Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for New England proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The future of agriculture in Australia.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

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

I thank the House for the unanimous way in which they have supported the agricultural sector by rising to their feet. The point of today’s matter of public importance, which is about the future of agriculture in Australia, is not designed to take political issue on various policy points, as we normally do—or some do—in this place. The overlying reason for bringing this issue to the parliament is that there are a number of issues out there that are sending conflicting messages to the agricultural sector. We really need a debate—some sort of strategic plan, a white paper or an arrangement—that will take the lid off the farm sector within Australia and ask the Australian people: do we need agriculture? If so, why? If we do—

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

We have to feed ourselves.

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

I am a farmer, as is the member for Barker, who is barking away up there, and I have personal views. But I do believe that in some of the policy issues that have been in the parliamentary sector, both state and federal, for probably the last couple of decades there are very subtle—and in some cases not so subtle—messages being sent to the farm sector, the agricultural community, that we are not needed. It is a question that we really have to take some cognisance of: do we want it, and why? Obviously, food production is important. We all eat. Our agricultural sector exports 80 per cent of what we produce to other countries who presumably need to eat and some of whom do not have much in the way of finance to pay for that food. In those negotiations, quite often the price of the product that we grow and sell is very close or below the cost of production. So in a sense we are an export nation.

I thank the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, who has just arrived, for being here. Being an export nation and relying on exports for a great deal of our income, we need to overproduce and send those products to other countries. There are a range of issues where policy is actually on a collision course, and there were some real insights into some of the points of collision during the climate change debate that recently took place. That debate is, of course, still taking place. We are told that we need agriculture in this country because we need to produce food. We need to produce food, particularly in the long term, because the globe’s population is growing. Every time we produce a surplus in this country we face what are essentially corrupt world markets, and then we have a domestic cost structure which does not reflect the nature of our export economy. So we have the worst of both worlds: a corrupt export arrangement and, at home, an artificial cost structure that affects our capacity to make those export opportunities profitable.

The climate change debate has raised a number of issues. It is suggested that carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are concerns in terms of global warming. When we look at the role of land use there are certain positives and negatives. The minister would be well aware of some of these issues. We are told there are potential negatives in terms of methane. We are told there are potential negatives in terms of the use of fossil fuels in the agricultural sector. We are told that the transport sector is a major emitter. When we look at agriculture in this country, particularly but not only in the grains industries, we see that we export most of what we produce to other countries. Then we exchange most of those export dollars for fossil fuels which we bring back to this country.

So, in a carbon economy, we are doing two negatives. In the grains industry we produce a product—for instance, wheat, which contains starch, a carbon—which is needed for the food business. We transport that to the seaport, we put it on boats, we transport it overseas—so we are actually shipping carbon—and then we sell that product. Occasionally we have to bribe an Arab to be able to unload that particular commodity. Then we bring back a fossil fuel, which is carbon again. In a carbon economy, what role do the minister and others see agriculture playing? What are the negatives in terms of the export arrangements that we currently believe in, or is Australia badly placed in terms of distance if a carbon economy is to come into play? There are a number of issues there that need to be addressed.

We are told that we need land for food production. As I said, 80 per cent of what we produce is exported, so we are at the behest of other people, not the domestic market. We are told that land should be utilised in that capacity most of the time. But what if it were not? What if, in a carbon world, we were actually to plant trees? In fact, there was an incentive built into the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme to shift land use away from food and towards trees. What if we went to second generation biofuels with, for instance, a deep-rooted, annually harvested plant such as switchgrass, which was the original grass on the prairies of the United States before the Corn Belt was developed? That particular plant has the capacity to produce biomass for second generation biofuels. It has the capacity to grow with very little nitrogen input, so it ticks a box in terms of nitrous oxide. It has the capacity to sequester carbon at depth, which is one of the problems in the accumulation of soil carbon. So why would we not, in a carbon economy, promote some of these non-food activities in terms of the surplus that we produce?

We have this policy conundrum, and it varies depending on which portfolio we actually look at. In my view we are not doing very well in the water portfolio, given the negotiations that are taking place between the Murray-Darling people and the people on the ground who use water and have allocations within the Murray-Darling system. We are told that we will have to use less water because of so-called climate change. But, when it is suggested that perhaps there are ways of bringing water into the system to compensate for the human induced climate change component of the loss of water in the Murray-Darling system, that is scoffed at as being in breach of nature. We are told that parts of Queensland will get more water because of human induced climate change and that the southern parts of Australia will get less, but rectifying both of those issues is deemed as being, still, interference with nature. In my view, it is not.

