather patterns—although personally I think the science has pretty well established what is going on there contrary to the contrarians, particularly in this place, and some of the conservative press. The major issue for farmers is that they have to go about adapting to changing climate conditions, and that is what they have done. We saw the full range, including those that essentially are unable to cope for a variety of reasons with these changing circumstances, and that has inevitable consequences for them individually, for their families and for their communities. Unless mitigating factors come into play then many of those enterprises will be uneconomical, will consequently become totally unviable and will fall over.

Right the way through there was a whole range of responses to climate change. This report highlights many of them, and they are very exciting. It shows that many of our farmers and farming communities are very adaptable, very innovative, very progressive and very good at what they do. What they seek is support wherever that is necessary and available to assist them to get on with the job of doing what they do best.

I mentioned before the tension between the political debate and the realities of climate change. The tensions that exist on farm are also highlighted in this report. In particular, I would recommend chapter 2, headed ‘Managing decisions on the farm’, which highlights the tensions not just in decision making but in who makes the decisions and what types of decisions should be made now and into the future. That became very evident during the inquiry. The report suggests that resources be put into counselling families and business owners in decision making and, particularly, change, including generational change.

People must think their food just pops onto their plate or into their cupboard—that they make it at the supermarket or in the truck that brings it to their place. The whole enterprise of food production and manufacturing in Australia exists outside the metropolitan areas. There is huge social and economic change going on out there, and there is a lot of tension. This report seeks various ways in which to support those producers of our product so they are able to do that in the best way. Unless we support them—and I do not think I am being overly alarmist—our ability to feed ourselves will be greatly diminished.

That leads me to some other tensions that we discovered in this investigation. They are natural tensions, by the way; I am not suggesting for a moment they are not. There are those that find it very difficult to accept change. If you look at the full extent of the climate change argument, it becomes so overwhelming that you think that you cannot deal with it or solve it at an individual level and therefore you tend to reject it, whereas reality says you have to cope with the conditions that you have. So there is an overwhelming tension there. The other tension is between those who do not see it as so much of a challenge or a threat and those who see it as an opportunity, and there are many opportunities for farming the future that are highlighted in this work.

The other tension, which I referred to earlier, is in terms of the production of food. Some of the opportunities for our farming enterprises can in fact be contradictory to the production of food. We could be creating resources which mitigate carbon emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, and create renewable energy and regeneration. Those require land—which may well be suitable for the production of food. Farmers have to survive, so we as a community need to look at that situation and offer them avenues to reconcile these possible tensions, and they do exist. It is very enlightening to see some of those examples here.

Amongst many other things, I found of particular interest, on the social side, the work of Professor Frank Vanclay and Aysha Fleming of the Tasmanian Institute of Agricultural Research. They are social researchers who look at change in relation to farming techniques and climate change. For the record, because I think it is well worth reflecting on, I would like to quote from their evidence to us:

Resistance to change is not just about individual reactions, it is a broader social issue. This means that resistance does not occur within an individual’s head, or because of an individual’s personal characteristics—education level, personal motivations or situation, skills or beliefs. Resistance is created by common perceptions, norms and values held in society. In our society currently, resistance is being created because climate change is perceived as being:

• ‘just’ another environmental or global threat,
• too big to influence,
• an unmanageable and inequitable financial burden, and;
• too uncertain to warrant major action.

They go on to say:

Mitigation of climate change is seen by many farmers as a financial burden, rather than an opportunity. This can create anger and stress, because profit margins are further reduced and farmers risk viability.

They then go on to say:

Our research suggests that although the majority of farmers believe that climate change is occurring, there is widespread confusion about its causes, and they are not necessarily convinced by the suggested need for urgent adaptation and mitigation. As a result, we believe that:

1. there is an on-going need for clear statements that the science is decided and the government will act on climate change;

If you go on the nature of this place, there is no hope of that. I have to say that those opposite and the conservative press have done a great job on that. But I have got news for you: nothing is going to change. It is happening and there will be a lot more evidence to show you. I found it pretty interesting—the other mob reckon they are the mob for farmers and rural and regional Australia, and they were the very people against the attempts to provide sane, rational, scientific reasoning behind the need to change—

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Food Security, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is none!

