Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm a great supporter of the hemp industry. We have many friendship groups in this place—I'd argue probably too many—but we don't have a parliamentary friendship group for hemp. I suggest we have one one day, but before I pursue that issue I'd like to start a campaign to change the name of hemp because I had reinforced in my mind again today that, whenever you talk about hemp, people automatically think about marijuana. Of course, low-THC hemp is not marijuana. You can't smoke it and it will give you no hit. Hemp as a product is too often misrepresented and misunderstood. I think we should reflect on the name of hemp and think about something which would be more marketable to the Australian people and, indeed, those who live beyond our shores. Back in the 1930s the industry was knocked around because church groups started a campaign against hemp, mainly because of a misunderstanding of low-THC hemp. Humans have been cultivating and using hemp for industrial and clothing purposes for 50,000 years. Of course, today we are still using it for medicinal purposes, which is very important. I, like many others in this place, remain a great supporter of medicinal cannabis. Hemp is also used for oil, clothing and personal protection equipment, which is very topical throughout the time of this COVID-19 crisis. It's even a superfood. You can have it in your smoothie or on your weeties, although, sadly, not always legally everywhere, which is another issue. It should be legal to ingest in all states of Australia.

Hemp is an environmentally friendly crop. It's relatively good for our soils and uses relatively low levels of water, so it is an ecofriendly product. As a parliament we should do all we can to encourage the further development of the hemp industry, in terms of the crop and the yield; in terms of exporting, which is what we will be talking about this evening; and, just as importantly, in terms of value adding here in Australia. The bill we're talking about tonight is one that is considered will facilitate the export of hemp seed, which will then be turned into a crop in Kentucky in the United States, and, in turn, be turned into industrial fibre to manufacture products, clothing and PPE products in the United States. That is a good thing, but I'd also like to see us growing and manufacturing the product here in Australia.

The Export Control Legislation Amendment (Certification of Narcotic Exports) Bill 2020, which we're dealing with tonight, makes an important amendment to the definition of 'goods' under the Export Control Act. To export a plant product or an animal product to another country, that country, to protect its biosecurity system, expects the product to be certified as free of pests and disease. We issue the importing country with a phytosanitary certificate to assure that country that it is free of pests and disease. But curiously, and for some time, the act has defined 'goods' as those not including narcotics. Even though this hemp is low THC, by any definition it could be described as a narcotic. Therefore, the certificate we issue, in this case to the United States, is questionable in terms of its legal validity because the hemp is technically a narcotic. What the government is proposing to do is change that definition so that this narcotic can be exported with a certificate that the importing country can be confident is valid.

There was a fuss here this morning because the government was trying to facilitate all stages of this bill through the House in one day. We were given notice of this only last week. We've been trying to procure from government ministers a good reason as to why the bill should be dealt with in one day, because we're always concerned about precedent. Rushing these things through this parliament can never be a good thing in any case, but it does require the Labor Party to truncate its usual processes. We don't like doing that, and, when we do it, it's about precedent, so, we prefer not to do it if we don't have to. We're still struggling to get the reasons from the government, but we absolutely support this bill. We think it's a good thing and we stand ready to support it. I do have a second reading amendment, though, and I take this opportunity to move the second reading amendment as circulated in my name:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

“whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes the Government’s failure to provide a strategic plan for the agriculture industry, including fisheries and forestry, and rural and regional communities who continue to be impacted by drought, bushfires and COVID-19”.

We are more than happy to support this bill, and we stand absolutely ready to support it. As I said, one of the things that's been missing in our conversations with the government, and something I've taken upon myself to clarify today, is exactly why this bill is being rushed through the parliament now.

There is no doubt that the initial beneficiary of this amendment is one particular company. I think that the trade name for this purpose is Hemp Black. Hemp Black is the brainchild of a fellow by the name of Barry Lambert. Barry Lambert is a successful Australian. He is a regional boy. He grew up on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales. He made his name and fortune in the financial service sector. But, to his great credit, he has used his wealth to make very generous donations to further research on medicinal cannabis. He has a granddaughter who had a very grave illness, a rare illness, so he has devoted his life to assisting his son and his partner and the grandchild, so full credit goes to him. I was speaking to Barry today, and, happily, I'm able to report that she's done quite well. So, I don't in any way question Barry tonight, or his intentions. I had a good conversation with him today, and he's doing amazing things in overseas markets with these various hemp projects. I just want to make that clear.

