Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Settlement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill, the International Fund for Agricultural Development Amendment Bill 2012, will allow Australia to accede to the agreement establishing the International Fund for Agricultural Development under Australian law. Coalition members well understand and appreciate the need for an enhanced international response to the issue of food insecurity in developing countries. Despite the worthy objectives of IFAD, concerns remain regarding its organisational capacities. These concerns were first raised by the coalition under the Howard government in 2004. Disturbingly little has been done since that time to properly address the concerns that were raised some eight years ago. On that basis, the coalition is recommending that the bill be delayed until such time as these concerns are addressed and the impact of that reform program is commenced by IFAD's new management and is properly assessed.

In order to properly understand why the coalition is recommending that the bill be delayed, one needs to trace the chronology of IFAD's deficiencies which led to the Howard government's withdrawal of Australia from the fund. In 2004, the Howard government was concerned about the following deficiencies in the fund: the fund's limited relevance to the Australia's aid program priorities, particularly in the South-East Asia and Pacific region; the lack of comparative advantage and focus, with other organisations being much more strongly involved in rural development in the region; and shortcomings in the management and failure to respond to concerns that the Australian government had raised with IFAD senior management.

The Howard government's decision to withdraw from IFAD was supported by Mr Charles Tapp, the then Deputy Director-General of AusAID, in evidence presented to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties. The committee's report said:

AusAID has had concerns regarding IFAD's performance in relation to the Australian aid program and its priorities for a 'substantial period of time'.

Seven years later, in April 2011, a review of Australia's engagement with IFAD backed the committee's assessment, stating:

In 2004, these were clearly valid and important enough reasons for Australia to take the significant (and protracted) step of withdrawing from a UN organisation.

While coalition members note the reforms and note that they have been undertaken since Australia's withdrawal in 2004, it is really clear from the evidence presented to the committee that a lot more work needs to be done, and a lot more work is needed if the concerns of the Howard government then are to be fully addressed.

More recently, at a public hearing into the bill on 25 October 2012, AusAID officials were unable to assure members of the committee that IFAD had addressed all of the issues, and admitted that the progress that had been made could not be quantified. In March 2011, AusAID's 'Desktop Analysis of the International Fund for Agricultural Development' identified some ongoing challenges for the organisation in the areas of human resources and financial management. The analysis found:

… IFAD is benchmarked worse than peers for some aspects of financial management and administration.

The analysis also referred to the Multilateral Development Banks' Common Performance Assessment System, which is called COMPAS, 2008 report, which:

… found that IFAD had the lowest disbursement ratio and one of the less satisfactory variances between planned and actual project duration.

It is also important to note that, since Australia's withdrawal from IFAD, the number of allegations of fraud and corruption received by the IFAD Office of Audit and Oversight has increased from five in 2004 to 41 in 2011. That is hardly a good thing.

According to IFAD's 2011 Annual report on investigation and anticorruption activities, there were 25 allegations made against external parties, 13 related to IFAD staff members and three involving both staff members and external parties. These are not just trivial matters. They are internal allegations about staff misconduct cases involving harassment, breaches of confidentiality, recruitment irregularities and conflicts of interest, while the external cases involved collusion in procurement activities and other fraud on the part of companies and project staff. The ability of IFAD to investigate these allegations was not assisted by a reduction in staff numbers in its own Office of Audit and Oversight Investigation Section. While a number of contributing factors may be behind this increase, the broad negative trend since 2004 is deeply disturbing.

But what is even more alarming than this worsening trend in IFAD is the response that AusAID made during committee hearings that it was not aware of allegations about corruption within the fund. The actual response provided by the AusAID representative, Mr Wojciechowski, is worth noting in demonstrating just how out of touch AusAID is with these very serious issues of allegations of fraud and corruption relating to the fund. In response to a question from the member for Berowra, the Hon. Philip Ruddock, as to whether there were any allegations of corruption with the fund, Mr Wojciechowski had this to say:

Not that we are aware of. We understand that there are reporting mechanisms for corruption, but we are not aware of any making it to the executive council discussions. I think the report that we have commissioned, the 2011 report, looked at that issue and also did not identify any allegations of corruption. I am using the word 'allegations' here; there were certainly no cases.

AusAID's lack of knowledge as communicated to the committee is clearly disputed by IFAD's 2011 Annual report on investigation and anticorruption activities, which stated:

The increased volume of allegations … with reduced staffing … led to a very high investigation caseload of 59 active cases in 2011 (compared to 49 active cases in 2010 and 33 active cases in 2009).

AusAID's lack of knowledge regarding these allegations of fraud and corruption in the management of the fund is particularly worrying given the government's very public commitment to greater transparency and greater accountability in the management of foreign aid following the Independent Review of Aid Effectiveness in April last year.

The concerns held by the coalition regarding the fund's administration were also reflected in the United Kingdom's 2011 Multilateral Aid Review, which concluded that the likelihood of positive change within IFAD was 'uncertain'. According to that assessment:

IFAD has a relatively new top management team and although commitment is clear, it is too early to judge impact.

At a public hearing into the bill on 25 October 2012, AusAID was unable to satisfactorily explain why Australia should rejoin IFAD at the present time and why we should not wait until the impact of the recent reforms is fully known.

The government has also failed to adequately explain the reasoning behind its decision to contribute $126 million over four years to support Australia's re-engagement with the fund. According to the 2012-13 budget papers, this includes a $120 million payment to IFAD in 2013-14, as 'the total replenishment commitment is expected to be made in that year'. Given the government's $120 billion black hole—growing every day—in the budget and its supposed commitment to greater accountability and transparency in the management of Australia's aid budget, it is beyond bewildering as to why this $126 million commitment has been made at all, let alone now. It is worth noting here that Australia's commitment to the fund is far larger than what was committed by larger economies in 2011. For instance, it is $49.6 million more than that of Canada, which pledged $76.8 million; $37.2 million more than that of the United Kingdom, which pledged $89.2 million; $56.4 million more than that of Germany, which pledged $70 million; and $36.4 million more than that of the United States, which pledged $90 million.

This bill was referred by the House of Representatives Selection Committee on 13 September 2012 to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade for inquiry. Specifically, the committee was asked to determine:

Whether the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has fully addressed the concerns that were raised by the former Howard Government and which prompted Australia to withdraw from the organisation in 2004 …

In a dissenting report, coalition committee members recommended that the bill be delayed until concerns legitimately raised by the Howard government some eight years ago are fully addressed.

The key question to be answered here is: why is the government so desperate to give away $126.4 million of Australian taxpayers' money, despite such obvious deficiencies in the fund's management? Is this yet another example of one of the recent secret deals done by the government to secure a Security Council seat? It is an even more cynical attempt by the government to irresponsibly shovel money out the door in a desperate attempt to meet its commitment to contribute 0.5 per cent of GNI to the foreign aid budget by 2015. We already know that this government's inspired spending of taxpayers' money in the name of foreign aid includes such notable items as $150,000 for a statue to commemorate antislavery to be built in the UN Plaza in New York. And, of course, who could ever forget the $65 million for a giant telescope project in Chile's Atacama Desert?

Madam Deputy Speaker, when you consider that this government will only allocate $134 million in direct government expenditure on agricultural programs in Australia, you have to wonder why there is such unholy haste to give Australian taxpayers' money away. But then, again, the Labor government have never had any problem with spending other people's money; it is just balancing budgets that they struggle with. This question takes on even more significance when you look at other expenditure that Australia has already committed to global food security: the $464 million four-year global food security initiative announced on 12 May 2009; the announcement in this year's budget of $101 million to the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, ACIAR, with an additional $34.6 million to come from AusAID; and $30 million in donor commitment this year to the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, CGIAR, network. That is almost $639 million. These expenditure commitments do not include the contributions and allocations made to the work done by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, CSIRO, and other centres of Australian expertise on work relating to food security, including the International Agricultural Research Centres, IARCs, which are also supported by the Australian government.

Australia is well positioned to offer support to countries suffering from systemic food security issues and it already does this in the significant number of ways that I have just described. ACIAR, in particular, does some fantastic work. I had the pleasure to work with ACIAR when I was in the Howard government. I want to commend them on the tremendous work that they do in international development assistance programs and their contribution to our aid program's objective of assisting developing countries to reduce poverty and to achieve sustainable development, particularly in the agricultural area. I want to give some brief examples of notable achievements by ACIAR: in Papua New Guinea, they provide support for women engaged in vegetable and floriculture production, including teaching business skills and supporting efforts to open up new markets; in the Philippines, they provide support for projects improving fruit and vegetable production, supply chains and land management, increasing productivity and incomes of small-holder farmers; and, in Pakistan, improved horticulture management techniques are being introduced, helping lift crop yields and fruit quality in the Punjab region, the primary production district.

As you can see, Madam Deputy Speaker, Australia is already heavily involved in tackling the problem of global food security. What is difficult to understand is why the government is seeking to extend this commitment further through a multilateral fund with known, serious deficiencies in its governance processes—and this is the question that the we need to ask. I call on the government to support the coalition's recommendation that the bill be delayed until such time as these concerns are addressed. (Time expired)

Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the International Fund for Agricultural Development Amendment Bill 2012. The bill before us allows Australia to accede to the Agreement Establishing the International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD, under Australian law.

Australia was a founding member of IFAD in 1977 and subsequently announced its intention to withdraw in 2004 under the then Howard government. In 2004 the Howard government cited its concerns as: 'limited relevance to Australia's aid program's priority countries in South-East Asia and the Pacific'; a lack of comparative advantage and focus—other organisations are more strongly involved in rural development in our region; and shortcomings in management and a failure to respond to concerns that the Australian government raised with IFAD senior management. These were the reasons for withdrawing our support. In the 2012-13 budget, the government committed $126.4 million of Australian taxpayers' money over the forward estimates to rejoin IFAD, without fully addressing the concerns raised in 2004. This is symptomatic of the government; it is bereft of any financial accountability.

This bill was sent to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade for further consideration. The committee was asked to determine whether the International Fund for Agricultural Development has fully addressed the concerns that were raised by the former Howard government—which had prompted Australia's withdrawal from IFAD—and to consider the additional financial and human resources required by AusAID to support Australia's engagement with IFAD. It is my understanding that the number of allegations of fraud and corruption received by IFAD's Office of Audit and Oversight, AUO, had increased from five in 2004 to 41 in 2011. This is from page 6 of IFAD's 2011 Annual report on investigation and anticorruption activities.