So the land use debate becomes a fairly significant debate. Do we use farmland to produce food or do we use it in the most economic way in terms of a carbon economy? If we went down the carbon economy route we might well not use much of our land for food production at all. Rather than growing grain to export and exchange for fuel, we may end up growing biomass for fuel, using it within our nation and ticking a lot of the boxes in current climate change policy that relate to agriculture being included globally in any sort of future emissions trading scheme.

The other issues I would like to raise relate to a report that came out only yesterday from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources, of which I am a member, entitled Farming the future: The role of government in assisting Australian farmers to adapt to the impacts of climate change. There is a need for much more research into soil science. Soil science—the capacity to know what our soils are doing, how soils are responding to various treatments of infiltration and the effect of the accumulation of the humus and organic matter in soils and soil carbon—is being neglected. In fact, governments have virtually eradicated many of our basic soil scientists and have left the science up to commercial interests. It was not seen to be fashionable for many years, but suddenly climate change has come along and soil carbon has been raised as an issue. Now we are asking, ‘What can we do?’ and the answer is, ‘We don’t know; we’ll have to establish a number of funding arrangements so that we can find out what is going on in our soils.’ Irrespective of whether the emissions trading arrangements or the climate change issue goes away, a lot of this work needs to be done and, in fact, should have been done many years ago.

There is also the issue of competition, particularly on the Liverpool Plains. Many people would be aware of that issue where there is an interface between the need for coal dollars as opposed to long-term food production on some of the very fertile black soil areas not only in New South Wales but also in parts of Queensland, particularly where there is an interface with underlying groundwater systems. That interface could have severe repercussions with the current arrangements to establish end-of-valley caps et cetera for the Murray Darling system. We have a range of issues out there. For instance, just recently we have had the property rights debate. It was raised again in question time today. What rights do people have who own freehold land? I think we really need to think through that issue once again because there are some very old issues there. Native vegetation is one issue that is raised from time to time, but there are other issues that relate to the rights of individuals and offside impacts such as longwall mining on the alluvial floodplain that is underpinned with a groundwater system that not only involves the localised area but also has a hydraulic effect for hundreds of kilometres and impacts on the river systems as well.

I do not think we have put together a policy that reconciles a lot of these issues. On one side, people are saying that agriculture is about food. On the other side, people are saying the innovation may not be about food. And then we have another government policy that says we have to plant some trees. They will have an impact on the run-off into the Murray system and they will have an impact on the land available for food. It will have an impact on a whole range of things. Then you have policy initiatives that encourage tree planting. I am not taking sides, but we have to start thinking about the totality of what we are doing here because we have a lot of regional towns, communities, individuals and investors who need to know where this debate is going and where it is likely to end up.

This report raises a number of technologies—which I think is invaluable—particularly in relation to drought policy. I know the government is looking at new drought policy initiatives. I urge the government to look at some of the technologies that are raised in this report. Some of them have been mentioned by the opposition in dealing with what they call direct action on climate change. Many of the technologies are good for our soils, good for moisture infiltration, good for productivity and relate to drought. We have all heard of the ongoing exceptional circumstances debate. Just recently, a group of us on this primary industries and resources committee went out to a property near Bungendore called Mulloon Creek where we met with a chap called Tony Coote, who is practising natural sequence farming. It is similar to what Peter Andrews and others have been involved with. I would urge you, Minister, to actually take the time—and I are more than willing to go with you—to go out and have a look at what is happening there. I think the advances that are being made are quite remarkable. (Time expired)

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for New England for bringing the issue of the future of agriculture to the attention of the parliament through a matter of public importance and also for the fact that, when he does bring these issues to the parliament, we actually have some of those rare and truly constructive discussions. This reflects well on what he is able to bring to the parliament. The member for New England referred to Australia being effectively, in agricultural terms, an exporting nation. We export just over 60 per cent of what we grow here, and this carries its own context. I want to look at the four different sorts of challenges that we have. There are some areas that in some ways have the biggest effect on agriculture which we have to acknowledge we simply cannot control at a government level, there are some areas where we can manage risk, there are some areas where we can intervene, and there are some areas where the best thing government can do is to get out of the way. I want to have a look at each of those four areas.

