David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Monday last week I had the honour of attending the opening of the Myall River Pastoral Company in Bulahdelah on the banks of the Myall River, the opening of the first North Coast robotic dairy. This is an amazing and sizeable investment in cutting-edge technology whereby the cows are fed through a totally automated system. They are identified, they are milked, their food rations are calculated and the whole process— (Quorum formed) This robotic dairy operating on the Myall River is an amazing investment in technology. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of cutting-edge milking machinery is now transforming the cost structures of that dairy.

The other cutting-edge development that the Smiths have invested in is taking it off grid. As we know, the electricity costs in this nation are now some of the most expensive, and there are huge power demands on running any dairy for cooling and for working all of the machinery. Going totally off grid with battery power fed by solar and with generator backup delivers full three-phase power and allows them to cut their labour costs. It means this very experienced multigenerational farming family company is set to transform the economics of their industry. It means the second and third generations that were going to leave have come back and been involved in the dairy, and it is really transformational.

The other issue that is facing the dairy industry on the North Coast is the drought. People have got to understand that the drought is not just west of the Great Dividing Range. Up the mid North Coast, all the coastal rivers across the Lyne electorate, the major dairy bowls on the Stewarts River, the Manning River, and the Hastings River have had—(Time expired)