I and all Australians have very serious concerns that the necessary changes to IFAD have not been met. I have to ask the question: why the urgent push to send money offshore when basic accountability measures have not yet been met? Whilst I support the levels of foreign aid that Australia spends, I believe that we have serious and escalating issues facing us closer to home. Our commitment to international development aid is strong and historic.

Australia has always been proportionally one of the most inclusive and generous countries in the world. However, in saying this, any Australian government has the responsibility to make sure that Australia's financial contributions achieve the outcomes they were designed to achieve.

My colleague John Cobb and the coalition as a whole understand the importance of food security as it pertains to Australia's, and to developing countries', future and internal food security. Food security and facilitating has always been a fundamental factor in Australia's commitment to regional and global aid. The ability for a nation to feed its people is a basic imperative and one that Australia cannot ignore. The acknowledgment of food security in countries around the world has developed into a centralised policy. Population growth, coupled with limited production and accessibility factors, has driven and will continue to drive food supply imperatives now and into the future. The demand for increased scientific developments and efficiencies in food production is not exclusive to developing nations. The reality is that, under current food production rates, global population will reach a critical mass—a tipping point where demand exceeds supply. The fact is that the ability of many nations to provide through production and acquisition will reach the critical point of unsustainability in the not too distant future.

Unfortunately we live in a world that is now predicated on the threat of terrorism, both past and into the future. We live in a world with threats to biosecurity. We live in a world with threats to food security. The fact is that, if not addressed, fundamentalism—not in the name of religion, but in the name of hunger—will have serious ramifications as nations struggle to feed their people. Many developed nations have acknowledged the importance of developing proactive food security policies.

During this debate I listened to the speech by the member for Wakefield who said:

When you go looking for corruption, you will of course get more reports of it. When you go looking for corruption, you will of course have more prosecutions. The greater the transparency you seek, the more instances you will turn up. That is true of any organisation.

I am not sure if he was referring to the current ICAC inquiry into former New South Wales Labor ministers Obeid and Macdonald or to the charges laid against the member for Dobell and his alleged misappropriation of HSU funding. But I say this to him and other members of the government benches: corruption and misappropriation of money should never be overlooked or discounted by any government. I am not surprised that it is a Labor government that is prepared to overlook the increase from five counts of fraud in 2004 to 41 in 2011 at the International Fund for Agricultural Development and to reinstate funding without accountability. I, for one, cannot on behalf of all Australians put the blinkers on and not demand accountability for Australians' hard-earned dollars.

I acknowledge that there have been reforms of the organisation since Australia's withdrawal from IFAD; however, it would appear from reports that our concerns have not been fully addressed. Australia's knowledge and expertise in the agricultural industry and in food security has from our inception been born of necessity, perseverance and survival. Necessity has now evolved in conjunction with world-leading scientific technologies. Australia, for a long time, has been at the forefront of agricultural best practice, biosecurity protocols and land and sea management.

As shadow minister for tourism and regional development I have had the privilege to visit individuals and businesses throughout rural and regional Australia. On a recent trip to Rockhampton, I visited Australian Reproductive Technologies and met with Simon Walton. Simon Walton has been investing and developing cutting-edge embryo and IVF technology. This technology is allowing for better efficiencies and productivity outcomes in commercial animal rearing. His IVF technology is also helping farmers restock and preserve their apex breeding herds after recent cases of Bovine Johne's Disease. More recently, I believe, Simon Walton has secured a major contract with a large Chinese dairy group to increase milk production in its herds, which will benefit both China and Australia—providing greater food security for China and income for Australia.

Closer to home in my electorate in Port Stephens, Nick Arena at Tailor Made Fish Farms has developed leading-edge aquaculture technology in barramundi farming. That technology is now being exported globally, again providing sustainable food production and returning income to Australia.

It has not been easy for these companies, or others like them—investing, taking risks, researching and developing new technologies. The fact is that the government needs to recognise the expertise and wealth of generational farming knowledge that we have right here at home in Australia. The Labor Party, in this government, has a great track record! Since coming to government, this Labor government has cut $33.4 million from cooperative research centres, cut $63 million from agricultural research within CSIRO and closed agricultural research centres in Queensland, Victoria and WA. It scrapped Land and Water Australia. The list goes on and on.

The importance of regional Australia to Australia's economy in food security and export cannot be denied or overlooked. In 2009 the current Labor government made the assessment that the Howard government's withdrawal of Australia from IFAD was warranted. The report reiterated that 'challenges remain in HR and financial management.' Australia's engagement and generosity as a regional and world citizen is well and truly documented. This government's waste and lack of accountability is also well and truly documented. In making investments in developing countries, I am drawn to the adage that if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; if you teach a man to fish, you feed him and his village for a lifetime. We need to use our technologies to improve food security globally and, in particular, in developing nations. Australia spends $4.8 billion in foreign aid annually. However, all Australians expect and deserve the assurance that their hard-earned money is administered and utilised well. This Labor government has continually professed it supports our farmers, but all evidence is to the contrary. While the rest of the world is running toward securing food security outcomes through technology and best practice, this government seems content walking away.

As usual, Labor talk the talk but never walk the walk, unless it is a walk away from our farmers and accountability.

We need to prioritise our foreign aid and find efficiencies and synergies with other organisations and countries to help facilitate food security outcomes for our region and throughout the world. The global landscape has dramatically changed since IFAD's creation in 1977, with other countries' sovereign wealth and ability to contribute to organisations like IFAD. Australia faces our own food production challenges—droughts, floods and other natural disasters. What we do not need is government-made disasters, which this Labor government is so prone to creating, particularly for those in regional and rural Australia. Australia is a generous nation, always prepared to offer a hand up more than a handout.

It will come as no surprise that I will oppose this bill until I am convinced that every dollar, every cent, is properly accounted for and spent where it is intended to be and that it is not lining the pockets of some corrupt individual or organisation. Again, I will oppose this bill.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Almost five years ago I rose in this place for the first time. In that maiden speech, I addressed the issues of international development aid and my support for it. I have remained a keen but not uncritical advocate of international development aid and an aid program that has integrity and not only focuses on meeting the most immediate humanitarian needs but builds the capacity of people to sustain themselves and their communities physically, economically—importantly—and socially.

It is one of the real privileges of all members of this House, and of the other place, that we are able to go to other countries and see the work that the Australian aid dollar is doing, and we are filled with great pride. Just last week I was in Sri Lanka and I saw the work of AusAID building homes in previously war-torn areas and met the families who were going back into those homes. I saw also the work AusAID were doing in building schools, with the opening of a school in Kilinochchi, the headquarters of the Tamil Tigers during the conflict. By the end of the war, that school had been levelled, and there were just 30 students there. On the day I visited, with the member for Curtin, we saw 2,000 students going into an Australian-built school. On that same day, we saw the work of AusAID in landmine clearing at Elephant Pass, one of the most vicious scenes of conflict, where government troops suffered heavy defeats.

In Indonesia, where I have also been, I saw the work in communities, with small villages being connected to a reliable water supply. I also saw, in Jakarta, the work that was being done to assist the Indonesian government, and more specifically the municipal authorities in Jakarta, plan for and deal with disasters.

These are all positive things and they are things that Australians can be very proud of. But we cannot be uncritical supporters of these programs, because Australians demand nothing less of us who sit in this place than that we ensure that aid dollars are spent well for the right purpose and, most importantly, get the outcomes that we all earnestly seek as global citizens.

The coalition will not be supporting the legislation which is before us, the International Fund for Agricultural Development Amendment Bill 2012, as there remain serious question marks about this fund and its organisational capacities. Concerns that initially prompted the Howard government to pull its support eight years ago have still not been addressed. This bill would allow Australia to accede to the agreement establishing the International Fund for Agricultural Development under the law. The UN agency was first set up in 1977 to fund agricultural development projects in developing countries.

There can be no doubt that food security is a significant issue. As my colleague the member for Curtin has emphasised, the coalition appreciates the need for an enhanced international response to that crisis. But we also believe that our aid program should be accountable, transparent and relevant. Australians should be able to feel confident that their money will be spent effectively and efficiently, that it will reach the people most in need and that it will make a meaningful difference on the ground, especially in our region.

We are a generous nation. I think we can be a more generous nation in the future, and I hope for a time when that is possible, even more so today. Australians have been very supportive of international development assistance over the years, but we should not try their patience. In order to sustain that high level of consensus and community engagement, Australians need to have confidence that the funds and agencies we work with are open and accountable. Australians also need to have confidence that their government is putting its money where its mouth is, not pledging funds for foreign aid overseas then secretly using them to mop up a haemorrhaging budget blow-out caused by Labor's own border protection failures.

Our aid program should not be an exercise in jumping through arbitrary hoops. The aid budget should not be a bargaining chip to put on the table to help win a place on the United Nations Security Council or to score international political bargaining points. Nor should Australia's aid budget be used as a golden chequebook for the government to reach for whenever its failures have drained the bank account in other portfolios. Before Christmas, this Labor government was caught out, exposed playing semantics and diverting $375 million from the aid budget into paying the bill for its failed border protection policies. The Gillard government has now made itself the third-largest recipient of its own foreign aid budget—$375 million is more than Australia is spending in Afghanistan, in Sri Lanka, in Iraq, in Pakistan. We are basically robbing Peter to pay Paul—and Paul in this case is the new Minister for Immigration and Citizenship—in terms of the aid program.

Senator Bob Carr has not revealed which programs he will be stripping money out of, nor is it clear exactly which immigration outcome the money will be diverted into. In December, the member for Gorton, now the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, who has entered the revolving door of Labor ministers, policy failures and border chaos that we have seen over the last five years, said he was 'comfortable', his word, with Senator Carr's statements—and indeed, I would say, Senator Carr's deceit.

This is what he said:

… the Government's unapologetic in dedicating resources to people who might be waiting to have their claims sorted in Australia …

The minister went on to say:

I don't see any difference in providing support for refugees in Jordan and Lebanon as I would see it from providing resources here.

He observed:

… we have a record amount of money going to foreign aid … because we are a generous nation.

… I don't think that should prevent us from providing … basic entitlements and resources to people seeking asylum and, indeed, having their claims determined here—

No wonder the world has formed an opinion about this government in relation to these matters. Perhaps the minister can now clarify exactly which outcome of his portfolio this money will be spent in.

I also do not accept his logic. If money is being diverted to pay for asylum seekers on bridging visas in Australia who have not had their claims determined, these people have not even yet been found to be refugees, so his use of the term 'refugees' is simply inaccurate. I hope, now that he is being briefed by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, that he can at least catch up a bit with the clear gap in his knowledge on these matters.