One of the areas that cannot be controlled by us, as an exporting nation, is the value of the dollar. There is nothing farmers are feeling more acutely at the moment than the value of the dollar. The dollar is trading at US92c at the moment. As an exporting nation, many of our farmers are feeling that and are feeling that very deeply. You have only to look at what has happened to a lot of the cattle prices of late. At the same time, there is a lot more quantity coming onto that market because of the reopening of access particularly in Japan and Korea to US beef. There are challenges out there that have a price impact where it is beyond the realm of government to be able to directly intervene. Farmers have suggested to me that we would be able to fix the dollar issue if we had a weaker economy, but I suspect that no Australian would say thankyou for that as a method of fixing the challenges they are having with their export prices.

The other issue that cannot be controlled by government is drought. We know from the projections that we can expect to see longer and deeper droughts in the future, even if only because increased temperatures have an immediate impact on soil moisture. Even if rainfall remains steady, increased temperatures mean that soil moisture tends to run out earlier.

I think we need to be upfront and acknowledge the areas we cannot control. We need to say, ‘Within that context, what are the things we can do?’ The first thing we can do for the future of Australian agriculture is work out how much more effectively we can manage risks. A quarantine risk, a biosecurity outbreak, is the key risk the government has a role in assisting to manage. When I first came into this portfolio, equine influenza was still present throughout the country. I undertook one of my first visits to country New South Wales with the member for New England. I remember going from one section to another, and we were spraying under our shoes to disinfect them. We had to follow a lot of different rules to make sure we were part of the successful eradication of equine influenza. That outbreak alone cost the Australian economy at least $1 billion, and I think the truth is that we will never know the full cost of the outbreak.

The last time the Productivity Commission had a look at the likely cost to the Australian economy of an outbreak of foot and mouth disease, the figure they came up with was between $8 billion and $13 billion. A determination to manage risk at the border more effectively in the future than Australia has done in the past is a responsibility that falls heavily to government. There is no such thing as zero risk. Zero risk would involve shutting the borders, closing down tourism, closing out all forms of imports—and probably shooting all migratory birds. Zero risk is not going to happen. But everything that can be done to reduce risk and to make it as unlikely as possible that we will have future biosecurity outbreaks is an important thing for government to do in terms of creating a better situation for Australia’s farmers.

Quarantine used to have in their risk management a whole series of things known as the IQIs, whereby it had been determined that a certain number of containers and passengers had to be checked. A whole lot of raw data figures were the benchmark. If there was a greater risk somewhere else, our officials were not put there. We had a rigid approach that said, ‘We have set the key performance indicators and they will remain.’ But we have now moved to a system where we are able to deploy our resources directly where the risk is greatest. Does that give a guarantee that there will be no problematic outbreaks in future? Of course not. But I do think it has been a very important development to get to that first threshold of saying risk is what we will look at.

In areas where we can directly intervene, there is none more important than the one the member for New England referred to, which is research and development. The capacity for direct government engagement in research and development is extraordinary. You only have to look at the story of productivity growth for cropping in Australia—and once again this is an example the member for New England has referred to on many occasions. Productivity growth was running at about double the rate for the rest of the economy, and it was directly linked to research and development. There were a number of factors that helped, but one was critical, and that was the uptake of minimum-till/no-till farming, the direct drilling of seed into the ground. That is a great example of how research and development can find a pathway forward that has massive improvements in the tools available to farmers.

It is my view that we should never go down the path of telling farmers what they should grow and precisely how they should grow it. I think all of those decisions are best made by farmers taking their own risks on their own land. The more we can hand over to that ingenuity, the better it will be for the nation and the greater the productivity outcomes. But, as was referred to a moment ago, for many years there has been underinvestment in research into soils in Australia. We have put extra money into research and development since we came into office. I am very pleased to have insisted that a very large part of the $46.2 million that we added through the Climate Change Research Program went into soil research. I think we can be more optimistic about the extent to which the different priorities can actually be aligned. The concept of a low-carbon economy and higher productivity for farmers can and will go hand in hand if we get the research and development right. There are areas of science which are not yet fully formed. With biochar, for example, there are examples where we know it works great, but we have not yet worked out how to match all the different soils we have in Australia with all the different sorts of biochar. What is the answer? Let us do that research and find out—which is exactly what the government has done through this funding.

