Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources. Will the Deputy Prime Minister update the House on the impacts increasing power prices are having on the agricultural sector in regional Victoria? Is the minister aware of any other threats to the jobs of hardworking regional Australians?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. I know that I have the full attention of the opposition, including the member for Grayndler, who seems to have found a new seat in the aisle, which is great to see—out there talking to his friends and no doubt collecting the numbers.

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

The Deputy Prime Minister will bring himself to his answer.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Mallee is very aware of how much agriculture has contributed to Victoria's economy—from 2012-13 at $11.6 billion to 2014-15 at $13.1 billion, Mallee is yet another reflection of the turnaround in agriculture. Whether it is wheat or almonds or sheep and lambs, grapes, wine contracts, barley, wool, dairy, cattle and calves, it is all part of that massive turnaround which gave us a 23.7 per cent increase in the figures to December 2016. It was a massive increase—three, four or five times that of any other sector—and agriculture is doing its part.

But there is a threat to this, and of course one of the major threats is the price of power. The price of power has been going through the roof because it has been incredibly badly managed. What we are seeing—and this is very topical—is that, for Heyfield mill, Australian Sustainable Hardwoods, in 2016 it was $1.3 million and in 2017 it was $2.1 million—a 62 per cent increase in power. It was not just the power that was causing problems; it was also the Labor Party of Victoria's inability to deal with the possums, because they are putting possums before people. They are making sure that Australian working men and women are losing their jobs, because the Australian Labor Party has decided that the votes of St Kilda are vastly better than the working men and women at the Heyfield timber mill.

It is interesting in the past that the member for Maribyrnong would go down to Tasmania and rightly look after miners, look after working men who have been stuck down a mine, but he is not going down to Victoria to look after the working men and women who are about to lose their job at the Heyfield mill. No, he has no care about them. We have not got boo out of them. They have never come to the dispatch box. They do not care about them, just like the 750 who are going to lose their job at the Hazelwood Power Station. What is the Labor Party's response to that? When will they start standing up for working men and women? When will they start taking it seriously? When will the member for Griffith start standing up for forestry workers and when will the member for Hunter start standing up for people in the coal industry? When will the member for Gorton start standing up for his brother, start helping out his brother, and actually stand up for workers? When will they stop giggling with the Greens and start standing up for working men and women?

Ms Butler interjecting—

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

The member for Griffith is warned, yet again.