This is a monumental deceit, draining money from the aid budget to try to cover Labor’s own cost blow-out on our borders, which is more than $6½ billion since they came to power. Statistics out this week from the department of immigration revealed that in November 2012 Australia’s formal detention network had a larger population than ever, with more than 8,400 people. That is in the formal detention network, remembering that when the Howard government left office there were four people in detention who had arrived by boat. And that population is before you even take into account those asylum seekers released into the community under this government’s policies or on a bridging visa or who have been transferred offshore.

In Australia today we estimate that about 12,000 people, maybe even more, sit in the system as a result of Labor’s border protection failures. Labor’s asylum budget has blown out by more than $6 billion since 2008 and now our aid budget has been sucked into the black hole of costs and chaos that Labor has brought upon itself by dismantling and refusing to restore the proven measures of the Howard government and refusing to go further to implement the measures that the coalition has continued to advocate, beyond even what was done by the Howard government.

Australians just do not trust this government, whether it comes to managing our aid budget, our borders or our economy or implementing any policy, for that matter, and is it any wonder why. Australia’s aid program should focus on the outcomes on the ground and the quality of delivery, not the publicity of writing a novelty sized cheque. We should give because we are genuinely compassionate, because we are in a position where we are able to lend practical assistance to help and empower others, particularly our neighbours within the region, not because we need to tick off somebody’s shopping list. It is critical that in the initiatives Australia signs up to there are inbuilt mechanisms to protect the integrity of these programs and the processes that deliver aid.

Australia was a founding member of the IFAD, but in 2004 the Howard government announced its intention to withdraw from the fund, on grounds including the program’s limited relevance to our priorities in South-East Asia and the Pacific and its shortcomings in management and failure to respond to serious concerns taken up with senior management. In November 2009 the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Stephen Smith, agreed to the assessment of IFAD's operations. As the member for Paterson just noted in his remarks, that review found in April last year that the reasons for the Howard government’s withdrawal were 'clearly valid and important'. The review also warned that challenges remained in HR and financial management of the fund. In spite of those challenges, the government announced a year ago that it would sign back up, and in the 2012-13 budget Labor committed $126.4 million over four years to support that decision.

The bill before us today was referred to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade for scrutiny. While some progress has been made by IFAD, evidence presented to the committee clearly indicates that the concerns flagged by the Howard government still have not been satisfactorily addressed and, as a result, the coalition will not be supporting these measures today. The Assistant Director-General of AusAID’s Food Security, Infrastructure, Mining and Trade Branch, Ms Bryant, gave evidence before the hearing and said that IFAD 'are not all the way there yet but they are making progress against a number of our concerns to the point where we are satisfied that they are on the right path'. Yet, when asked by the member for Berowra, Father of the House, if she could quantify that, Ms Bryant said: 'No. In terms of a list, no, I cannot do that.'

In 2004 IFAD’s Office of Audit and Oversight received five allegations of fraud and corruption. By 2011 that number had risen to 41. IFAD’s 2011 annual report on investigation and anticorruption activities noted that 25 allegations had been made against external parties, 13 had been made against IFAD staff members and that three involved both staff and external bodies. In elaborating on these allegations, the report noted that the staff misconduct cases involved harassment, breach of confidentiality, recruitment irregularities and conflicts of interest, while the external cases involved collusion and procurement activities and other fraud on the part of companies and project staff.

Engagement with these large multilateral organisations needs to jump a high bar, I think, for the Australian public to have confidence in how the money is spent and to have confidence that it is not just going into a big black box. The support that is given for on-the-ground, locally delivered programs, where people can see the benefits and know those who are directly involved in their delivery means they are the programs that Australians themselves are putting their hands in their pockets for in increasingly large numbers, expressing their own level of commitment and generosity to the problems they see far from these shores, and they should be commended. Much is said about making poverty history, but to make poverty history you have to make it your own business first. It is not about wearing an armband and shouting into the sky; it is actually about supporting people doing things on the ground in a practical way with integrity, where you can be confident about what is being delivered. That is how you build confidence, that is how you build support and that is the sort of path I would like to see pursued.

In principle, the coalition is supportive of international efforts to improve food security for developing countries, and Australians' technical expertise in areas like tropical agriculture, biosecurity and dryland means we can make an important contribution in this area. But community consensus for international development is built upon the foundations of confidence in the use of those funds.

Decisions about how Australia spends our aid budget better matter. There are many worthy causes, but we need to make discerning decisions. These are things that must be triaged—difficult decisions, but nonetheless decisions that must be made about whom we can best support. There are areas of great need in our own region, and Australia has an important role to play here. I will conclude on those.

In the mountains of Papua New Guinea a few years ago I was with the member for Blaxland and we attended the funeral of a young man whose life was stolen by a preventable disease that should have avoided and we witnessed the inconsolable pain of a mother and a grieving community that could perhaps have been spared. That incident once again re-affirmed my commitment—and I am sure the member for Blaxland's—about the need to ensure that we do all we can to help those closest to us. We owe a great debt to the men and women of Papua New Guinea—those who carried our wounded across the Kokoda Track and in the battles of Wau and Salamaua and further north in Finschhafen and all of these places—who themselves faced execution and torture as they supported our troops and our country in our greatest area of need. We can never forget our friends in Papua New Guinea. They are loyal and solid friends of this country. Their needs are great and our support for them in this particular area, I believe, comes before all other calls on the foreign aid purse, and certainly the calls submitted in this bill.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the International Fund for Agricultural Development Bill 2012. This bill was introduced into the House on 13 September 2012 and if passed will allow Australia to accede to the agreement establishing the International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD, under Australian law. There are many concerning aspects of this bill: issues which have been addressed in the report by the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, including in a dissenting report by members of the coalition. The bill comes in the context of Australia's contribution to our region and in the context that this bill was introduced just a month prior to the vote for Australia's non-permanent two-year seat on the United Nations Security Council.

First, I wish to speak broadly about Australia's commitment to the Asia-Pacific region. I have spoken many times before in this House on the significant challenges that our closest neighbours face, and Australia's very crucial role in delivering results. Eighteen of our 20 nearest neighbours are developing countries. In terms of their progress under the Millennium Development Goals, many are falling behind. Tuberculosis—a disease completely eradicated in our country—affects millions in the Asia-Pacific region, which has more than half of total global cases of tuberculosis. Other serious medical and development problems remain, including maternal and infant mortality, access to clean drinking water, violence against women and corruption.

While Australia's gross domestic product on average is $55,000 per person, in Papua New Guinea that figure stands at about $1,400—and that is only talking about the average. Figures are even lower in Solomon Islands, East Timor and several other Asia-Pacific countries. With a developed economy, Australia not only has the capacity but should also have the will to help the most disadvantaged in our region.

With respect to today's bill, there is significant background to both the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and more generally with Australia's aid contribution to areas outside our region. The fund was established in 1977 as a specialised agency of the United Nations to finance agricultural development projects in developing countries. The primary aim of the fund is to reduce rural hunger and poverty across the globe. Australia joined that effort in 1977 as a founding member in response to the food crisis of the early 1970s which affected millions across the globe. Over the course of the next 27 years until 2004, successive Australian governments contributed approximately $50.3 million to IFAD. In 2004, a rigorous analysis was undertaken by the Howard government to assess whether it was appropriate that Australia continue to be a member of the fund. The analysis was brought about as a result of significant concerns that IFAD had very low relevance to the general aims of Australia's aid program.

Broadly, AusAID's national interest analysis concluded that:

IFAD's programs are not consistent with Australia's national interest in delivering a focused, coherent aid program directed to Australia's priority development partners in South-East Asia and the Pacific.

It noted specific concerns that contravened Australia's national interest, including its limited geographic relevance, a lack of comparative advantage and focus in assisting the rural poor compared to other programs and its shortcomings in management and donor relations. On the last point, the Australian government spent a significant amount of time discussing with senior management of IFAD their role in our region. The joint standing committee in 2004 supported the decision to remove Australia from IFAD and reported on evidence that there was a lack of focus by IFAD on the Asia-Pacific region and, more importantly, any new Pacific strategy implemented would involve very small sums of money, according to one of AusAID's deputy director-generals, Mr Charles Tapp. I note that the decision to withdraw was not taken lightly. It meant Australia would be the only country in the OECD and one of only two countries in the G20 not to be involved with IFAD. Fundamentally, the committee said that contributing to IFAD did not constitute 'the best use of our aid dollar'.

Since that time the government, and the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Hon. Stephen Smith, decided to undertake an assessment of IFAD's operations to inform a decision on Australia's future participation. That review noted the:

… valid and important … reasons for Australia to take the significant (and protracted) step of withdrawing from a UN organisation.

In April 2011, after consultation with government and engagement in IFAD's 34th governing council and its senior management, AusAID offered what I would call a tentative endorsement for re-engaging with IFAD—although it did note the challenges that would remain in human resources and financial management.

During the committee process coalition senators and members of the Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee provided a dissenting report, outlining the coalition's concerns that the issues raised in 2004 had not been adequately addressed by IFAD since our departure. The report recommended:

… the Bill be delayed until the concerns of the Howard Government are fully addressed and the impact of the reform program commenced by the organisation's new management is known and properly assessed.

The coalition raised two very significant issues during that committee process: firstly, IFAD's ongoing issues with increasing corruption investigations into its programs; and, secondly, the fact that Australia will be contributing record highs in terms of appropriations to the fund.

Firstly, since our departure, the allegations of fraud and corruption received by IFAD's Office of Audit and Oversight increased from five in 2004 to 41 in 2011—25 allegations were made against external parties, 13 related to IFAD's own staff members and three involved both staff members and external organisations. I am very concerned that some of these staff misconduct cases, according to IFAD's 2011 Annual report on investigation and anticorruption activities, involved 'harassment, recruitment irregularities, and conflicts of interest, while the external cases involved collusion in procurement activities and other fraud'. At the same time, the number of staff in the Office of Oversight and Audit has been reduced, further hampering their ability to adequately address charges of corruption. When my colleague the member for Berowra asked AusAID officials about allegations of corruption within the fund, they responded that AusAID was not aware of any allegations. This certainly raises concerns with the coalition, given IFAD's own admissions, about the ongoing ability of AusAID in collaboration with IFAD to ensure that the fund is managed in an open and transparent manner.