I also believe that we should not close our minds to any area of scientific research. While I appreciate that from time to time there are strong community campaigns and wariness among people about genetic modification, I do believe that all areas of biotechnology should be on the table. Let’s face it: this industry is in the business of feeding people. We have a world population that will be pushing towards nine billion people by 2050. If we are going to do something about alleviating hunger, we are talking something in the order of a 70 per cent increase in total food production between now and 2050, largely running off the same area of land. There are very significant reasons why we should not be shutting our minds to any area of research. While some people will argue a moral case against genetic modification, I am happy any day to put that up against a moral case for feeding people.

On the carbon economy, when people talk about trees I say, ‘It depends.’ With the planting of trees, there are ways things can be done which do complement agricultural production. In Victoria I have seen some fantastic examples of improved afforestation on grazing land which has had a dual benefit. It has provided a timber asset on those properties for the farmers involved and it has allowed them to increase—not decrease but increase—their stocking rates. It is, of course, not the same story at all if you plant your trees on cropping land or on plantation land or anything like that. In grazing areas, however, what is available through extra shading, through wind breaks and through the extra nutrients provided to the soil by careful strategic tree-planting should not be viewed in any way as a threat to a commitment to agricultural production.

The final area where we can intervene is market access. Improving market access is always painfully slow. Essentially, when we are trying to improve market access to other countries, we are talking about one thing—we are trying to get extra customers for an Australian farmer. We are trying to increase the number of customers available. A good job has been done for a very long time by both sides of politics, no matter who has been in government, in trying to push the envelope on market access wins.

I have a document here—though it says ‘last 12 months’, so it covers only a limited period, and it is quite a few months old—that has a number of examples of improved market access: new access for kangaroo meat into China and dairy breeder cattle into Sri Lanka and New Caledonia; recognition of Sunraysia as seasonally free of fruit fly; access to new markets for the live animal trades; access for citrus into New Caledonia, fish into Korea, dairy products to India and fish to Russia. Example after example has been presented to me. Another one is cherries, particularly Tasmanian cherries, making their way into Japan. There are many examples in front of me of where farmers have radically increased their numbers of customers, and that is a very good thing in terms of the options available to them.

The final example, though—and I appreciate that this example will not necessarily win the favour of the honourable member who brought forward the matter of public importance—is of areas where government can properly get out of the way. I do believe wheat deregulation is an example of that. I appreciate the strength of opinion of a number of wheat growers, particularly in the New England area, who would prefer that the government took a different path. Those concerns have always been voiced very strongly and loudly by the member for New England. I do believe, though, that allowing farmers to have extra choices and to choose whom they sell their wheat to provides extra opportunities for them.

There are other areas where I believe we can get out of the way. With export certification, by moving from a subsidy process, with a transition arrangement which was negotiated in very good faith with the opposition and the shadow minister, we have eliminated a lot of the red tape which has occasionally held up entire shipments—after the grain was already loaded, a problem would arise and then all the demurrage costs would flow on. By allowing private enterprise a pathway for a greater engagement in some of these export certification issues, I do believe, once again, we reduce red tape. Similarly, there was legislation introduced this week—today, actually—about registering the use of pesticides with the APVMA. There are many examples where red tape and the government being in the way is one of the problems for farmers. I am determined that, wherever we can responsibly find ways of taking that step back and saying, ‘No—these are areas of red tape that we can remove for you; these are areas where the inefficiency is actually our fault, not the farmer’s,’ we should do so.

There are many other issues, obviously, but I am mindful of the time. Essentially, the context of being an export nation must not be lost in this debate. Some 60 per cent—it is much more than half—of what we grow is dependent on those international markets. We need to manage risks where we can, acknowledge the areas where we cannot intervene, intervene strategically in ways that actually help and be careful that government is not getting in the road.

Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in this debate and I congratulate the member for New England for bringing it forward—not in a typical use of the MPI to attack someone in this chamber but to bring on a thoughtful and important debate on the future of agriculture in this country. As a colleague, I can confirm he is a longstanding thinker on agriculture and the future of agriculture. His involvement in the document of the committee chaired by the member for Lyons, which I am sure has been talked about this afternoon, is just another example of that commitment to the longer term issues in and around agriculture in Australia’s future. I congratulate him.

I also acknowledge the comments from the Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. I was not going to mention the topic of wheat, but he has thrown it out there, so I will raise it before he leaves. His comments flowed on from a conversation about market access and a long list—and a very good list, I am sure—of examples of improved market access. I would hope I speak on behalf of all farmers and all Australians when I say that, when we talk about trade generally and when we talk about the pragmatism of trade, we should not forget the principles and the values of what it is to be an Australian—especially when we try to get access to markets with regimes that are more than questionable in international affairs.