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have to say! Put it on the record: ‘There is no evidence of climate change.’ I ask you! Don’t talk on this report, mate! Don’t talk on this report, because you do not even believe in it. I and some of your colleagues from that side just wasted a few months on nothing? I ask you! Are you the spokesman for anything but nothing? If I may continue, they go on to say:

2. there is a need for more research into the beneficial actions agricultural industries can take, and active extension of this information to farmers.

The member for Farrer quite rightly pointed out that these extension programs should be practised on the ground so people can see them. If we can support that, that is much better for farmers than our acting in a vacuum. They respond very positively. They go on to say:

However, more than just information is necessary. Support for farmers to implement actions and to work together is needed. This needs to include financial incentives, opportunities for building social networks, collaborations, recognition and rewards;

Indeed, rewarding the work of our farmers is very important. They go on:

3. finally, the social value farmers hold and exercise as ‘stewards of the land’ needs to be recognised and encouraged.

Again, I would like to congratulate all my colleagues for spending so much valuable time on this report, Farming the future. I again thank the secretariat for their excellent work. I hope all my colleagues will take the time to look through this, particularly the member opposite, who seriously needs some education in this.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Food Security, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the report Farming the future: the role of government in assisting Australian farmers to adapt to the impacts of climate change and the issue in general. I think farmers are more aware what is happening with the climate than most of the scientists are, actually. They actually have to deal with it instead of just talk about it. I would like to start by congratulating the committee on tackling what is, for many people, not a sexy issue. Yet I strongly believe that food and water security will be—in fact is—the defining issue of the 21st century. On Monday, the member for Lyons, in handing down this report, said that the journey in front of us will take a ‘sustained effort on the part of government, industry and community over a period of decades.’ I wish to outline just how crucial the final two groups mentioned by the member for Lyons are when tackling this issue.

Before I get into the debate I would like to pose a couple of questions to the House: where do you think our food will come from in the future, and what is Australia’s greatest competitive advantage over its trading competitors? Those things certainly have been brought out by the debate on the importation of meat from BSE affected countries. The greatest threat to our agriculture in the next 50 years is not climate change but the policies put in place by governments to combat what they talk about as climate change variability. The Labor government’s emissions trading scheme legislation was, is and will be a debacle and it should be voted down once again. It is nothing but a tax on production that will drive businesses and jobs offshore. All it will achieve is a new export: carbon emissions. Electorates such as my electorate of Calare, which are exporting wealth-generating electricity, will bear the brunt of the cost of the Rudd government’s emissions trading scheme, which is nothing more than a new tax on production with another name.

I was recently in Brazil and America and, with regard to the current global downturn, I was interested to note that Brazil, like Australia, has been relatively—and I stress the word relatively—unaffected. Why? For the same reason that the Midwest states of America are less affected than the east and west coasts of America: they are agricultural and mining states, just as we are base minerals producing countries—in other words, those involved in actually doing things rather than money shuffling, trading and services. They are the countries and the parts of countries that are dealing with this the best.

The effect of the legislation will be felt much more brutally in regional Australia than in the capital cities—in other words, in those parts of the country that are protecting Australia at the moment. The productive sectors are what the CPRS is going to hit the most. I do not believe excluding agriculture from having to purchase carbon credits is a huge win. In or out, agriculture will be almost the most affected industry in the country. The latest ABARE report on the cost of the Rudd government’s CPRS states:

Even if the agriculture sector is not a covered sector under the CPRS, agricultural producers will face increased input costs associated with the use of electricity, fuels and freight and may face lower farm-gate prices for their goods from downstream processors—

who will directly get all those carbon onsets—

These will have implications for the economic value of farm production.

The increase in the price of electricity is estimated to be almost seven per cent in 2011 and 24 per cent in 2015. Not long ago, that was the next decade; now it is this one. It is only five years away. That is without states whacking another 20 per cent on the price of electricity, as New South Wales did the other day.

Whether it is the current drought or future climatic change, the result is a dry weather cycle. What we need is government investment into research on practical, productive measures which will allow our farmers to increase productivity. A drought is exactly the same as the real or imagined effect of climate change—you have to produce more with less—and it needs investment in new plant varieties which are disease resistant and can tolerate dry conditions. Yet all we have had from this Labor government in its first three years in government is massive customer research and development. I was amused to hear the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, when he was asked recently what one of his notable achievements was, say ‘increases in R&D’. I was totally staggered. I am somebody who actually knows what happened to the R&D budget and what the department of agriculture has lost—yet he talks about increases. I would love to know where they are. Our farmers are already being forced to produce more with less, particularly with less water and less arable land—land because urbanisation unfortunately takes a lot of the best land closest to the best towns in the best country.