Secondly, the decisions behind the recommended size of Australia's proposed contribution to the fund over the next years have not been adequately explained. As I have noted, the Australian federal government contributed $50.3 million over 27 years to IFAD. According to the 2012-13 budget papers, there will be $126.4 million over four years to 'support Australia's re-engagement with the Fund.' I do appreciate that any withdrawal and subsequent re-engagement with a United Nations body would require transitional funds to support that move; however, I am not sure why this 'replenishment' is considerably more than the contribution of any other member. Canada has pledged $76.8 million; the United Kingdom, $82.9 million; Germany, $70 million; and the United States of America has pledged $90 million. The coalition's dissenting report notes that the government must explain why, based on these figures, it will contribute more than the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Germany. This is particularly important, given Australia's long-held concerns about the fund. It must demonstrate that the government's significant financial commitment is based on a careful analysis of Australia's national interest and not motivated by its need to reach its spending targets for overseas development assistance.

On that last point, this bill was introduced just one month prior to the United Nations vote on whether Australia would become a temporary member of the Security Council for two years. The coalition still has concerns that the government has not come to this decision on the merits of the case but rather has taken an opportunistic and easy way to distribute money to help win a place on the United Nations Security Council. If the government proposed to spend this money to attract some of Africa's 54 votes in that successful United Nations vote then it should own up and say so. However, ultimately, in light of our commitment to our nearest neighbours, we should not be giving them the benefit of the doubt when concerns still exist about IFAD's operations. Continuing to be a participating member with IFAD was not in Australia's national interest in 2004 and our stance on that remains today. As such, I do not support this bill in its current form.

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

I rise to speak on the International Fund for Agricultural Development Amendment Bill 2012. The bill is intended to allow Australia to accede to agreement establishing the International Fund for Agricultural Development under Australian law. The International Fund for Agricultural Development is a specialised agency of the UN. It was established in 1977 to finance agricultural development projects in developing countries. We were a founding member of IFAD; however, in 2004 the Howard government announced its intention to withdraw from the fund, citing its limited relevance to the Australian aid program's priority countries, quite obviously those in South-East Asia and the Pacific. There was a lack of comparative advantage and focus, because it was evident that other organisations were more strongly involved in rural development in our part of the world, and there were shortcomings in management response to concerns that the Australian government raised with IFAD senior management.

The issue of relevance to our region is enormous. There are countries that we need to work with us in development—our biggest and nearest neighbour and others. IFAD was shown then, and I believe it is still the case, to be not adequately equipped—certainly not at this point of time. An assessment by the current government in November 2009 confirmed that the Howard government had valid reasons for Australia to withdraw from the UN organisation. While the review was supportive of Australia's re-engagement with the fund, it noted that challenges remained in HR and financial management. It also stated that, if Australia were to re-join IFAD as a contributing member, the Australian Government must:

… ensure it provides the financial and human resources required to support the level of engagement it seeks

This bill was sent to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade for further consideration, and it was clear that the issues raised by the former Howard government had not been fully addressed. As a result, the coalition, in a dissenting report, recommended:

… the Bill be delayed until the concerns of the Howard Government are fully addressed and the impact of the reform program commenced by the organisation’s new management is known and properly assessed.

This issue goes to the heart of this government's attitude to spending. They say they are economic conservatives but the reality is that they seem prepared to take a chance on taxpayer money, when we do not believe we should. Labor's lack of due diligence on this is reminiscent of other programs, such as the oft mentioned pink batts and school halls debacles.

As the shadow agriculture minister I am very disappointed that my portfolio has been plundered while there has been so much wasteful spending. I am certainly disappointed that, despite the tearing down of the agriculture budget, the Gillard government, whose budget is bleeding one billion dollars every month or two, at least, in interest alone, has a net debt of over $150 billion. That is a $220 billion turnaround from the $70 billion that was left in the bank by our previous government.

In agriculture, since 2007, the budget has been reduced by $2 billion to a miserable $1.7 billion, although it is a very important sector of the Australian economy. If we drill down further we see that of that $1.7 billion, over $700 million is funded directly by industry—it is not government or taxpayer money; it is industry money from levies or cost recovery and around $250 million matching R&D contributions by the taxpayer under legislation. It is a fact that of that $1.7 billion only $134 million in the current budget is actually for programs to support agriculture. That is only $134 million for a vital industry—the agriculture industry—which was, for many years, the only large industry we had. There was $134 million to support agriculture and $126 million for others to decide about—not us by passing this bill—spending, and probably not in a relevant situation for Australia. Only $134 million is currently being spent to set Australian agriculture up for the future and provide a robust future to underpin not just our food security but our markets.

Let me say that I have been in agriculture for my whole life—and that is a while now—and I have never heard farmers talk about it being tougher to make a quid. I am not talking about them whinging about drought or anything like that. Good farmers I have known my whole life talk today about just how tough it is to make a quid, as do those in the retail industry, tourism, small businesses and large businesses right around our country.

Since coming to government Labor has cut $33 million from the agriculture department's already strained operating resources. It has taken about the same amount from the co-operative research centres—the CRCs—so that fewer CRCs are funded each year. As most CRCs are agriculturally based there will be less funding for agriculture there. Labor also cut $63 million from agricultural research in CSIRO within its first six or seven months of government and closed agricultural research sites in Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia.

They scrapped Land and Water Australia, which was also an R&D organisation. They also most definitely planned to cut R&D funding by 50 per cent and had a productivity report to support that. However, industry woke up to what they were going to do. We woke up to what they were going to do, and I am happy to say that we were, in the end, able to shame them out of that.

However, billions of dollars has been brought forward to fund more water buybacks, guaranteeing many communities along the Murray-Darling system will go from a climatic drought straight into a Labor drought. Very little money has been spend on water infrastructure, either in the system or on farm. The suspension of live exports to even those Indonesian abattoirs practising good animal welfare standards has certainly put at risk, as we have seen in the last 12 months, a $1 billion industry and set back animal welfare. Labor have weakened industry confidence and threatened jobs. They have also sent a very clear signal to our trading partners around the globe that, under this government, sovereign risk has become an issue.

Furthermore, while Australian industries are struggling with the high Australian dollar—it has certainly caught up with us in recent times—this government continues to make it more difficult with the carbon tax, with more cost-shifting to industry and increasing costs from excessive and growing regulation. I draw this comparison. Labor are looking to hand $126 million to an organisation which has shown bad reporting, bad HR and a poor ability to convince us why they are doing it, and which is not in our own region, yet Labor have cut the 40 per cent rebate for export certification.

The government has further underresourced biosecurity, with Myrtle rust endemic and the Asian bee not eradicable. And there have been a raft of other issues to do with our quarantine and our biosecurity which have become very apparent over the past four or five years. And the government is now moving to remove mandated levels of inspections—not for efficiency but so that they can shift the cost from the government onto industry. We have already seen 97 staff moved from airport biosecurity, which is funded by government, to cargo quarantine, which is funded by industry. What a backhanded way of putting the cost, which government has traditionally financed, onto industry, without saying a word about it.

We now have the new legislation for the chemical regulator before us, which ignores stakeholder concerns that increased regulation will increase the cost of chemical registration by one-third, or around $8 million, and will add another layer of bureaucracy and red tape. This is despite the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, Penny Wong, listing agvet chemical reform in the 2012 update of the Australian government deregulation agenda as a key to reducing regulatory compliance costs for businesses and to improve their competitiveness, when in fact we know that this is a sop for the Greens who want to mandate—and make it harder to register, to re-register or to continue—the use of chemicals which are not harmful.

The reform process was supposed to address two key areas, but by adding a seven- to 15-year automatic review it is increasing the cost to industry and increasing the difficulty of producing what Australia needs—the best and the most food in the world. It means agvet chemical companies cannot recover the costs of extensive registration and re-registration processes, and many cheaper, safer chemicals will simply be unavailable to Australian farmers, not because they are unsafe but because Labor has made them too expensive.

The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has a mere $134 million in funding for programs to support the development of one of the nation's greatest industries, agriculture, yet the government proposes tossing $126 million, nearly as much as the entire Australian agriculture budget, towards a fund from which the country withdrew just a few years ago because of very significant problems, and our research clearly shows that these issues have not been addressed.

How much does the government spend on foreign aid? I believe it is $4.8 billion; I am not absolutely clear whether the $126 million is part of the budget or extra. We do not seem to be being told that—it would be nice to hear it. If it is part of the current aid budget, it would clearly mean the government has made a commitment to increase the aid budget by so much that it does not know what to do with all the money, even though it concedes there are serious issues with this program. If it is extra money and Labor cannot fund the NDIS and all the other big-tickets items it has mortgaged our grandchildren to pay for in the future, then why?

We need to be able to control where our money goes. We need to know that it is being spent in our region. As I said earlier, there are countries large and small in our part of the world which we should be targeting with agricultural aid, countries with which we have real reasons to repair or improve relations. I do not support the International Fund for Agricultural Development Amendment Bill 2012 for the very good reason that I do not believe it is in this nation's interests. I ask the parliament to reject it.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD, was first established in 1977 and Australia was one of the founding nations. Before we withdrew from IFAD in 2004, we had contributed more than $50 billion. IFAD was founded to help the rural poor overcome poverty. That is a very important role. Indeed, it is impossible for countries of the Third World to pull themselves up into the First World unless, of course, agriculture pays the primary bills in those economies. In poor farming families, the ability to fund children's education is normally generated by whatever agricultural assets the families have. So this role is important and Australia should be involved with agricultural development in nations within our sphere of influence.

After 27 years of involvement, in 2004 Australia pulled out of IFAD primarily for three reasons—the lack of activity in our area of interest, other organisations doing a far better job than IFAD and, most importantly, the culture of sloppy management and wastefulness permeating IFAD. So in Australia the Howard government decided that it was no longer good use of taxpayers' money to be investing in this organisation and that the resources could be better used in other places in our foreign aid budget.

I support foreign aid and I support the aim to increase the quantity of foreign aid that Australia provides. At times you, Mr Deputy Speaker Leigh, would have to field arguments within your electorate from people who believe that charity begins at home and that we should be concentrating on issues in Australia before we concentrate on issues overseas. I argue with this point of view. I think there are very good reasons for Australia to continue to have a strong foreign aid budget. For instance, look at countries in our sphere of influence, like Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, right on our doorstep, our second closest neighbour, with 160 million people and, most importantly from our point of view, a developing democracy. There are very good reasons to ensure that modern Indonesia is a success, and our role there is important.

It is very important that we continue to involve ourselves with our closest neighbour, Papua New Guinea. We have a long-term moral commitment to PNG. It is in our interests to see a stable democracy continue there and that any altercations which may happen on their shores do not bleed into Australia.