I was surprised one morning over summer—I think it was about six weeks ago—when I awoke to read in the newspaper that at the shareholder class action around AWB there had been the startling admission of a very late acknowledgement by the company involved that they were aware of the moneys going to the regime in question. I would hope that at some point in the future the minister considers the implications of that comment—and, yes, it was under a former government, but it is the same bureaucracy—and where that comment of six weeks ago stands in relation to the Cole inquiry, market access and the importance of trade for the future of agriculture in Australia.

I agree wholeheartedly that we are a trading nation. As to the figure of 60 per cent, I talk about two of every three cows going overseas when I go to a saleyard and someone tries to have the discussion of the moment with me about why we have to import beef. We die as an agriculture industry and we die as a nation financially if we do not acknowledge the importance and value of a vibrant industry in this country for the export of food products. The give and take of trade means that we have to import as well. I would hope that is understood in 99 homes out of 100, as part of who we are as a trading nation in the area of agriculture.

The report of the committee’s inquiry, which was chaired by the member for Lyons and had involvement by the member for New England, is an excellent one. I urge all members in this place to have a look at it and I urge all members of my local farming community to have a look at it. We in this place have been through a pretty meaty debate on global issues around climate change, and its implications for agriculture were front and centre of much of that debate. Issues debated were whether or not to offset, whether or not to provide exemptions and the implications of particular pieces of legislation on the agriculture industry. I make that point because after all the debate of the last six months the foreword by the member for Lyons—and I told him this last night—in this document is the best after-sales service on the topic of climate change I have yet come across. It is personal, it is localised, it is 2½ pages long, it is simple to read and it is food for thought for everyone in government and everyone who gives a damn about the topic of climate change. I congratulate the member for Lyons for that.

I also like the report because it does not even matter whether or not there ends up being a price on carbon. It does not even matter if the topic of climate change flies or not. There are good, practical thoughts and suggestions for the agriculture sector in this document, and it is certainly worthy of further debate on all of the various topics covered, in this place and in the community. I have done my best to sell the document; I hope everyone buys because it is well put together. A lot of people’s time was involved and hopefully it will be a valued contribution for those who are genuinely looking at the topic in this country.

I also want to make mention of the issue of the clash of the moment, which was again on the front page of one of the national dailies today—that is, the growing importance and value of the coal sector to the New South Wales budget and the growing clash of policy between the desire to export coal—again, regardless of climate change—and the importance of farming land and food products, both domestically and to contribute to exports generally. I know that the member for New England has been up to his eyeballs in this topic, in a positive way, and I endorse and support the work he has been doing and those who recognise the importance of protecting the food bowl areas of this country.

In the member for New England’s case, that is largely shaped around the Liverpool Plains in an area that has just been included in the Lyne electorate. We have a similar clash in regard to the Gloucester Basin, and I am sure there are many other locations around Australia where there is this sensitive, complex and difficult clash between the want for the minerals under the ground and the desire to keep food security and keep the farming industry in play in this country. I would hope that it is on the agenda of the minister and the executive to start to put some boundaries around food security and the importance of agricultural land in this country. Yes, by all means this country has the natural resources to participate in a mining boom, but we cannot give up the agriculture sector as a consequence. That would be long-term stupidity for all of us. So I endorse the ongoing campaign that is taking place on that front.

Finally, in the short time I have left, on the mid North Coast of New South Wales it is a pretty exciting time in the agriculture sector. We have been front and centre of the traditional industries of commercial fishing, timber, beef and dairy. All of them have been under the pump with regard to change: deregulation, sustainable practices and therefore changing practices. All of them have taken a hit over the last 15 to 20 years, but all are surviving. In many cases, those industries that have managed to ride out the last 15 to 20 years are stronger and are very well placed to continue to contribute to the supply of product in this country. As well, I am seeing some really fascinating and interesting new products on the Comboyne, which used to be all dairy. We are seeing avocados, blueberries and a whole range of new products coming into the mid North Coast. Markets like cut flowers are alive and kicking. Organics have hit the mid North Coast in a big way. I think these are a reflection, but an exciting reflection, of change and of the future markets, both in this country and overseas, that are available and therefore of the security of agriculture in this country. With a bit of support from government, we will be looking good. (Time expired)

Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also welcome this MPI from the member for New England. I know his heart is in the topic he has put forward and in everything he had to say in the debate. This MPI comes at a time when the parliament has just received the report from the Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources, called Farming the future. I am proud to say that I am a member of that committee. I want to congratulate the chair, the other members of the committee and the secretariat for the work that went into that report. The report sets out a bit of a stocktake of what is already happening in adaptation and innovation in our farming sector and it underlines quite strongly the need for government to be involved in facilitating the further change that will be required.

