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

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Franklin proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The government's failure to adequately support the urgent needs of the agriculture sector.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This week we saw more promises from the government for Australian farmers. They make so many it's hard to keep up. But of course in this case as in every case they deliver so little and always too late. What we've seen in Australia from this government is the complete dereliction of duty when it comes to the workforce shortfall for agricultural farmers and producers across Australia. We know that these people have been struggling to get workers for a very long time. There has been a real structural issue when it comes to the workforce on farms, particularly across regional Australia. We know that, during this pandemic, this government has done nothing about trying to ensure that these farmers have workers to pick the produce. What we saw last year and what we're seeing this year after the droughts and bushfires is, finally, a lot of rain, which has resulted in bumper crops. But, of course, farmers don't have the workforce to be able to get these crops off the farms. What we are seeing still are massive workforce shortages right across the country.

I was talking to some farmers just last week about what's happening on farms in Australia today, and I was told that they are worried yet again that this season they are not going to be able to get their crops off the farms. This is because this government didn't do its job and this Prime Minister didn't do his two jobs when it came to hotel quarantine and vaccines. We know that there are visa programs whereby the government can bring workers into this country, but, because it didn't do its job on quarantine, it hasn't been able to get enough workers into the country. We also know, of course, that this has been a structural issue for a very long time, and the government hasn't done its job of training young Australians for and encouraging them into a career in agriculture in this country. They have done absolutely nothing about it. They've got a workforce strategy that's been sitting on the desk of the minister since October last year. They have known about this for a very long time. We should not have Australian farmers in the position where they are today, where they are still worried that this government hasn't done enough.

Let's have a look at this new, great big ag visa that they've re-announced this week. It was first announced almost three years ago. Answers to questions on notice showed that the department of agriculture handed a series of briefs to the minister in 2018 but then did nothing until June this year. Absolutely nothing. That is what this government has done: sat on its hands when it should have been doing more for Australian farmers. And we know that they only announced this ag visa because of the UK trade deal, because they were doing a deal to, quite rightly, stop backpackers coming to Australia and being exploited.

But what we don't know about this new ag visa is the detail. We don't know if workers are going to be protected on farms. We don't know what the conditions of these visas are going to be. What we do know is that, on some of the other visas, workers have been exploited. We've heard terrible stories of people working on farms earning next to nothing. It's not good enough, and this government needs to come clean and it needs to tell Australian farmers and Australians what the conditions of this new ag visa are. We need to know. Everybody wants to know what the detail is of this new visa.

We've also seen, or course, the government derelict in its duty when it comes to biosecurity. We've heard from the National Farmers' Federation that incursions from biosecurity cost the sector billions of dollars—billions! And just last night we had another report from this government about biosecurity breaches. It doesn't relate specifically to agriculture, but it is the responsibility of the department of agriculture. This, of course, was the Inspector-General's report on the Ruby Princess. Again, when it came to the Ruby Princess, this government didn't do its job. The one boat the government didn't stop was the one that mattered. In my home state of Tasmania, on the north-west coast, last June we were in lockdown. We had to close the hospital and get the army in, because this government didn't do its job when it comes to biosecurity in Australia.

We have also had the Auditor-General's report on biosecurity. I want to read some of what that report says:

The department's arrangements to respond to non-compliance with biosecurity requirements are largely inappropriate …

The department's compliance framework is largely inappropriate to support its response to non-compliance with biosecurity requirements.

The report also says:

There is no established framework for assessing and managing risk across the biosecurity system

None! No framework at all! No wonder the Ruby Princess was able to come in like it did. No wonder biosecurity didn't stop people who had an infectious disease from going all over the country. That was because this government didn't do its job, and we're seeing it when it comes to the biosecurity system for plants, animals and pests. We know that farmers are worried about this. The two things farmers raise most with me when I talk to them are workforce and biosecurity. They are terrified that this government is not up to the job. They are terrified by the announcement in the budget—prior to that, biosecurity funding was going backwards, by the way—where the government said that they would put capital investment into biosecurity, because it's going into artificial intelligence and ICT.