We have also had involvement with a country a little bit further away—Sri Lanka. Along with Indonesia, it is at the moment the biggest source of asylum seekers coming to Australia. So it is in Australia's interests to be involved and spend some dollars in these countries to try to make them better places so people do not wish to leave. Foreign aid is primarily about helping people, but it is also about promoting Australia's interests. Peaceful, prosperous nations in the Asia-Pacific region are definitely in Australia's interests.

Just for the record, of those three countries I mentioned, Indonesia is the biggest recipient of foreign aid at $578 million, PNG receives $491 million, and Sri Lanka—I think, a little surprisingly—receives $47 million, not a huge sum in this context. That makes a total not just in those three countries but in the East Asia-Pacific region, that direct area of influence for Australia, of $2.49 billion, or roughly half of the total foreign aid budget. It brings into question what we are doing with the other half, because I am not a great supporter, for instance, of Australia being heavily involved in Africa. I think there are other nations that have primary responsibility for Africa, particularly in Europe. We do not see the Europeans being heavily involved in the Asia-Pacific region. Africa is on their doorstep, so we should be concentrating on those countries that have a direct influence on us.

I have been fortunate enough in the last year or two to have visited Sri Lanka and a number of aid projects that Australia is involved with there. I saw some schools we have erected, most notably a two- and three-storey brand new school for 1,400 students for $750,000. That would not have gone far in the BER project, I might point out—not far at all. But it was good enough to house—

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A library, I think.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Barely half a library—more likely a COLA, if you cast your mind back. I was witness to the mine-clearing operation which is so important to northern Sri Lanka. I might point out that Minelab, a company based in Adelaide, is actually the supplier of the best equipment in the world in this case. There was a housing project where we were restoring houses that had been lying derelict for 10 years or more. And importantly there was a project helping farmers re-establish themselves back on their land. We were providing one dairy cow and dairy shelter. That does not sound much in Australia, but it was making an enormous difference there. It was the ability for a Sri Lankan farmer to feed and start to educate their children.

In Indonesia I was able to visit an earthquake zone where Australia had been involved in restoring or implementing clean water supplies, building schools, once again, and a housing project teaching local tradesmen how to build housing which will not fall over in the next earthquake, because they are naturally drawn to the cheapest form of construction.

They are important projects, but the important difference between those projects and IFAD is that they are projects over which we have control. We have control over where they are and what country they are in, and we have control over project management. Should we reinvest in IFAD we will give up our control. We will cede it to someone else, and the record is not great.

One of the reasons we withdrew from our commitment to IFAD in 2004, along with that specific nature I have already covered, was the shortcomings in management and the failure to respond to concerns raised by the Australian government with IFAD. Basically, as I said in my opening remarks, there was sloppy management and waste. So, if we rejoin and resume our funding commitment to IFAD, we would want a cast-iron guarantee that we are not wasting our money.

I cannot stress enough how committed we on this side of the chamber in the coalition are to stopping government waste and making sure the taxpayers get value for their dollars. The government has had a very poor record in this area. I mentioned a few programs, but there was also pink batts, Green Loans and $900 cheques. One of the latest was the nationwide survey and consultation period over how we should celebrate 100 years of Anzac tradition. What a glorious waste of money. I am aware of gatherings that had been organised at huge cost to the taxpayer that two people rolled up to. Australians know how to celebrate Anzac Day. We should know that as a matter of instinct.

To come back to IFAD, in 2011 the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade revisited the decision of 2004 and found that it was justified. In fact, the desktop analysis by the Multilateral Development Banks' Common Performance Assessment System in 2008 found that IFAD had one of the lowest disbursement ratios and one of the least satisfactory variances between planned and actual project duration. If we are to rejoin this program, we would want to know that is no longer the case. I have not seen anything in the government's assessment and argument for rejoining this organisation telling us they could guarantee that is no longer the case. In fact, the Office of Audit and Oversight of IFAD had an increase in allegations of fraud and corruption from five to 41 cases in the years from 2004 to 2011. That is quite a cause for concern, yet still the government wishes to rejoin. In 2011, IFAD's annual report said reduced staffing had led to a very high investigation case load due to the 59 active cases compared with 49 in 2010 and 33 in 2009. Those statistics are going the wrong way.

Now the government plans to give $126 million to IFAD—$120 million, interestingly, in the first year, 2013-14. It is worthwhile comparing that with what some other nations around the world are giving to IFAD in 2013-14.

Canada, a very comparable nation, is committed to providing $76 million, New Zealand is committed to zero, the UK is committed to $83 million, Germany is committed to $70 million and the US is committed to $90 million. It would seem that Australia is intent on leading the pack and the government has discovered a great enthusiasm for investing in agriculture. My good friend the shadow minister for agriculture, the member for Calare, highlighted some of these concerns.

The government speaks publicly of the global food challenge, of innovation, of Australia's role and of the importance of the farmer. Those types of statements would justify a commitment to agriculture and may well justify Australia's interest in being re-involved with IFAD, but actions speak much louder than words. Here in Australia the cuts to agriculture have been deep. The member for Calare mentioned these figures just moments ago, but in 2007 the budget for agriculture was $3.8 billion and in 2012 it is $1.7 billion—and much of that money is provided by industry levies. It seems that the government does not actually believe its own rhetoric.

Late last year in this place I spoke about Australia's commitment to agricultural research. Australia has one of the lowest levels of government support for agriculture in the world. The US, for instance, spends over $20 billion a year on agricultural support, while Europe spends more than 50 billion euros a year. I am not one who would argue that we should be returning to the days of subsidies and support for agriculture—I think we have gone past that point, and Australian farmers know that, and our economy is ill-structured to afford such expensive support. But as a person who has farmed for most of my life and been involved in agricultural research I continually insist that we provide the tools to our coming generation of farmers to equip them to compete in this increasingly competitive world. The most important tools we can give them are modern methods of growing better, higher quality crops, with more niche marketing, and doing that at a lower cost. That needs significant research.

We have a proud history of leading the world in agricultural research—dryland agricultural research, at least—but so many of our research institutions are staffed by people who are the product of the 1970s and 1980s. There has been a long and steady decline in the number of people committing to study in agricultural fields. We need some help out there. When the government withdraws from funding organisations like CSIRO Land and Water, it adds to the problems of Australian agriculture. While the government is now talking about giving to an international organisation money to spend as they wish anywhere in the world with no control from us, it is withdrawing help for Australian agriculture to be the best it can and to provide important food sources not only for Australia but for the world.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is indeed a pleasure to follow the member for Grey, who, as he said, has farmed for most of his life. He has perhaps forgotten more about farming than most of those on the other side will ever know—

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I haven't forgotten anything!

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Perhaps he has forgotten some of those little things that did not need remembering. My point is that the member for Grey has a wealth of knowledge about farming and he represents a huge area of South Australia, the electorate of Grey—an area vital to Australia's food production, to Australia's agriculture and to Australia's export industries. Too often, we in this place forget how vital agriculture still is to Australia's exports. Often we get so caught up with the mining boom and the wealth mining creates that we forget about that important sector that made this nation great—agriculture. I speak to farmers in my own electorate on a daily basis—farmers such as Ian 'Jock' Munro at Rankins Springs, John Bonetti at Griffith, Barney Hyams at Batlow, John Dennis from Collingullie, John Minogue at Barmedman; I could go on—

Geoff Lyons (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Go on, name them all.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I could mention Mark Hoskinson, I could mention Anthony Quinn and I could mention so many more but I do want to get onto the important aspects of this debate. These people bemoan the woeful record that Labor has on agriculture and they bemoan the fact that so much money is not being spent on vital components of the farming industry to bring it back to where it was, even to the days of the Howard government when so much more emphasis was placed on that vital sector.

The debate on the International Fund for Agricultural Development Amendment Bill 2012 is an important debate to be having in the first sitting week of 2013. The bill will allow Australia to countenance the agreement establishing the International Fund for Agricultural Development under Australian law. The International Fund for Agricultural Development is a specially tasked agency of the United Nations—it was established in 1977 to fund agricultural development projects in developing countries. Australia was a member of IFAD at its inception. In 2004 the then Howard Liberal-Anderson Nationals government announced its intention to pull out of the fund. There were several compelling reasons for doing this. The coalition government at the time cited:

Withdrawing from a UN sponsored organisation, as the member for Wannon pointed out earlier today, is not a decision taken lightly and it is not an easy process.

In November 2009, the then Labor Minister for Foreign Affairs, Stephen Smith, agreed to undertake an assessment of IFAD's operations to gauge Australia's future involvement. Released in April 2011, the review of Australia's engagement with IFAD stated:

In 2004 these were clearly valid and important enough reasons for Australia to take the significant (and protracted) step of withdrawing from a UN organisation.

While the review is understanding of Australia's re-engagement with the fund, it noted, significantly, that challenges remain in human resources and financial management. It further stated:

If Australia were to rejoin IFAD as a contributing member, the Australian Government … need to ensure it provides the financial and human resources required to support the level of engagement it seeks.

Australia is the only Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development country and one of only two G20 countries which is not a member of IFAD. Twelve months ago, the government announced Australia's intention to rejoin IFAD. In the 2012-13 budget the Australian government committed $126.4 million over four years to enable Australia to rejoin IFAD. Funding for this measure will be offset from the provision for expanded aid funding held in the contingency reserve.

In June 2012, the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties recommended that binding treaty action be taken to enable Australia to rejoin the International Fund for Agricultural Development. No dissenting report was recorded. In September 2012, the bill was considered by shadow cabinet, which agreed to the recommendation that it be referred to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade for more detailed consideration. Chiefly, the committee was asked to determine whether the International Fund for Agricultural Development had fully addressed the concerns raised by the former Howard-Anderson government which prompted Australia to withdraw from the organisation in 2004, and consider the additional financial and human resources required by AusAID to support Australia's participation in IFAD.

While modification of the organisation has been made since Australia's withdrawal, it is apparent from evidence presented to the committee that the concerns of the former Howard-Anderson government have not yet been fully addressed. In a dissenting report, coalition committee members recommended that the bill be held over, delayed, until such time as the issues the Howard-Anderson government put forward are fully addressed and the impact of the restructure started by the organisation's new management is known and properly assessed. Unless this is done we cannot and will not support this bill. Labor's lack of due diligence on this and on so many issues has been a millstone around the neck of national progress, particularly in the area of agriculture.

