Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Agriculture. Will the minister update the House on how the free trade agreement with China will help boost jobs and growth for Australian farmers and businesses in my electorate of Page?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. The honourable member is very aware of what it is like to work, because he started his first job in a bakery working part-time. He then went on to work on—and he still owns—a cattle property. He has worked also in the finance sector. He is a person who understands all the issues pertaining to how you make a business work.

Ms Kate Ellis interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Adelaide has already been warned.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not surprising that the member has a strong interest in how we are going with the Chinese free trade agreement. He has a strong interest because of the industries in his area that are involved in it. He knows that with the Chinese free trade agreement, with our work on the agriculture white paper and with the hard work from abattoir workers, dairy workers and people in the transport industry, we have the capacity to deliver real returns to his electorate.

People can see the work that has been done. The Casino meatworks, with over 1,400 employed, has increased production and increased return and has the prospect of expansion. Norco has been receiving record prices for milk because of the deals that they are doing with China and because of the way they are tapping new markets and driving through to get a better return back through the farm gate. To the south of the member, at Oz Berries, we now have 2,000 employees in one of the biggest blueberry farms I think in the southern hemisphere. To the west of him, in the seat of New England, there are 350 to 400 people working on a new farm in an area around Drake, where there had been no employment or jobs. Now there are jobs and there is a prospect of a fair return. This is the work that our government is doing to make sure that those opportunities are rolled out.

But there are things that stop those opportunities being rolled out—that is, when people decide that we are not going to go forward with the Chinese free trade agreement and they create a disturbance such that these things are questioned. We have so many people now investing money in the agricultural sector. We have been receiving record prices for cattle and sheep. We are now getting a substantial turnaround in both sectors of the wool market. We have been having record exports of fruit and nuts—and these are labour intensive industries. All of these things are labour intensive industries, and that is why the agricultural sector and our prospects of jobs are strongly linked to our capacity to deliver on the Chinese free trade agreement. We have worked on the premise that this would be a no-brainer—a free kick in front of the posts. But what is happening, unfortunately, is that all this hard work is being put at risk by the Australian Labor Party.