At a time when the world population is set to double within the next 30 years and the ravages of global warming or drought are meant to hit us there is a very real possibility of Australia becoming a net importer of food. The biggest issue arising out of global warming will be food security, how we increase food production and, indeed, where our food will come from. The Rudd government thinks so little about where our food will come from that agriculture and agricultural manufacturers and processors are the only sectors not receiving free permits—they do not have a $500 million clean coal fund or a $6 billion clean car fund.

Despite what the Prime Minister might believe, you cannot eat coal and if we are going to feed the nation then agriculture has to be put at the forefront of this debate. The Rudd government has no idea what its emissions tax will cost the mums and dads. It never engaged in an honest debate about the real cost of a carbon tax, but I think the Australian population have engaged in that debate and have made a judgment on it. Our comparative advantage in Australia has always been our relatively cheap energy and water costs, but both of these will be artificially increased under this great big new tax.

You do not have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out that just about every bit of food and fibre grown in Australia involves some form of processing, manufacturing and transport before it is eaten or worn. Yet none of our manufacturers will be eligible for free permits under the ETS. The food manufacturing sector is the last major manufacturing sector left in Australia, employing over 300,000 people, mainly in regional Australia. It is vital to our nation’s food security, and the coalition is extremely concerned about its viability. For example, we are extremely concerned that there will be only one frozen vegetable processing plant left in the country after McCains close their Tasmanian plant to move to New Zealand. That is a major concern and it has to be addressed.

The Australian National Greenhouse accounts and the National inventory by economic sector, released in June, paint an interesting story. Agriculture, fisheries and forestry have been doing all of the heavy lifting in reducing the nation’s greenhouse gases. Emissions from agriculture, fishing and forestry have declined by well over 30 per cent since 1990. The agricultural sector has led the nation in reducing emissions, yet it is the food and fibre industries which will bear the brunt of Kevin Rudd’s proposed ETS. If global warming, because of carbon pollution, is a doomsday scenario—and many, including the government, are warning us that it is—then it needs an emergency response. I hope that the committee has highlighted the excellent work that farmers are already doing to combat climate variability.

One thing that simply cannot happen if we are serious about the long-term sustainability of the land and the industry is a cut in funds for research and development. As with any other industry, staying up to date with the latest technological and industrial improvements allows our Australian producers to keep ahead of the pack when it comes to the global agricultural market. Funding is absolutely essential. Cutbacks will harm the industry and there are no two ways about it. I urge the member for Lyons to speak to his colleagues, as the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry continues to hang an axe above these funds. Emerging countries are threatening Australia’s foothold in some of our major export markets. The dumping of cheap produce on the Australian economy hurts our producers. We cannot afford to compete with China, Indonesia or Brazil on labour costs.

As the driest continent on the planet we are already in a difficult situation. We need funding in research and development to ensure that Australia continues to lead the way as one of the cleanest, greenest producers in the world. We are known for that. The parliament should also be aware that people on the land are aware of the challenges they face and are, in most circumstances, taking action. To survive the worst drought in my lifetime, farmers have had to change their managing practices just to survive—not to make Kevin feel better but because economic and personal need make them do it. The story that the stereotype cocky is resistant to change and do not adapt with the stock they run because they are stubborn is simply not true. Anyone like that does not survive.

The industry as a whole is willing to do what it can to improve its profit-making ability and improve the product being provided. When it all boils down, no other industry stands to lose more in the event of climate change coming to fruition—as per the doomsday scenario or as predicted by those who sensibly understand that climate change does happen. That is a fact that farmers and producers are all too aware of. One thing, however, sets this industry apart: the great connection producers have with the land that they work. No other industry has such a reliance on land as the agricultural industry. That connection means that seldom do people know more about what has happened to the soil and feed than the person working the land themselves.

There is a great variation in the soil quality and crop and stock potential in my electorate of Calare, not to mention across the whole of Australia. That is why a one-size-fits-all solution is the most ridiculous option you could ever come up with. The standing committee were clearly aware of this when they canvassed producers from across the country; however, the point should be made very clear.

The second group mentioned by the member for Lyons on Monday was communities. We need strong regional communities for a strong agricultural industry. It should be made very clear that a strong community involves strong health facilities, water security and educational opportunities. All three of these factors are currently under threat, particularly in New South Wales, by a city-centric focus in government. Regional Australia cannot be administered in these three areas in the same way as Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane or even somewhere like Newcastle.