The committee’s inquiry gave us the chance to hear from farmers, their representative bodies and researchers about how they see the future and the government’s role in that future. Of course, the future of Australia’s agricultural industries and the communities those industries support is something that is very important, and the government well understands that. The importance of agriculture to Australia’s economy was illustrated during the worst days of the global recession, when it was our farming sector that stood out in the export figures and made such a strong contribution to the nation’s GDP. We do not take that for granted for a minute, so we have been active in vital policy areas like biosecurity, drought reforms, natural resource management and programs to help farmers adjust to climate change and to boost their productivity.

There is plenty of work to do to help our farmers prepare their businesses for the challenges and opportunities of the future. I am pleased to say, though, that we are already seeing the signs of the future of agriculture in my electorate. I know that the member for New England is passionate about the contribution our farmers can and will make to Australia’s energy needs and how that can be a source of diversified revenue for them. I know he will not mind if I start my speech on this MPI by telling the House, yet again, about the fantastic cogeneration project that is underway in Mackay, in my electorate.

I have talked about this project a number of times in the context of the renewable energy target legislation because it is a great example of how the expanded renewable energy target is encouraging renewable energy projects in regional Australia. This project is also great news for sugar growers in the Mackay district and points the way to the opportunities that are there for farmers in the energy sector to produce energy as they grow food.

As I say, this is a fantastic project. Mackay Sugar, which is Australia’s second-largest milling company, will invest $120 million to install a new boiler at its Racecourse sugar mill in Mackay. The mill has always burned bagasse—a waste product from sugar milling—to produce energy to run the Racecourse sugar mill. The new boiler will now burn bagasse much more efficiently and will be able to produce 36 megawatts, of which 28 megawatts will be exported into the grid. That equates to 30 per cent of the city of Mackay’s electricity needs and will also abate 340,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.

Thanks to the expanded renewable energy target, Mackay Sugar has signed an off-take agreement with electricity retailer Ergon Energy. This project has been devised and driven by Mackay Sugar. Mackay Sugar was a milling cooperative and is now a company whose shareholders are its canegrowers. The contract with Ergon Energy represents a significant new source of revenue for Mackay Sugar. This will be passed onto some 850 growers, as shareholders of the company and through the cane price that they receive from Mackay Sugar.

Former chair of Mackay Sugar Eddie Westcott summed up what this means for farmers. I should just say that Eddie Westcott stepped down from the role of chair of Mackay Sugar. I wish him all the best in his retirement and I welcome the chance to work with the new chair of Mackay Sugar, Andrew Cappello. When this project was reaching its final hurdles and contracts were being signed, Eddie Westcott said what it meant for farmers—and he should know, because he is a sugar farmer. He was quoted as saying that having an extra stream of income that does not depend on weather or exchange rate is music to growers’ ears. He also said:

It is certainly a difference in income, because we are now divorced from the vagaries of the world market for sugar and the vagaries of the exchange rate. We will be selling in Australian dollars locally. So that’s probably the biggest change for us—an income stream purely in Australian dollars not dependent on the world market.

           …         …         …

It just puts stability in the business … It is what the whole of us want from the growers, the harvest to the staff and employees—we want a bit of stability and this is what this will provide.

This is an example of innovation in the agricultural sector. It is the kind of innovation and capacity to adapt that we saw so much of as the agriculture committee travelled and talked to farmers through the course of the inquiry. It is also an example of where government policy can provide the incentive needed to unlock this kind of opportunity. In this case it is the expanded renewable energy target, but there are other ways the government is providing support to assist farmers to identify and pursue opportunities.

For example, I spent last Friday with the chair, Royce Bishop, and some staff from Reef Catchments, which is the community based catchment management group for the Mackay-Whitsunday region. Reef Catchments has received over $6 million in funding from the government’s Reef Rescue program and works very closely with local farmers on projects to improve water quality and reduce runoff. These projects also require investments from farmers but they pay off in reducing inputs, improving soils and boosting productivity.