We know how good this government has been at ICT! We know that after eight years we're still getting huge failures and we know, from the Auditor-General's report, that there was no established framework for assessing and managing risk across our biosecurity network. So how do we possibly trust them to do their job? How do Australian farmers have any faith in this government? The government sit over there and pretend that they represent regional Australians and farmers. Well, they don't, and they haven't for a very long time. They really haven't. They can sit over there and pretend, and use the word 'regional' and use the word 'farmers', but they actually need to do something. They actually need to deliver for farmers, and they are not.

Then we come to the mouse plague. We had a very large mouse plague in Australia this year, and now we're getting reports that the mice are back. We're getting reports in Queensland and New South Wales, and even in Western Australia, that, with spring coming, the mice are on the rise again and we're going to get mouse plagues right across the country again. Of course, what we heard from those opposite, particularly the Deputy Prime Minister, was: 'This is not our job. It's nothing to do with us. We don't want to do anything.' Even when the mouse plague got across four Australian states they still didn't want to do anything. When farmers are already struggling with workforce, have had to deal with years of drought and bushfires and have finally been able to get back on their feet, they have a workforce shortage, they have concerns about biosecurity and they're dealing with a mouse plague—and this government, again, sits on its hands and does nothing. That's all we get from this government when it comes to its responsibilities to deliver for the urgent needs for farmers in regional and rural Australia.

We know from their previous history, and we know from how slow they are to act on absolutely everything, that the government are not up to the job. But we also know that some of these issues wouldn't be happening if the Prime Minister had done his two jobs, particularly when it comes to the workforce. We know that Australian farmers, with this workforce, are concerned about this new ag announcement. Will it deliver any workers on farms by the end of the year? We highly doubt it, because the government haven't done their job on vaccines and haven't done their job on fit-for-purpose quarantine. Where are these workers going to go and quarantine? The government say, 'Oh, we're doing a deal with the states.' Well, we heard previously they had 25,000 workers under the Pacific islander program and the Seasonal Worker Program ready to come into Australia. The minister's own admission in June was that about 7,000 of those workers had arrived in Australia. Now it's about 9,000—so 9,000 out of 25,000 have turned up. This is what they promised ages and ages ago. So how can we have any faith that this new announcement is going to deliver the workers the government says it will? We can't. We don't know what protections are going to be there. We don't know whether any workforce is going to arrive under the program because we still haven't seen the detail. We get promise after promise after promise, but no detail—very little from the government when it comes to delivering for farmers and regional Australia. It is a recurrent theme.

I have stood at this dispatch box and raised the mouse plague issue. I have stood here and raised biosecurity. I have stood here and raised issues around the workforce. And I get no responses from the government—no proper plans, no responses to workforce questions sitting on the minister's desk for ages. I get absolutely nothing. This government likes to pretend, as I said earlier, that it is on the side of farmers and regional Australians, but we see in reality that it is not and hasn't been for such a long time—and the farmers are onto them. They know that this side of the House is on their side. If they want a government that will actually deliver for farmers and regional Australia, if they want a government that will actually help them get to $100 billion by 2030, then they need Labor in government. They need Labor, because, unlike the government, we are on their side.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to speak to this MPI, which is about agriculture, rural and regional Australia and the needs of our farming sector. I don't really know how to respond to that big muddle from the member for Franklin. I know the member for Franklin is doing her best representing the needs of farmers and rural Australians; I would never say that that was a bad thing. But I think there is a great gap where the member for Hunter is missing; unlike the member for Franklin, he actually lived in a farming area, spent a lot of time speaking to farmers and seemed to have that connection with what they needed.