As we just heard from the shadow agriculture minister, he is extremely disappointed that his portfolio has been plundered—his word—while there has been so much wasteful spending by Labor. He is right to point out that the agriculture budget has been pared back by the Gillard government, which has overseen a net debt of more than $150 billion. That is a $220 billion turnaround from the $70 billion left in the bank by the Howard government. It is shameful that spending on agriculture has been reduced from $3.8 billion in 2007 to a paltry $1.7 billion this financial year. Looking more closely at agriculture funding, you find that, of the $1.7 billion, more than $700 million is funded directly by industry through levies or cost recovery; there is around $250 million matching research and development contributions by government under legislation; and, remarkably, there is just $134 million in the current budget year for programs to support agriculture. For an industry which made this nation great and largely made this country what it is today, that is appallingly woeful.

More priority and Commonwealth money are required to ensure these industries remain not just viable but booming. Into the future, food availability and food security will be the greatest challenge of our times, irrespective of what anyone's beliefs are on the climate debate. The global population, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, is set to explode and with it the demand for food. In the next 50 years, according to a landmark 2009 speech made by the head of Australia's national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Megan Clark, people will consume more food than we have in all of human history.

Virtually all future population growth will be in developing countries, and the poorest of these countries will see the greatest percentage increase. As defined by the United Nations, the 48 countries most affected have especially low incomes, high economic vulnerability and poor economic development indicators such as low life expectancy at birth, very low per capita income and low levels of education. It is in Australia's interests, as the member for Grey quite correctly pointed out, to help them meet the challenges that they are facing, certainly in food availability and food security, and making sure that our taxpayers' money is well spent—every single dollar of it. Certainly, the millions of dollars that are going to be expended if we rejoin IFAD—the $126 million over the next four years—has to be well spent.

Notably, since coming to government, Labor has cut $32.8 million from the agriculture department's already strained operating resources and $33.4 million from cooperative research centres so that fewer CRCs are funded each year. As most of the CRCs are agriculturally based, this means less funding for agriculture. Labor has also cut $63 million from agriculture research within the CSIRO and closed CSIRO agriculture research sites in Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia. Labor scrapped Land and Water Australia, and also planned to cut R&D funding and had a productivity report to support that. However, the coalition's ongoing commitment to increase agriculture R&D shamed the government out of it.

Meanwhile, billions of dollars have been brought forward to fund more water buybacks. For every $5 spent on water buybacks, only $1 went back into water-saving infrastructure, guaranteeing many communities will go from a climatic drought straight into a Labor-made drought. Very little money has been spent on water infrastructure either in system or on farm. Labor's suspension of live exports to even Indonesian abattoirs practising good animal welfare standards put at risk a $1 billion industry and set back animal welfare, weakened industry confidence and threatened jobs. It had that much of a flow-on effect that it even threatened jobs in the Riverina. It also sent a clear signal around the world that Australia, under Labor, is a sovereign risk and cannot be trusted, according to many.

Now, Labor has elevated one of those most vocal in the anti-live-animal export debate, the member for Wills, to the position of Parliamentary Secretary for Trade. The irony of that has not been lost on Australian farmers, particularly Australian beef producers.

Furthermore, while Australian industries are struggling with the high Australian dollar, this government continues to make it more difficult with its insidious carbon tax, with more costs shifting to industry and increasing costs from effective regulation—I should say 'excessive regulation'; there is not too much effective regulation under the Labor government. Labor has cut the 40 per cent rebate for export certification, making exports unviable for many visiting exporters and prohibitive for new or emerging industries. The government has underresourced Biosecurity Australia, with myrtle rust endemic and the Asian honey bee not eradicated—two clear examples which are having and will continue to have a profound negative impact on Australian industries and our biodiversity. Now the government is moving to remove mandated levels of inspections, not for efficiency but so it can shift costs onto industry. We have already seen 97 staff move from airport biosecurity funded by the Commonwealth to cargo quarantine funded by industry.

Then we have the new legislation for the chemical regulator. This new legislation has ignored stakeholder concerns and will hugely increase regulation, increase the cost of chemical registration by one-third, or around $8 million, and add another layer of red tape—red tape and green tape which we are bogged down by and mired under and which we do not need. The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has a mere $134 million in government funding for programs to support the development of this great nation's agricultural industries. As the member for Calare, the shadow minister for agriculture and food security, the member for Grey and, I am sure, the member for Cowper would agree—and, behind me, I am sure the members for Kennedy and New England would also agree—our farmers are the best in the world. They use world's best practice. They are producing more and more with less and less. They use less land and less water and yet they continue to be resilient. They need our help. They need this government's protection and they need to be preserved and protected at all costs.

How much does this government spend on foreign aid? It is $4.8 billion. That is a lot of money. All of our electorate offices get asked: why are we spending so much on foreign aid? But foreign aid is important, as the coalition readily agrees. We do need to help these developing countries with food security to get them to a state where they can beat poverty and hunger. Only last Thursday, I attended in Wagga a mayoral afternoon tea with Wagga Wagga's mayor, Councillor Rod Kendall, to acknowledge the Charles Sturt University AusAID scholars. In all, six students are taking advantage of Commonwealth scholarships as people who will make a difference to their own countries from experiences gained here. I acknowledge the role that Labor is playing in that by funding that very important program. CSU staff members tell me they are learning plenty from these students in return. At this afternoon tea, I met Sarah Jamal; CSU Head of Campus Adrian Lindner, who was glowing in his praise for it; Nimal Mohamed; CSU learning skills adviser in English language Robert Lewis; and Bui Ngoc Nguyen from Vietnam, who is studying sustainable agriculture. Sarah and Nimal are from the Maldives and are studying rehabilitation science. It is an important program that the Commonwealth is funding to assist these students to go back to their own countries and help people there.

However, this bill needs to be rejected. It is not supported by the coalition and I certainly do not support it as the member for Riverina.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is really very difficult for the Parliament of Australia to say that we should find $126 million to help people in these countries. This is no doubt that there are farming families going hungry in Australia now. These are people who scrimp and save and work themselves to the bone and try to pull back on any expenditure that they can.

You have a situation in Australia in which these people are very oppressed by the forces acting upon them. I have not seen recent figures, but two or three years after the dairy deregulation there was a farmer committing suicide every four days in Australia. These are people in really desperate straits. You say that people in these other countries are in desperate straits—I cannot imagine being in more desperate straits than those that lead you to commit suicide.

The song chosen to commemorate 200 years of Australian settlement was written by Graeme Connors. Graeme is very famous for his song Let the Canefields Burn, which has these lyrics:

Let the politicians and the bankers in the city look up

In wonder at the glow in the sky.

Let the canefield burn, let me feel no pain

When I drown my soul in whisky, and dance in the flames.

That occurred on a cane farm south of Brisbane. A person drove his car into the middle of the cane fields and set them alight. It also occurred on a station property south of Charters Towers, my home town these days. The banks were foreclosing. The farmer said, 'You'll never take this farm off my family.' He prevented that by setting the house alight and burning himself to death. These are terrible things.

When the Prime Minister came to North Queensland after Cyclone Yasi, I stole 15 minutes of her time to take her out to a family grave in Tully. The entire family is buried there because they were blown to smithereens. A relative of the family is a very close confederate of mine and I know the story well. The banks were foreclosing again. These two little children and their mother and father were blown to pieces. And we are talking about sending $126 million overseas. How can we do that when these things are taking place in our own country?

We had a debt summit. I thank the Treasurer very much for the debt summit—actually, we cannot really thank him until we get something out of the debt summit, but it was good of him to hold it. The debt summit was called because the debt of farmers has risen over the last four or five years from $700,000 to $1.1 million. That was last year. The figure for this year is $1.4 million. That is the average debt per farm in Queensland. The average value of farm in Queensland would be around about that same figure. That would mean that the average farmer in Queensland is technically bankrupt. And yet we can find $126 million to send overseas. Are their circumstances worse than ours?

I cannot go overseas and change the way that government operates there or stop the hatred or tribal feuds that lead to people killing each other in these countries instead of spending the money where it should be spent. I cannot help them. But I most certainly could use that $126 million to help our own people here in Australia. Let me switch from qualitative commentary to a quantitative comment. The dairy farmers in Victoria are setting the woods on fire. There were 21,000 dairy farmers in Australia before the then Victorian Premier, Mr Kennett, started with his deregulation. It rather amazes me, actually, because some of the dairy farmers down there say, 'If only we can get rid of Julia Gillard.' I say, 'Hold on a minute. You were deregulated under a Liberal state government.' They say, 'No, it was the federal government.' The federal government was the Liberal government of John Howard. The deregulation in Victoria took place under a Liberal state government and a Liberal federal government.

I don't know how you can contort yourself into blaming the Labor Party! No wonder they tried to keep me out of the dairy pavilion at the cattle show! They were going to get the police to prevent me from going in there! I said that I welcomed it as I had not had publicity for a good week, so go right ahead!

But it was right for them to try to do that—these fanatical, obsessive, rusted-on supporters of the LNP. They must ask themselves what they have got for 12 years of loyalty to the federal Liberal Party. Just ask yourself what you got. What did they do for you? Although I do not think that would be a question anyone would pose. They would say: what did you do to us, not for us?

We have gone from 21,000 dairy farmers to under 6,000 dairy farmers in Australia. In my own area we have gone from 240 to 42. I was on the telephone to the editor of the Gympie paper last week and he informed me that they had about 150, and he would now be flat out naming 10 there. When I went to Mildura, I drove through kilometre after kilometre of oranges just falling on the ground rotting, and vineyards rotting. I addressed a meeting of about 150 that night and it seemed to me that about one in 10 farms had closed down. One of the people who is in charge of things there got up and said, 'No, it is closer to one in five in the Mildura area that have closed down.' Think of the human heartbreak that would be behind those rotting fields.

Let me again quantify this. And for those who think I am exaggerating, you can check the figures yourself. Cattle numbers are down 23 per cent. Sheep numbers are down by over 60 per cent. Sugar is down 17 per cent. The dairy herd is down by over 31 per cent. Those are your four major agricultural industries in Australia. Every single one of them has fallen straight through the floor. In pork, some seven or eight years ago we became a net importer. We cannot produce enough pork to feed Australia and now we have to import from overseas, because our pork producers have all gone broke. Five years ago we became a net importer of fruit and vegetables. Imagine that a country like Australia now cannot feed itself with fruit and vegetables. With seafood, we were a fairly big exporter up until three years ago. Last year we imported 72 per cent of our seafood from overseas. The citrus and grape industries are almost completely wrecked and destroyed.