There is great concern in my electorate of Calare about the shortage of regional health facilities, and the Prime Minister’s new health plan has done little to ease that worry. In fact, as a result of comments made by the New South Wales Premier, small communities are very worried that their local hospital will be closing because of Labor’s health plan. There is also concern about educational prospects, and the Deputy Prime Minister’s latest backflip on youth allowance has done little to ease them.

These are all issues which affect a farmer’s ability to know, to use and to educate his family to ensure the continuance that has always been there. Infrastructure has been poorly managed by the Labor Party at the state level, and without good railroad and port infrastructure farmers will not be able to shift their product. This government has to realise that strong facilities will help create a strong community, and a strong community will mean a strong agricultural sector.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the report, Farming the future, and particularly the 15 recommendations. I was very pleased that the Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources took up this issue, which is about helping farmers with adaptation to climate change. It puts the farmers front and centre stage, as they need to be, as we as a nation grapple with the impact of climate change.

Before I turn to the report, and the 15 very specific and well targeted recommendations, I would like to say some things regarding climate change, the basis of the committee’s report to assist farmers. My seat is a rural seat. It has a long and beautiful coastal strip that goes from Ballina to Evans Head, Iluka, Yamba, Wooloweyah and Angourie, which has some of the best beaches and one of the world’s top surfing beaches—out of the top 50, it is No. 10. So it is a beautiful coastal strip and a rural seat. As members could imagine, it is a population that is concerned about climate change and has been very actively involved in those particular debates. Even when I was first elected as the member for Page, the mayors who have the coastal strips in their areas approached me and talked about the need to have some certainty around planning and development in the coastal areas. They were very pleased to see the report. They were also very pleased to see another report that came out of this place, the report on coastal areas and climate change.

I accept climate change as a fact and a lot do. I accept climate change and the current events that are happening to be as a result of human activity. And, yes, climate change is a naturally occurring phenomenon and has been around for a long time. But the evidence is clear that the exponential rate of what is happening with climate change and the major events and more extreme events are due to human activity.

I know that this week there has been a lot of attention given to the fact that CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology have said that global warming is in essence unquestionable—that is, it is resulting from human activity. That is not new. These institutions have been saying that for quite some time. It is on their websites; it is in their reports. In fact, they have been leading agents in this debate, and whenever I have been talking about climate change I refer to them. These two institutions are trusted by I would have to say nearly all Australians and they are ones that farmers turn to. Now that a lot of us, not all of us, are connected and on websites, we go to the Bureau of Meteorology website, or BOM, daily. It is a daily event in my office because I live in an area where we do have a few extreme weather events and we have floods and we have droughts; we have the extremes in the whole Northern Rivers and North Coast strip. So it is something that we look at all the time to see what is going on. They really are trusted. Farmers and people on the land and people everywhere go to those sites.

You have people like Dr Megan Clark, the head of CSIRO, saying this week that we are seeing significant evidence of a change in climate and saying:

If we just take our temperature, all of Australia has experienced warming over the last 50 years. We are warming in every part of the country during every season and as each decade goes by, the records are being broken.

We are also seeing fewer cold days, so we are seeing some very significant long-term trends in Australia’s climate.

Dr Clark further is reported as saying that scepticism is a healthy part of the scientific process and has been considered as part of the climate change debate. Indeed it has, but she says that we also know that the rapid increase that we have been measuring was at the same time as we saw the Industrial Revolution, so it is very likely that these two are connected. When we look at climate change and look at the scientific evidence, the whole basis of science and the scientific method is that it is not 100 per cent but it is something that is stronger than the balance of probabilities, and in a legal sense, which I can refer to, it would be something beyond reasonable doubt. It is beyond reasonable doubt that we do have climate change.

In referring to the 15 recommendations I will make some comments on particular ones. The first one is the committee’s recommendation that the Australian government support rural counselling and support groups such as Rural Alive and Well and place funding for such groups on a permanent and regular basis. That is a very welcome and important recommendation. Rural counselling and support groups do such a wonderful job in country Australia; in my area they certainly do. I can remember when they did not exist and I can remember that people lobbied for them to be set up. Some were set up as extensions of our local counselling that happened in our health services, one in particular in my area. It was very welcome. We also have rural financial counselling, which is very important, and they work closely with the rural counselling. They sometimes are the first port of call in engaging people who do need ongoing counselling support. Rural financial counselling is very important indeed. In fact, next week I am attending as a guest the annual dinner of the Rural Financial Counselling Service New South Wales, Northern Region, which will be held in Casino. It provides a very important service in non-metropolitan areas.