Ms Collins interjecting—

The member for Franklin is constantly sledging, and I understand that's the Labor Party way of the world at the moment. However, I sat and listened carefully to her remarks, and I would ask her to do the same for mine. It's very clear from what she said that the Labor Party hasn't got the connection with farmers that it claims to have. It's very clear from what she said that the Labor Party does not represent the interests of farmers. It's very clear from what she said that the people of rural and regional Australia are highly likely to continue voting for the Liberal and National parties—not that we ever take their vote for granted, but we live and work and raise our families and represent farms and farmers.

The MPI is:

The government's failure to adequately support the urgent needs of the agriculture sector.

Well, if I were to say, 'What are the needs of the agriculture sector?' I know what most people would say in answer to that question: markets, confidence, free trade agreements, a plan to come out of COVID and an understanding of what the lives in rural and regional Australia that are connected with the economic reality of farming are like. That's what I would expect people to say. But do you know what I also get from rural and regional constituents? I of course represent many of them myself in my own electorate. I get, 'Please don't talk our sector down; please talk about the hope, the optimism and what we can actually contribute to the national accounts, to the national psyche and to the view of Australia in the world.' What is all this gloom and doom? What is all this sad sack stuff? I mean, it is classic Labor: where there is a good story to tell, they turn it into a bad story. Where there is hope, they turn it into something dreary, gloomy and pessimistic.

I can tell you that one of the really good stories within Australia today is in fact the agriculture sector. I look at the farms around me, and the canola is ripening, the price is high, farmers are out marking their lambs and the commodity prices are good. And we are working hard—the trade minister and so many people who, again, understand the needs of rural and regional Australia—to build those markets. Yes, the member for Franklin did mention the UK free trade agreement. There are huge opportunities for farmers there, as there have been in all the free trade agreements that we have negotiated, because that's what underpins our place in the international market for agricultural goods and services.

I love every opportunity I get to talk about the importance of the agriculture sector—the farming, fishing and forestry sectors, which are forecast to be valued at $71 billion in 2021—$66 billion in farm gate value and $5.3 billion from the fisheries and forestry sectors. It's one of the only industries to grow in value despite the challenges of 2020, including the bushfires, drought, COVID-19 and global trade disruptions. It's an industry that's growing. It's an industry that has a bright future. It employs over 334,000 people, and a further 243,000 in the food and beverage manufacturing sector. The whole Australian agricultural supply chain employs 1.6 million people. It is incredibly important to us, and we understand that we need to be in constant communication to hear about the needs of the farming sector.

The member for Franklin talked about the agricultural visa, but I wasn't sure what point she was making. On one hand, she said we should be training young Australians. On the other hand, she said we should bring people into the country—then that we shouldn't bring people into the country, that it's got something to do with the UK trade deal. Yes, of course it has; the minister has acknowledged that. 'Are workers going to be protected?' 'No, they're not protected.' 'Where are the workers? Where is the quarantine?' It really wasn't clear. I know that the unions, who inform so much of Labor Party thinking, don't want to see the ag visa. Maybe that's why the member for Franklin asked, 'Why aren't we training young Australians?' But then she said that farmers are terrified. I wasn't sure what that was about. She wants to know what the conditions are, and she wants to be reassured that the people on the ag visa will not be exploited.

But actually they're good things to say. They're things that I can reassure the member for Franklin about, and they're things that are completely implicit and built into our seasonal worker Pacific Islander scheme, where it's really important that before an employer is accepted into the scheme they demonstrate the care factor for the people who are coming from the Pacific islands—how the employer will look after them and make sure they meet all their needs, not just their employment needs. Having met some of the employers who provide that workplace, I'm really proud of how they want to work constructively and closely with the people who come here on that scheme, how they become involved with their families and how they sometimes see them year after year. So yes, those things are really important. But to suggest that there's something—well, it's not clear, from the member for Franklin, whether we want the ag visa or we don't want the ag visa, whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, or whether it's our fault because of the fact that it's needed in the first place.