Reef Catchments has developed an investment strategy which will improve water quality in the regional priority sub-catchments identified in Reef Catchments’ recent water quality improvement plan to improve water quality entering the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage area. That is something that is important to all of us as we do our best to protect the Great Barrier Reef.

Projects will utilise strong, effective and efficient collaborations between the region and industry delivery partners, such as canegrowers, to engage regional farmers in Reef Rescue. Regional land managers are set to benefit from the investment through support for farmers to undertake risk assessments, on-ground works and multifarm projects.

I visited some of the on-farm projects with the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry last year, and the engagement with the Reef Rescue programs was very encouraging. The staff from Reef Catchments told us that they were getting an even greater level of interest in the program for the next round of project funding, so this is clearly having an impact and is more evidence of the willingness of farmers to adapt when good information and support is available.

It is a similar story in the southern part of my electorate where the Fitzroy Basin Association is the natural management body charged with the responsibility of working with landholders on projects that deliver both improved productivity and environmental outcomes. The member for New England might remember that the Fitzroy Basin Association hosted us for a couple of days in Rockhampton. We went out to Neil Johansen’s property at Dululu to see what he was doing in his cropping business in using controlled traffic farming. We also went to a very large property near Springsure with the Chair of the Fitzroy Basin Association, Charlie Wilson.

In the case of the Fitzroy Basin Association, the Reef Rescue component of Caring for our Country will allow it to invest $23 million over four years in collaboration with its industry partners. Regional land managers are set to benefit from the investment through support for farmers to undertake risk assessments and on-ground works. The focus for the Fitzroy Basin region is grazing and cropping, and it will target activities that will result in a reduction in the sediment that reaches the Great Barrier Reef.

The Fitzroy Basin Association tells me—very proudly, I should say—that landholders across the region are already reducing annual average sediment loads delivered to waterways by about 75,000 tonnes and are on target to cumulatively reduce sediment entering waterways by 4.1 million tonnes by 2014. That represents significant change going on in farming practices in our Central Queensland region, and Reef Catchments’ experience tells the same story.

This underlines the message that came out in the Farming the future report—that Australian farmers are innovative and adaptive because they have always had to be. The new challenges of globalisation and climate change, among others, will call on these traits, but there has to be input from governments to support and encourage farmers through these challenges. One of the key recommendations in the report is for the government to understand the needs and decision-making processes of farmers and to ensure that the delivery of adaptation programs is flexible and responsive to the needs of farmers and rural communities. (Time expired)

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

With regard to the matter of public importance submitted by the member for New England, one thing that is very clear is that Australian producers have far more to fear from government policy than they have from climate change or anything else. I can attest that in Brazil and America people are far more fearful of what governments might hand down than they are about what nature might hand down. Having said that, food security is not only about farmers being able to do what they do best and grow the food or the fibre; it is also about food manufacturing and processing, and the food manufacturing sector is the last major one left in Australia. It employs 315,000 people, mainly in regional Australia. It is vital to our nation’s food security, and this side of the House is extraordinarily concerned about its viability. For example, we are extremely concerned that there is only one frozen vegetable-processing plant left in the country after McCain closed its Tasmanian plant. That is obviously a major concern and it needs to be addressed.

One thing that simply cannot happen, if we are serious about the long-term sustainability of the land and of the industry, is the cutting of funds for research and development. As with any industry, staying up to date with the latest in technological and industrial improvements allows our producers to keep ahead of the pack when it comes to the global agricultural market. In many of our agricultural industries, Australians are clearly the best and in the rest, if they are not the best, they are certainly up there with it.

This MPI is about an issue that is obviously very close to me. Two years ago, for the first time in the history of mankind, there were more people living in cities than in rural areas. Never before have so many relied on so few for their food. To put it simply, if you do not eat, you die. Let us be clear: fewer people are producing food and, more simply, cannot produce food. As the urban trend continues, this gap is going to widen. It has brought many new challenges, none greater than the widening gap between urban populations and food producers. It is increasingly evident that at times unrealistic environmental green tape is being placed on food producers, and the lack of empathy of some city based politicians with people in the country is not helping this.