I would like to comment on recommendation 3, which calls on the government to invest in research funding in the following high-priority areas: soil carbon sequestration; soil stabilisation and pasture improvements; soil water retention strategies and water use efficiency; landscape planning and natural resource management; and risk management. I would like to see within recommendation 3—and I am sure it is meant to cover this—a broader definition of soil carbon sequestration, because the sequestration of carbon is not just in soil; it is in all plants. That is an important area of research and study—Plantstone, as we would refer to it with the old fashioned name, but I am aware that name has also been patented by a couple of people at Southern Cross University. So, when we look at soil carbon sequestration, we should look at it more broadly and include the plants.

As some members would know, bamboo actually has the highest take-up of carbon, followed by sugar—this is from research in one particular area with one particular farm. Some time ago, the honourable member for New England, Tony Windsor, and I jointly hosted a session in Lismore with Southern Cross University, people from industry and farmers on the particular issue of plant sequestration and soil sequestration to get more information into the particular communities and to have more discussion and debate. Some of that was covered by The 7.30 Report, particularly the research aspects at the farm. I am sure that when the recommendation says ‘soil carbon’ it is broad enough to include looking at it in its totality with the plants.

The report also talks about rotational grazing. That is not new; that is something that farmers have been doing for a long time. In fact, it is a very ancient practice. I sometimes think that, with the advent of modernisation and different techniques, some of those tried and true practices fell by the wayside. Again in my area, I recently attended a day that looked at rotational grazing and biodynamic farming et cetera. It was organised by Trevor Wilson. It was a very good day that was well attended by over 100 people who came from a wide region and mainly from farming backgrounds. It was really informative for me because I was able to sit there and listen for a few hours to people who do this and who, by doing it, have not only improved their pasture but increased their income as well. They were not revolutionary techniques; they were the tried and true and tested techniques. So any more attention that we can give to this in this place—and we are making recommendations to government—is a good thing. But we only have to look to the farmers themselves.

Recommendation 6 is an important one. It states:

The committee recommends that the Australian Government, as part of its overall response to issues affecting agriculture and climate change, increase its investment and support for research into energy efficiency in the agriculture sector and the development of alternative energy and alternative fuels on-farm, particularly in regard to:

• Biofuels;
• Biomass from agricultural waste; and
• Biochar.

One of the things that would be really advantageous in Australia to help us in this area would be something like a biofuels institute and getting some more work done with CRCs. I have had some involvement with that with Southern Cross University, where I am on the governing council. Part of that debate is food versus fuel and I know that debate has to happen, but we do not have to get locked into either/or. There is room for all of it and that is a very important one to be looking at.

There is one other recommendation I wanted to turn to. Recommendation 15 says:

The Committee recommends that the Australian Government place funding for local and community organisations engaged in the work of supporting farmers in adapting to climate variability and climate change upon a permanent and regular basis.

Hallelujah! Wouldn’t that be good? Often one of the problems people do face in local communities is ad hoc funding. That has been a feature of all governments, not any particular government. Some may do it more than others, but it has been a feature of all governments. To get the organisations that work, and that are deeply engaged in that area—

The Deputy President:

It is one o’clock but I will let you go. You can have a minute and a half—go for it!

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will wind up.

The Deputy President:

I am going to be generous: you can keep going for a minute and a half.

Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All right. I welcome that particular recommendation. I also welcome the government introducing the community organisational grants that go to Landcare groups and various other groups in the community. It would be really good to see a lot more work in that area. I think that the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry should be able to play a lead role in that area. I know that farmers have trust in that particular agency. It would be good if it could do that on a stand-alone basis and be able to take some lead. I know it is in certain other areas.

I look forward to the government’s response to this report, because as I read through the 15 recommendations, and as I also look at some of the initiatives that have been introduced by the government, I can see that there is a great deal of crossover already. Because it is about adaptation, because it relates to climate change, we do need to get some of these things on a standing basis, and this report really assists with that. I congratulate the chair of the committee, Dick Adams, the deputy chair and the rest of the committee for such good work that they have done. (Time expired)