What this government is doing is getting on with it, getting the stuff done that we know our farmers expect of us and announcing a solution to the current workforce crisis that we're seeing all across rural and regional Australia—not everywhere, and not every month, but we certainly have identified it, we have certainly recognised it, and now we are doing something about it. So I'm really pleased that the minister for agriculture has led the charge, and other ministers, of course; it also relates to the immigration minister and the Minister for Home Affairs and indeed every member of this side of the parliament, who want to see the workforce on farms—and not just on farms for a fruit picking season, but building their lives longer term in regional Australia.

You can often think of this in a simplistic way—people are out there to pick the fruit, and then that's it. But there's so much more. In the area I represent, around Griffith and the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, where I know a lot of these workers are desperately needed, people offer a future—a permanent residency pathway—and welcome those people from overseas as members of their community. They enjoy the differences they bring and love what they add to the social fabric of those communities in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area. It's not just there; it's across every part of Australia, where we see the workforce welcomed from overseas. So, once it gets going, it will be a really good thing.

I'm not clear about whether Labor support it or not, because, on the one hand, they said they did want it and then, on the other hand, that they didn't want it, and then they said that they weren't sure about the quarantine and that we hadn't done the right thing and then asked why we were doing it at all. But, of course, we know that the AWU has said it is a disgrace, and I don't know why that is. But I think the energy that the member for Franklin is putting into her remarks today could perhaps be directed against the union movement that has such an objection to this visa and the genuine opportunities that it will bring not just for regional communities but also for the individuals who will come to Australia and make it their home.

The regulatory framework for the Australian agricultural visa will be in place by the end of September, with the first workers to arrive once negotiations with partner countries are completed and quarantine arrangements can be agreed and finalised. The visa will be available to skilled, semiskilled and unskilled workers across a broad range of agricultural industries, including meat processing and the fishery and forestry sectors, and will provide a basis for the ongoing growth of our primary industries as they strive to reach $100 billion in value by 2030, because that's our aim. We're sticking to it. This is part of our plan to get there, and we know the workforce is critical to that. So I'm pleased to update the House today with some more information around the visa.

The agricultural workers visa will be a fully demand-driven visa. It will consider issues such as permanent residency pathways and regional settlement. Full conditions will be developed and implemented within three years. The visa will be open to applicants from a range of countries, which will be negotiated through bilateral agreements with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and discussions will commence imminently. It will supplement the existing Seasonal Worker Program and the Pacific labour scheme, which are both very popular. They'll actually remain the mainstay for meeting workforce shortages in our primary industry sector. We've brought in more than 10,000 Pacific and Timorese workers to assist with addressing critical workforce shortages since September last year. We've already announced that between now and March 2022 we'll double the number of Pacific workers in Australia under the Pacific labour scheme.

Rather than the member speaking about farmers being terrified, perhaps she would like to concentrate on the opportunities that farmers bring to the whole of Australian society, the incredible value that they add, the wonderful produce that we see all around this country, both nationally and internationally, and the work that they will continue to do in innovation, in science, in biodiversity and in productivity—again, a fantastic story told every day by Australian agriculture.

Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] I want to thank the member for Franklin for bringing forward this matter of public importance today: the government's failure to adequately support the urgent needs of the agricultural sector. Take a look along the New South Wales south coast in the electorate of Gilmore. It's easy to see our farmers and farm workers there working day in, day out; night in, night out through bushfires, floods and even the howling and dangerous winds last night. Farmers work in difficult conditions outside, working to put food on the table, ensuring that our communities that we all live in have the fresh produce we need to live and survive: milk, eggs, fruit, vegetables, meat, seafood, cheese, wine and more.