This has not been done continuously by penguins from Antarctica! The people who sit in this room are responsible. If you track back every one of those decisions, they were made by people in this room and in similar rooms in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland et cetera. Their decisions are responsible for this. They tell us about wonderful free trade. I wish they would tell us of some other countries where there is wonderful free trade, because the average subsidy levels are 41 per cent. Don't give $126 million to people overseas, because the good book says to take the splinter out of your own eye before you start trying to take the splinter out of somebody else's eye. If your own rural industries are falling to pieces and dying, particularly when it is your fault that it is occurring, then I think the last thing in the world that you should be sitting here talking about is sending money to farmers overseas. Why wouldn't you give it to your own farmers?

The previous speaker spoke about the terrible Labor government. Well, we just had a Liberal government installed in Queensland and in one year we have three laboratories for testing for disease, and Johne's disease has closed down quarantine and closed off operations in between one-fifth and one-tenth of all of the station properties in North Queensland. Yet, are they opening the laboratories so that they can test faster and overcome the problem quicker? No. They are closing two of the three laboratories. They are closing the one in North Queensland, where most of the problems are.

They are closing the one in Toowoomba, which is in the heart of agricultural country. But they are keeping open the one in the middle of Brisbane—there is a lot of agriculture in Brisbane! We are now going to take the disease, the microbes, off an aeroplane and straight through the centre of Brisbane. That is what the government has done.

We had 15 vets employed by the state government—an absolute disgrace to the ALP government, which slaughtered agriculture in the state. But this mob have already cut it to 7½ vets. The number of vets will be cut clean in half. This is at a time when we have Johne's disease running rampant in the state.

The financial counsellors, of which there were pretty close to 20, have been reduced to zero. As to the pest and weed research station, the prickly acacia has now taken over an area the size of Tasmania and, on present projections, it will be an area the size of Victoria pretty shortly. It has destroyed what were, on the map, described as the best natural grasslands in Australia; it is now a prickly-tree infested area. And I am not talking about a small area; I am talking about an area bigger than Tasmania—seven million hectares, so far. But at the speed at which it is travelling, within five years it will be the size of Victoria.

Has the government addressed this problem? No. The only mechanism for combating it, the pest and weed research station for Queensland, has been half closed. Half of its entire staff have been sacked. So the Queensland Liberal government has gone through agriculture with a winnowing scythe, and if anyone thinks a change of government is going to help agriculture, well, I wish them well in trying to convince the people of Australia in agriculture that that is the case! And if our party is going like a bushfire in Victoria, who can blame the poor people down there for looking for people who are concerned about them?

Tell me of a single speaker in the LNP in this parliament who has said a word against his own government. I was in this place as a National Party member for six years, and I had plenty to say about what my own government was doing that was disastrously wrong, and I belonged to a party with, I think, 17 members in the House of Representatives—a party that has virtually nobody here now. The ones from Queensland belong to the LNP of Queensland, which is an affiliate of the Liberal Party. I do not know what they are doing in here calling themselves the National Party because they are members of the Liberal Party. So it is a party that really does not exist much. There is a little bit in New South Wales and nothing left in Victoria. The recent polls there indicated they were on 2½ per cent; our party was on 4½ per cent, and we had only existed there for nine weeks.

If you cannot fight for your people then what the hell are you taking your $200,000 a year for? You might say, 'Oh, we fight behind closed doors.' I was behind those closed doors; there wasn't too much fighting going on, I can assure you! In fairness to my colleagues of those years, most of those who left had just lost heart to such an extent that they just did not want to fight anymore; they just laid down and died, and the electorate took them away. A lot of my colleagues simply resigned from this place or, like me, left the party. The honourable member for New England is here because he said that if a certain person ran then he would run; well, that was two seats gone, because I left and became an Independent, and then he ran and they had lost a second seat. I do not know how many other seats in Australia they have lost. But if you betray the people and the ideals on which you were founded—and the Country Party was founded to deliver a single-desk seller in the grains industry— (Time expired)

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

It is always a privilege to follow the member for Kennedy and, if I could, before getting into the substance of the legislation, which I will be supporting, I would just like to make some comments in terms of some of the things that the member for Kennedy said.

He and I would probably disagree on the need for foreign aid and the need for some funding to go towards some of the poorer countries in the world. I think there are greater objectives to be achieved by having a more peaceful world. Obviously, when people are hungry or see others with a lot while they have very little, it leads to a whole range of political conflicts. People in various countries can construe the politics of the day—whether it be through religion, tribal backgrounds or sheer envy—to drive a whole range of political agendas. So I think there is a broader area in the world that we really need to participate in. We have some amazing technologies in agriculture that can make a very constructive contribution.

The member for Kennedy made some very important points about the country representation in this building and about how many people feel disenfranchised by the political process because they happen to live in the country. There are different numbers about, but there are probably less than 100,000 real farmers left in Australia. There are a number out there who actually participate in agriculture or own some sort of land but derive income from other areas. A lot of the people that the member for Kennedy is talking about are those real farmers that face a somewhat artificial domestic cost structure and believe that they are facing an artificial international environment in the markets they face. There is a degree of truth in that.

He also spoke about the issues of political representation and talked about how he left the National Party. I will always remember that before I had even met the member for Kennedy I heard him on the airwaves berating the National Party. I was in the state parliament at that particular time, so I came down to see him and we had a meeting. I will never forget—I hope that you are listening, Bob—the meeting we had in his office, where he ordered two steaks and two Cokes. The irrigation that he gave the steaks with salt was something to behold: the steak became white, and then he irrigated it again. Some years later I think he had a four-way bypass! It was an extraordinary first meeting, and I have loved the man ever since. We disagree on things, but one thing that I have never disagreed with Bob Katter on is that he, probably out of all of us, has the most passionate regard for the people that he represents. Occasionally, that runs in a different direction to many of us who live in the building, but I think that all of us have regard for that part of the member for Kennedy's representations. I think it is very obvious in his seat that the people appreciate that as well.

One thing that I think the broader political climate probably needs to pick up on is that country people have tended to think that, because they only make up 30 per cent of the population, they have to operate under the dictates of the majority parties, which are made up of the other 70 per cent from the cities. But when you look back through political history—and in the context of this particular parliament, where some people see it as odd that country members have some degree of say because there is the balance-of-power situation—there has not been a parliament since Federation where a country member of parliament has not held the balance of power. People say, 'Why haven't they done more?' The answer to that is the democratic processes of the major political parties, which are dominated by the city interests. You can see the focus on Western Sydney now in terms of the outcome of the next election—not western New South Wales but Western Sydney. There has not been a parliament since Federation where a country member of parliament has not held the balance of power.

They have been subsumed into those major parties. And, as Mr Katter said, the Liberal-National Party is a branch of the Liberal Party now. So there is this submerging of the country vote, with the National Party in particular, but the country Labor members have also merged into the city based majority parties. And the democratic process takes its course. Issues would be raised, and the member for Kennedy no doubt did raise issues in his particular caucus. And there is the weight of numbers, dominated by city interests and a view to Western Sydney, Western Melbourne and Western Brisbane for the next election. They would vote that down, so the democratic process takes its place.

I think country people fall into that trap. And I hope one of the legacies of this particular parliament—and I think this is where the member for Kennedy is coming from as well—is that they become more strategic in the way they vote; 30 per cent is not a majority and never will be, and neither is the seven per cent or something like that that the Greens get, but you can see the impact that they have had, as have the Democrats in the past, in influencing policy, not necessarily in favour of country people.

But there are opportunities there, and strategies there, for country people to express themselves in a much more strategic fashion than they have in the past. The member for Kennedy and I probably do not totally agree on the vehicle for achieving that, but the objective is one of better representations by country members for country people, rather than being consumed by the promise of a white car by a city based majority party, irrespective of whether that is Labor or Liberal.

I am in support of this legislation and have been campaigning for quite some years in relation to IFAD—since 2004, when the changes were made. There are a few people I would like to address in relation to that. A colleague of mine, who I actually went through university with—Andrew Macpherson—and his wife, Judi, have been very involved in providing international aid and Australian agricultural technology in various parts of the world but particularly in Africa. I congratulate Andy and his wife for the work they have done, not only in terms of food production but also in the education of African children. And some issues in relation to overseas children, which I have attempted to address, have been raised from time to time.

I mention those two people because they represent a large body of people out there: Australians who were educated in Australia, have grown up in a dry land environment and have enormous technological advantages over most of the rest of the world in delivering those services to dry land environments. The Europeans have not lived in that world and the Americans have not lived in that world, but Australians have. And the development of some of the farming, cropping and grazing technologies are things that we can be very proud of in Australia. And there have been enormous successes in parts of Africa. I was involved some years back with the Botswana government in the extension of no-till farming into those areas, where the soils can hold quite massive amounts of subsoil moisture. The increase in yield obtained from those technologies is quite something to behold.

So, if we are going to help people who are hungry or who will be hungry into the future, we have to assist in providing the technology. Otherwise, the results could come upon us. We have a relatively small population, with a large population next door. Say Indonesia becomes a hungry nation in 50 years time and is unable to feed itself adequately. We all know what hunger does to the human psyche.

I would just like to give an example of the magnitude of the issue. We are all hearing that the world is going to need to be fed, that the population is increasing at a rapid rate et cetera. I am a farmer, and my family are farmers and very proud of it. Some people would suggest that Australia has this great role to play in feeding the rest of the world.

Australia is a very dry environment. We all know that. Australia is not blessed with the best soils. That is why I and others keep talking about where the best soils are and how we should implement risk-aversion policies around some of the extractive activities associated with those soils, because where they are is generally where the water is. We have to make sure that we preserve those as much as possible. But, if you look at our place in the world, there is a misconception out there, even within the farming community from time to time. We have a role in world trade in the grain markets even though we grow relatively little grain compared to the big players. The little bit that we grow—the 20 or 30 million tonnes—can be significant in terms of the global balance from time to time.

If you look at other countries that have similar soils to our better soils, one example is the Sudan. I recognise that there are a whole range of issues there, with south and north Sudan and tribal and political strife. There are thousands of years of background there. The cow is a precious resource there. But, if you look at the boreal dynamics of the Sudan, for instance, they have six times the area of land that we have. They have good soil. They have six times the area of arable land that we have in total, and it is all good soil. Even though it is relatively dry in terms of rainfall, with the technologies that are available now there is plenty of moisture there to generate enormous food production. That one area of land could produce six times what we produce. If you asked most people in the street, they would probably say, 'They need help because they are starving from time to time.' Technology can improve that situation. IFAD has in the past been able to do that—2004 was a hiccup. We are back on deck now.