But at no time has the government been prepared to be forthcoming with us about Barry or his company. It's been more about, 'Well, these are important markets, and we need to ensure that we can have access to them.' I've had quite vague responses from the government about how much is going to which market et cetera. I would have been very much happier if the government had just said to us, 'Well, this is about Barry Lambert's company, actually; he needs to get these hemp seeds on a plane to Kentucky in time for the season so that they can grow mature and be used in his industrial processes.' For some strange reason the government chose not to disclose that. If they'd disclosed that earlier then we would have felt far more comfortable about facilitating this bill through the House.

But we want to make sure that Barry's company gets that certificate to export—that phytosanitary approval—as quickly as possible so that he can meet his commercial needs, and we'll certainly be doing our very best to do so. We absolutely support what the government's trying to do, and the government has assured the opposition that, while narcotics will be removed from the Export Control Act, all the other bills that people might be concerned about with respect to narcotics being exported will maintain the definition. This applies only to the validity of that phytosanitary certificate, and on government advice I am more than relaxed about that. I think that's a good thing.

I talked about hemp as a crop, which brings us to agriculture more generally, and the importance of agriculture to our regions—something that is also topical today and this week, because of the decision of the government of China to cause some problems for Australian exporters of barley and of course in the red meat sector. Regional Australia is doing it tough and has been doing it tough now for some time. It's been through probably the worst drought in our history, a drought that continues in a significant number of regions in our country. A lot of people believe that the drought has broken. For some, yes, happily it has, but not for everyone. Then of course there were the bushfires, probably the worst bushfires in our history, which have ravaged regional communities at the same time that they were still suffering drought, and now of course there is COVID-19. For regional areas it's been a triple whammy. COVID-19 has affected all of us, everywhere—city, country, north, south, east and west. But it's the regional areas that had the triple whammy of drought, bushfire and COVID-19. All of us together need to fully appreciate that, to think about it on a regular basis and talk regularly about how we're going to help regional Australia recover and rebuild.

I remind the House that in some ways COVID-19 has been even tougher on regional communities than it has on our city cousins—and I am not in any way understating the impact on our city cousins; of course denser populations have caused higher rates of infection. But in the regions we've lost much of our workforce. Agriculture, particularly horticulture, are very heavily dependent on backpacker labour, for example, and a number of other temporary visa holders. That workforce has in large part collapsed. We've lost our business. I'm the member for Hunter, where we make the best wines in the world, without doubt. I know that the member for Nicholls will not challenge me on that! I will take this opportunity to say that I will try to facilitate his contribution this evening; I think that's what he's asking me.

We are so largely dependent on the visitor economy—all those Sydney people coming to drink our wine, attend our concerts, take a balloon ride, get married, or whatever it might be. They come in very large numbers, and of course for many, many weeks now they have not been coming. When I was a young bloke and we wanted to see a band, for example, we all went to Sydney. Happily, Sydney now comes to us, and we're very, very happy about that. But our visitor economy is bleeding; it's hurting very, very badly. We've lost our regional media. Our newspapers are gone—12 newspapers in the Hunter region just don't exist today. We hope they'll be back, but that's having an impact on regional towns and communities as well. The list is really long, actually. The impacts on regional Australia, in very many ways, are exacerbated.

The agriculture sector—I suppose that's what this bill is all about, given we're talking about seedlings for industrial hemp. This government's had seven years to do something for the agriculture sector. God, we've had some debates in here about it over the course of the last seven years. But the agriculture sector is still a vibrant one, an innovative one, an efficient one and one still heavily engaged with export markets. That's a very good thing. But it's also a sector that's not without its problems, of course, and a sector which, I believe, is begging for a significant structural reform. It's well known to many in this place that about 80 per cent of agriculture product comes from 20 per cent of the firms. I'm looking at Dr Leigh now, because I thought he might be interested in that. Dr Leigh would be thinking, 'That sounds like a sector that might be in need of some attention and some structural reform.' Is your seat Fenner?

Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is Fenner.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I shouldn't be calling him Dr Leigh; I should be calling him by his seat, but I wasn't sure that it was Fenner. According to the ABS, about 59 per cent of entities have a turnover of $200,000 or less. That's not a profit, that's a turnover of $200,000 or less. The member for New England might say there might be some clever accounting in that. I would never say that. I think the point is well made. It's a sector, more than any other, that's been impacted by a changing climate. People think we are a land of abundant water and soil resources. Well, the opposite is true: we are the driest inhabited continent in the world. We have some very good soils, but they are largely limited to certain pockets in the country. Most of the continent is not blessed with good, healthy, productive soils. On that count, we've got a massive misallocation of resources where too many of our national resources are going to places where they produce a low-value product, rather than a high-value product that would give a better return for the growers, for the producers and, indeed, for the economy and the nation. The sector has a huge workforce issue, as I pointed out, now made worse by COVID-19. It's a workforce challenge that's been with the sector for a long, long time. And the sector has been a bit of an underperformer in the commercialisation of innovation.