The truth is farmers feed cities. This has been drummed into me all my life. I have lived, breathed and felt that every day, growing up on a dairy farm myself and seeing firsthand what farmers and farm workers do at any time of the day or night in whatever conditions. It does not matter if it is Christmas Day or Easter or a Sunday or a Tuesday. The sacrifices our farmers and farm workers make to ensure there is an adequate supply of produce for people locally and across Australia should be respected. In fact, our farmers, I am sure, could teach the government opposite a thing or two about ensuring adequate supply. If the government had done its job and ensured an adequate supply of vaccines in the first place, then our local businesses, workers and communities would not be in the Morrison-Joyce lockdown mess that we are now in. As for workforce shortage and ag visas, where's the federal government 's national quarantine system? They had two jobs: the vaccine rollout and quarantine. They failed both. It's all very well having ag visas, but if you've got no national quarantine system in place it's not going to work. It's another epic failure of the Morrison-Joyce government.

The National Agricultural Workforce Strategy recommendations were handed down in October 2020, and the government still has yet to respond. That says it all, really. I'll tell you what my local farmers and communities have been through during that time: drought, raging bushfires, floods and more floods after that and now the pandemic. The government can't even get its act together and actually do something to help address workforce shortages.

Many people in my family went to TAFE. My husband went to TAFE; my mum went to TAFE; my son went to TAFE; and I taught at TAFE. When I talk with people in my community, people overwhelmingly get the importance of TAFE. It is an institution. It is trusted. It has trained generations of tradies who went on to create their own businesses. Many of these workers and businesses support our farmers locally and across Australia. Recently, I met with local TAFE teachers. Again, it is incomprehensible what the Morrison government is doing to TAFE. The $3 billion cut from public TAFE and vocational training is slowly killing my local TAFE campuses with cuts to courses, fewer subjects on offer, cuts to course hours, no free apprenticeships and jobs axed. What is so wrong with and why does the government just not get the importance of guaranteeing the public funding of TAFE? It's fair to say I am seething mad about this. Where are our agriculture courses? Where are our dairying courses locally? It's beyond time for the government to guarantee the public funding of TAFE and put TAFE back to where it deserves to be—that is, leading the COVID jobs and training recovery that our community so desperately needs and also helping our farmers and every business locally that depends on our farmers.

The Morrison-Joyce government is so caught up in its own spin that it can't even come up with a plan to help our farmers. They've ignored the workforce shortage for far too long. They don't have a plan. Farmers feed cities. It's about time those opposite get with the program.

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party, Assistant Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's an absolute pleasure to have this opportunity to speak about our wonderful diverse, resilient and crucially important agriculture sector, a sector that is forecast to be worth $71.2 billion this year, which includes $66 billion in farm gate value and $5.3 billion from the fishery and forestry sectors. It's impossible to overstate the significance of agriculture within our nation. We have 334,000 Australians employed in agriculture, while a further 243,000 have jobs in the food and beverage manufacturing sector. The entire national supply chain employs 1.6 million people.

Like many other industries, communities and households across Australia, agriculture has done it tough in recent times. The challenges have been immense and unrelenting. However, despite bushfires, drought, COVID-19 and global trade disruptions, agriculture is the only sector to grow in value last year. This is something to be very proud of as a nation. Agriculture is essential to our economy. It's essential to our identity as a nation and to the health and wellbeing of our regional, rural and remote communities. That's why, as a member of the federal coalition government, I am proud of what we have achieved and delivered for the sector. We are putting agriculture at the centre of our national recovery from the global pandemic. In this year's budget, we committed over $850 million to drive growth and competitiveness in the sector. It's all part of our vision to see this industry reach its goal of $100 billion in production by 2030.

Just this week, we announced one of the biggest structural reforms to agriculture labour in our nation's history: the delivery of a vital agriculture visa. I'm optimistic that this agriculture visa will help secure the future of rural and regional Australia and help provide the sector with a long-term reliable workforce to help alleviate the shortages and pressures that our farmers currently face. This visa will be in place no later than 30 September of this year, with the full implementation of this demand driven visa complete within three years. It will be open to applicants from a range of countries and will be available to skilled, semiskilled and unskilled workers, including in meat processing, fisheries and forestry. Importantly, it will complement the Pacific programs we have currently got in place. We'll also be considering permanent residency options under the new ag visa. While our farmers and industries have gone about their work keeping Australians and people all over the world fed and clothed, they have done so under enormous workforce constraints. By announcing this visa we have listened and we are delivering.