It was when I was shadow water minister that I saw the black hole opening up in our nation’s food security, and I saw the absolute contempt with which the government treated the Murray-Darling Basin irrigators and the two million people who live in the basin. Probably half of them are dependent on water in one guise or another. Unfortunately, the Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water is still treating them with contempt, and this was graphically illustrated when she was interviewed by the ABC on the Four Corners program after the government bought the food-producing powerhouse Toorale Station and converted it into a national park.

The two million people who rely on water in the Murray-Darling Basin need to get through to the Labor government that they have to stop ignoring the economic and social costs associated with the reforms. I would point out that food security is not only about our ability to feed Australians now; it is also about the fact that we are looked upon as the people who set the benchmark for good food production around the world, not only in quantity but in quality, and we do have a responsibility. If we produce only enough for ourselves and we do not provide enough good food for the rest of the world, a lot of people are going to die. We have a responsibility. Look at Sydney—they reckon there is enough food for seven to 10 days within Sydney and after that they would be in trouble. Food security is not only about the long term; it is also about the here and now. The next 50 years will see greater pressure placed on our farmers to deal with that. I finish by saying that farmers here and around the world are more frightened of government—(Time expired)

Jim Turnour (Leichhardt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on this matter of public importance. It is always a wonderful privilege and pleasure to speak on the future of agriculture or agriculture in general. Members may not know but I was born on a property near Batchelor in the Northern Territory. In the 1960s, my parents grew bananas and sold them in Darwin. We grew Townsville stylo which was a newly developing technology back then, a legume that would help revolutionise the pastoral industry until it was wiped out by disease. There have been follow-ons with Seca, Verano and a range of other stylos that have had an impact on the Northern Australian beef industry. Agriculture is a very important part of this country and the fabric of this country. It is a great privilege to stand here today and talk about its future because, as somebody who comes from the bush, has an agricultural science degree, has worked for the department of primary industries as well as privately with farmers and graziers and shares many of the values of people representing country areas in this place, I believe that it is important that we do have debates and discussions about these issues.

Today I want to focus my comments on Northern Australia, the area where I was born and which I represent. Recently the report of the Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce was brought down. There has been a lot of debate and discussion around that report and I think there were a lot of myths about dams and the future of the north as a food bowl effectively being ruled out. The reality is the report was a well-thought-out document which was not produced by government but produced by independent people like David Crombie. My father worked for GRM International for a period of time and Mr Crombie is the President of the National Farmers Federation. Another independent person involved in the production of that report was Mr Joe Ross, the chair of the committee and an Indigenous elder. He is a very well respected man in Northern Australia. We also had representatives from the mining industry and a range of other groups. Today they are in the parliament discussing the report and meeting with members from the Labor side and the opposition side.

I believe that the report provides a foundation for a good cross-party discussion and debate about Northern Australia. We can have simplistic debates about dams, development or no development, greenies or this and that in Northern Australia, but fundamentally if we are interested in the future of the area we need to sit down and work through the science and what sort of future is wanted with the communities concerned. That is what the Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce did and what their report brought forward. As I said, the report was not written by government; it was written by them and they are very proud of that. Joe Ross has put out a paper entitled ‘A new era for northern Australia: avoiding past mistakes and building a shared future’. It is very much worth a read. He goes through the report in an overall sense. One of the things he points out is that there are more myths about the north than perhaps any other part of the nation. Much of the criticism directed at the task force report is that it is ill conceived and ill informed. Critics are encouraged to read the report in depth and understand the full significance of the recommendations.

The media have suggested that the report basically rules out agriculture. Let us look at a few issues that the report identifies in the further development of agriculture in Northern Australia. The report identified that at the moment there are about 20,000 hectares of intensive agriculture in Northern Australia. As I said, my parents grew bananas there in the 1960s. Members opposite from rural areas would know that 20,000 hectares is not a large area. The report identifies that mosaic agriculture has the potential to increase that by another 40,000 hectares to a total of 60,000 hectares. That is a significant contribution. The report also identifies that most of those opportunities relate to being able to take up groundwater. Coming from the north and understanding the north, the reason it has not been developed is not only the limitations of some of the water resources and opportunities but also the lack of infrastructure and the lack of markets available in that part of the world. We need to continue to build roads and broadband networks. That is something that this government is doing.

The report also identifies that we can almost double the grazing industry through the intensification of the agricultural area in the north. There are great opportunities to develop agriculture in the north, but we need to look at the science, we need to work with the community and we need to make sure the business community and the private sector drive the economic opportunities.

Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! This discussion has concluded.