The beauty of IFAD, particularly in dry environments, although they also do a lot of work in other environments, is that they deliver expertise that has been proven here. The member for Kennedy hinted at this as well. It is a little bit political. Our population—and there is probably a total of one electorate of real farmers left in this country—has very little regard for what farmers do. That is one of the reasons that many people are looking at other parts of the world where there is concern around food production and those activities. A lot of other countries know what starvation is like. The Europeans know—they have developed quite insane policies in some senses, but they have developed those policies because of their history of food shortage. We are not and will never be in a circumstance in which we run out of food. That is one of the reasons why our farmers are taken for granted. We need the rest of the world more than the rest of the world needs us.

We overproduce in Australia and so about 70 or 80 per cent of what we produce has to be exported to some other country. That means we face the vagaries of the marketplace, and a large part of that market does not have the wealth to meet our cost structures. There are a whole range of issues there—including, obviously, the value of the dollar—and then there is the mining sector. The impact that has is quite significant as well.

I support the legislation. In conclusion, I want to thank Brooke Silvers, who did a lot of work on this as an intern working for me only a few months back last year. The parliamentary secretary spent some time with her as well. I thank her for the work that she did. I also thank Bob Carr—the Minister for Foreign Affairs has played a valuable role. But I particularly thank Andy and Judi Macpherson for bringing this to my attention many years ago and for the contribution they have made to IFAD and agriculture globally.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate on the International Fund for Agricultural Development Amendment Bill 2012 should be straightforward. It should be one of those no-brainers where we will gladly agree yes, let us put some of our aid funding back into the agricultural development fund. Most caring Australians would hope to see faith in the performance of the fund restored to the point where we could recommit funds to some of the world's poorest countries so they can move towards self-sufficiency, food self-sufficiency in particular.

It has been nearly 10 years since we withdrew Australian aid dollars from the International Fund for Agriculture. We quite sensibly had a good hard look at whether progress had been made over those 10 years in a number of committee hearings recently. We wanted to see progress with accountability and real evidence of value for Australian taxpayer funds. In particular, in 2004, the Howard government found that the fund had limited relevance to the Australian aid program's priority countries in South-east Asia and in the Pacific. It also found that there was a lack of comparative advantage and focus and that other organisations were more strongly involved in rural development in our region, so we withdrew the funding in 2004.

The recent coalition members' minority report to the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade stated that while there has been some progress and improvement in the management of this fund, it still does not deliver best value for some of our aid money at this time. We recommended that the bill be delayed until the concerns of the Howard government are fully addressed and the impact of the reform program commenced by the organisation's new management is better-known and properly assessed. We think that is only sensible and we know that there are other very significant and worthy projects in line for our aid funding, and we need to make sure that funds to this particular agricultural development enterprise really are best value for money.

Over the last few years, as part of my parliamentary duties, I have travelled to a number of African and Asian countries that are recipients of Australian aid in the form of cash for food and cash for infrastructure or for the delivery of projects that aim to build human capacity or to strengthen these countries' chances of feeding themselves. We have, of course, a particular skill and advantage in transferring best agricultural practice in both irrigation and dryland farming and it is very important that we pass that information on to countries that can then have a better chance of surviving floods, famine and drought. I have gone with delegations of parliamentarians to these countries with the key object of evaluating the efficacy of our foreign aid on the ground.

Per capita, Australia is a generous donor, but I have seen again and again that our contributions are invisible in the countries that are the beneficiaries of our support. Presumably, to save administration and oversight costs to our country, we are often content to make a contribution via a larger multinational agency like Save the Children or the WHO. We go off in partnership with other nations' aid providers. When this happens we can quickly lose the capacity to direct funds to projects in the places where we are most concerned—for example, in our neighbouring regions. We are also, as I said before, often invisible. It is quite amusing sometimes to see the sticky label put on the pump, the groundwater bore or the major piece of spinning or weaving infrastructure that we have donated. We see that sticker peeling off as we try to photograph it—it having just been placed on that piece of equipment that morning as our vehicle arrives. We, of course, also lose the opportunity to closely monitor or quality control the outcomes of our aid when we are not the direct administrators of the donation itself. I think we need to be much more hands-on in our approach to decisions about exactly where our funds should go, who in fact delivers the training or the building of the infrastructure, and who in fact makes sure the cash we donate goes to proper food supplies and that food is properly delivered.

Over the time I have been observing, and as the member for Murray, I now have a fundamentally different attitude to how we should deliver food aid in crises like famines, floods and droughts. Sadly, we are seeing more of those emergencies, particularly in African countries and also in other parts of the world where there has been strife, such as in Syria where there are so many people now in refugee camps and who are literally starving.

We typically offer cash and we are generous. For example, we have just given $10 million to the Mali conflict—$5 million for particular aid and another $5 million for special support to try and make peace. We are a generous nation. But, when it comes to food aid, I think there is a better way to do it than cash for food—cash which is spent by someone else in some other place and that, we hope, eventually ends up as food in the hungry mouths. New Zealand does it more cleverly; the USA does it more cleverly. What they do is send food. They do not send cash which disappears into corrupt pockets. They do not send cash which may be spent on something else besides food. Take New Zealand: they have magnificent dairy production—as we do in Australia—so Fonterra, the major dairy manufacturing cooperative in that country, is charged by their government to make very healthy, nutritious milk powder biscuits. These are virtually compressed milk powder and they form a very delicious and nutritious product to be sent into countries where they can be eaten by adults and children. They can also be put into liquids to help make a milk-type drink. So you have employment in New Zealand, you have a use of their dairy production, which is in a state of oversupply from time to time—an oversupply of product that cannot be sent off to their markets. It is an all-round win-win scenario.

As I speak, there are about 1,500 tonnes of apricots about to rot on the ground in the Goulburn Valley. Just yesterday I spoke to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Bob Carr, and I said to him, 'Why can't we have that product—not just the apricots but also the thousands of tonnes of unwanted pears, peaches and manufactured tomato products—actually sent to those countries as our aid donation rather than sending cash?' As I said before, when you look at what actual volume and quality of product finally gets to the starving and needy families, there is a significant difference between what is sent and what arrives on the ground in the form of real food. In the United States they send food aid all the time, depending on what the needs are of the country in distress but also depending on what they have available in their own country, which of course supports their own farm sector. Shock horror that we should support our farm sector in this country! I know it is anathema to many in this place, particularly on the other side, because that sounds like perhaps, heaven forbid, a subsidy. No, no, no! We can do special support measures for the automotive industry, and we all hear about that regularly. We can do special deals to make sure Virgin Airlines gets itself up and away as an international carrier between here and the United States. But, when it comes to looking at something sensible which is a win-win outcome for our agricultural food producers, the manufacturing sector and those who need food aid around the globe, it too often comes down to saying something like, 'That's a bit of a bother.' If we took all of the product currently being rejected by Coca-Cola Amatil in the SPC Ardmona food factory in Shepparton and if we as a government paid for that to be manufactured and sent as food aid directly into those camps in Turkey, Syria, Jordan and the other places that we currently have refugees fleeing to from conflict, wouldn't that be a better outcome? Wouldn't that be a much more sensible way to go instead of having good food rot on the ground in Australia while cash is sent from the taxpayers of Australia where we really do not see dollar-for-dollar food outcomes in the places where it is needed?

I am very pleased that Senator Carr, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, was quite sympathetic to what I was putting to him yesterday and is going to explore the possibilities. I just think that, again and again in Australia, all we tend to do is take the easy way out. We just say that we will send a cheque in the mail; we will send it via some other agency, whether it is a very reputable United Nations agency of long standing or not. We tend to do that and say the job has been done. I am saying that with our aid in the future we need a much more hands-on approach. We need to be better assured that Australian providers of information and education have the best chance of providing those capacity-building services in those other countries rather than see our foreign aid being spent, very regularly, on other countries' service providers.

Take for example the $285 million in aid given to China last year for education and training. Perhaps it would have been smarter for us, instead of doing that, to have those funds spent in scholarships or support for Chinese students to come to Australia. Perhaps, instead of calling it 'aid', we could make it a part of our intereducational exchange. Calling it 'aid' seems to me rather remarkable when China is amongst the top five economies of the world.

We make a very substantial per capita contribution to foreign aid. I think we should be proud of that. However, I think we can do it much better than the way we currently spend our foreign aid budget. It is not just a problem for this government. I think that for a very long time we have failed to see how we could make our aid also work for us, for some of the most needy in our nation—for example, our impoverished farmers, many of whom, as I speak, are wondering if they can feed their own families. If we could have a better system in Australia of using our own magnificent food production as our foreign food aid and if we could take a more hands-on approach to quality control, including better badging or identification of our aid in these countries, our own taxpayers could be assured of where their hard-earned dollars have gone. If we can make sure that our aid money is always spent in our own places of priority, then we will be much better off as a nation.

That is why we as a coalition have troubles with this particular bill. We do not think that the International Fund for Agricultural Development, as yet, has got itself to a state where it can be seen to be fully accountable, where it is the best value for money or where its money is best spent in our interests—which, in our case, is amongst our nearest neighbours. For those reasons, I feel that we should delay the contribution from Australia to the re-funding of this agricultural development enterprise until it has had a longer period of time to become more effective.

Certainly, when it comes to agricultural support for needy nations, Australia has so much to give. Not only do we have expertise in dryland production—we are one of the world's most efficient producers of low-rainfall cereals; that is indisputable—but also we often fail to peddle the fact that we are one of the world's greatest and most efficient irrigators. I was in one of our African recipient nations recently. They were very grateful for our helping them to increase their goat herding and therefore their milk and meat production from goats in desert type environments. That was very commendable work that we were doing. At the same time, though, they wondered out loud if we could help them with building an irrigation system on their massive underdeveloped water resources, their huge lakes and waterways. It occurred to me that, if you are talking about value for dollars and, dollar by dollar, the amount of food production and security which could have come out of helping them develop irrigated agriculture compared to additional protein from a few extra goats in a desert environment, perhaps we should have been thinking more carefully about irrigation projects at least having the same priority as projects delivered into desert regions.

I certainly feel that Australia needs to be proud of the aid that we deliver to needy places at times of great distress or simply as ongoing aid to help other countries develop, but I think we can administer our aid much more cleverly. We could make use of our own Australian fruit, meat, vegetable and cereal overproduction or spare production in a much more sensible way—that is, in the donation of direct food aid, in some cases deliberately manufactured foods, which can then be sent directly to the places most in need. (Time expired)

Debate adjourned.