As the member for Capricornia in Central Queensland I live in the heart of cattle country. Rockhampton is the beef capital of Australia. Our beef week event every three years is always an opportunity to showcase and promote the importance of this industry to our country. In 2019 our government committed $3.9 million towards beef week 2021 and, despite the global pandemic, what an enormous success it was. In fact, it was more successful than ever before. More than 115,000 people attended this year's event, which is an impressive 15 per cent increase from 2018. Visitors to beef week 2021 included our Prime Minister and many of my coalition colleagues. I was also thrilled to see that it supported 795 full-time equivalent jobs in Rockhampton. It truly is a world-class event. It's wonderful to see the industry in such good shape.

It's obvious to point out that water is essential to agriculture. On this front the coalition government has stepped up to support farmers and irrigators in my electorate. I'm talking about Rookwood Weir, which has the potential to transform and revitalise Central Queensland, but, unfortunately, it has been a challenge to get there. I had to drag the Queensland Labor government kicking and screaming to commit to a joint funding arrangement for the project. After years of pushback and silly political games they finally came to the table. While the capacity has dropped due to the mismanagement by the Queensland Labor government, it is going ahead with in-river construction, which started in April this year. Thanks to $7.5 million in additional funding from the coalition the weir wall will be constructed higher, securing an extra 10,000 megalitres to the total water capacity. It will also deliver at least 140 jobs for people in Central Queensland. This is what supporting agriculture looks like. Whether it's at the national level or within Capricornia we will always have the back of this sector and those who depend on it.

Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] The federal government has failed Australian agriculture on a number of fronts over its eight long years. Just overnight we were reminded of one of those failures, the biosecurity failure of the Ruby Princess fiasco. Then there is this disastrous oversight of our chronic agriculture workforce shortages and its failure to act on the National Agricultural Workforce Strategy, which was handed to the government in October 2020. Of course, there is the ongoing failure to address the impacts of climate change on Australian agriculture.

Let's start with biosecurity. Australia's biosecurity system underpins more than $65 billion in agricultural production, $53 billion in agriculture exports, $42 billion in relation to the country's inbound tourism and 1.6 million Australian jobs across the supply chain, so getting biosecurity right is of critical importance. But there are currently three reports on the public record highlighting the Morrison government's comprehensive mismanagement of biosecurity. The Inspector-General of Biosecurity, in her review report of 2020-21, concluded that Australia's biosecurity system is not strong enough to cope with expected risks over the next five years—crickets from the government. Then there's the Auditor-General's report into Australia's biosecurity regime. This report highlights key areas of concern around compliance and failure to enforce penalties—crickets. And now, just this week, another report by the Inspector-General of Biosecurity in relation to the Ruby Princess cruise ship. This report details the federal government's 'crucial error' of not interviewing passengers. But the failure goes beyond human error. The Inspector-General was crystal clear that pre-existing shortcomings contributed to this biosecurity failure that unleashed COVID upon Australia. Let's be clear: the Morrison government's failure to contain the biosecurity threat of the Ruby Princess resulted in preventable deaths in my state. Tasmania's first three coronavirus fatalities were passengers aboard the Ruby Princess who were permitted to disembark in Sydney and then come home. At least 11 deaths were linked to this outbreak, which occurred upon their admission to Tasmania's North West Regional Hospital. These deaths did not need to happen. They were preventable.

The Ruby Princess debacle occurred relatively early. We accept that we were all still learning how to deal with the pandemic. But it should have set off the alarm bells for the government on the importance of quarantine. It should have had the Prime Minister scrambling to establish fit-for-purpose national quarantine where the virus could be contained, instead of relying on motels and hotels. We send animals to federally controlled quarantine centres to keep our primary industries safe, yet this government thinks a lesser standard is acceptable for a virus that kills Australians.