So it's a sector ripe for reform, but a sector that's had no meaningful reform in the last seven years. There were big promises about an agriculture white paper in the lead-up to the 2013 election. We waited until 2015 to finally receive the agriculture white paper. You don't have to listen to me. Talk to anyone in the industry: it was a dud. It was hailed as a $4 billion agriculture white paper, by the way. I won't waste too much time tonight explaining how the government managed to get it to that number, but they certainly are not fooling our growers and producers. No-one believed there was $4 billion of investment in that white paper back in 2015. I'm just thinking about the member for Nicholls, and I'm about to tell him that I won't give him an opportunity to speak tonight, because if I sit down I won't have an opportunity to revisit my speech, sorry. So you'll have to wait till tomorrow. The agriculture white paper was very disappointing. It's just on the shelves now gathering dust. I challenge the member for Nicholls or anyone else in this place to name one initiative in the agriculture white paper that is operating today for the benefit of our farmers, or to demonstrate where $4 billion was spent. That just didn't happen. It showed some promise in a couple of areas. We're all interested in the concept of multiperil crop insurance, for example, to give growers greater protection from natural challenges, but it was a failure as well. In fact, the government spent more money marketing the multiperil crop insurance initiative than it spent assisting farmers in trying to get better value or to lower the cost of taking out that insurance.

So that was the agricultural white paper. There was a big build-up to it, both before the 2013 election and then as we waited for it to be delivered in 2015, but of course there was nothing. And we're still waiting for the government to tackle some of these reform issues I've spoken about and listed this evening. They love to spin, they love to talk and they love to put the headline numbers on it, but there is never any follow-through.

There could be no better example of that than drought. Madam Deputy Speaker Wicks, do you remember the government's response to the drought? It started right back in 2014, when they finally got onto legislating the farm household allowance. That was a process which had begun under the former Labor government but was not completed before the 2013 election. As members in this place know, the farm household allowance was a disaster. The paperwork was a nightmare, people couldn't qualify and it got so bad that the then minister, the member for New England, misled the House by embellishing the capacity of farmers to access the scheme. This event, sadly, led eventually to the dismissal of a highly respected public servant in the then secretary of the Department of Agriculture. This was simply because that secretary stood up for his Public Service workforce, who he felt were being dragged into the mud by the member for New England's attempts to bully his way through and his refusal to recognise his misleading of parliament and, of course, to cover up his doctoring of the Hansard. That was an extraordinary set of events, the likes of which I've never seen in this place.

But then, as the drought grew worse, the government turned, as it always does, to concessional loans. This is how the government claims to be spending $8 billion on drought. It does so by taking account of the capital cost of all loans, lent or not lent, rather than the actual cost of delivering the loans which, of course, is at best the difference between the government's current borrowing rate and the interest rate attached to the loans. It seems that every time this government has a problem it turns to this concessional loans idea, because it allows the government to talk about big numbers while at the same time spending very little money.

We had a drought coordinator, we had a drought envoy, we had a National Drought Summit and we had the Future Drought Fund, which was supposed to be a creature of the Drought Summit but was announced on the morning of the Drought Summit. The government claimed that $5 billion would be spent for our farmers, helping them in drought. But we knew the reality was that there was no $5 billion. What the government was doing was transferring $3.9 billion out of a former Labor government initiative called the Building Australia Fund, designed to fund regional infrastructure projects—important road, bridge and rail projects in our regions—to this new drought fund. So how did they get $5 billion? Well, they say that because they're going to spend very little out of it that it's going to grow to $5 billion in 2026, or something like that—I forget the year now. So they're only going to draw $100 million every year. Let's think about that. I think the National Drought Summit was in October 2019. How much money do you think has been drawn now, Mr Speaker, up until this date, and spent on drought measures? The answer is zero. They got the headlines—a $5 billion drought fund—but not one cent has been spent to assist farmers in drought. I will point out again: the drought remains very, very real for many of our producers and growers.

But the other point is this: not one cent of the drought fund will ever be spent on our farmers, because that's not the idea of the drought fund. The drought fund is designed to be invested in programs that help build resilience in our agriculture sector—not to go to farmers but to go to research bodies and others that might roll out these programs to farming communities, whether it be for soil health, water efficiency, training, innovation or breeding that makes crops more drought-resistant. The list can be very, very long. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.