I want to come to the issue of the agricultural workforce, which ranks as one of the government's biggest blunders. Australian farmers are coming into their second summer under this pandemic. You'd have thought that after the debacle of last year the government would have sorted out workforce issues, but once again we face the prospect of workforce shortages, produce rotting on the ground and higher prices in the supermarkets. How can it be that for the second year running the government has allowed this to occur?

Last year, the minister boasted of 25,000 pre-vetted Pacific workers who would help address labour shortages, but in June he had to admit that fewer than 7,000 had made it to Australia. That's the story of this government: go big on the announcement but go small on the delivery. And what about the agriculture worker visas, which have long been the Holy Grail of the Nationals' Monty Python show? Instead of getting serious about developing policies that encourage local employment, addressing working conditions, job security, wages, regional amenities and access to services, this minister and this government always go for the easy option: 'Let's just fly them in.' But they can't even get that right. Overseas workers can't come in, because the government and the Prime Minister failed to do their two jobs—to deliver national quarantine and to roll out vaccines. And the government has not explained how it intends to protect overseas workers on visas.

I'd like to talk about climate change, but it looks like I'm running out of time. This government needs to get serious about climate change as an agricultural issue, because it affects farmers and regional communities much more than it affects those in the inner city. It's an issue that affects my community.

Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I start by thanking the opposition for such a fruitful topic—

Opposition Member:

An opposition member interjecting—

Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No pun intended! It's given me the opportunity to illustrate how much this government, in particular Minister Littleproud, has done for the agricultural sector, not just in recent weeks but over the last 18 months. We've heard the last two or three speakers refer to the fact that the agricultural industry is one of the only sectors to have grown over the past 18 months, despite the challenges of droughts, bushfires, floods and the pandemic.

This government has committed more than $1.2 billion in support to the agriculture industry in the last 10 months alone. Add on top of that the $5 billion through the Future Drought Fund, which is already underway with eight programs to help farmers prepare for the impacts of drought. We know that in the 2021-22 budget the government announced the next phase of FDF programs, to commence on 1 July 2021. This will help farmers and farming communities to be prepared for inevitable future droughts. We live in a sunburnt country. We have droughts. They come and go. But that will reduce the impacts so we can remain productive even in tough times.

One very important initiative has been to provide, through the Regional Investment Corporation, loans with two-year interest-free periods to support the response to and recovery from drought. I know how important that is because I've spoken to Carolyn and David Duff. They're beef producers in Bellbrook, west of Kempsey. I went up there with the then Deputy Prime Minister, Michael McCormack, and I saw the devastation. They lost millions and millions of dollars worth of machinery and stock. They lost their dogs. The only thing they managed to save was the house. When they applied for, and were finally granted, the loan through the RIC, they said to me, 'Pat, this is a game changer; this is a lifesaver.' So that was a big initiative from this government. The government continues to support farmers, fishers and foresters to expand and diversify into export markets. One example is the International Freight Assistance Mechanism, which supports exports—including Australia's critical seafood trade; my electorate of Cowper has a huge seafood industry—and which has been extended until September 2021. The government has committed an additional $781.8 million to this critical support program since it commenced in March 2020.

One of the most remarkable pieces of work that we have achieved—that the Nationals in government have achieved with our coalition partners—is the agriculture visa. It was announced only yesterday, and it is, again, a game changer. The visa will be open to applicants from a range of countries and will be available to skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers. It will include the meat processing, fisheries and forestry sectors—all in my electorate—and will provide a basis for the ongoing growth and stability of agriculture in this country. It will give confidence to farmers that they know, when they put a crop in, that they can pull a crop out. I heard Peter McPherson, the GM of Costa Group, which produces blueberries in Coffs Harbour, talking on the radio this morning about how important that was and about the certainty and security that it has given to our blueberry farmers. And of course you can take that across the nation: the avocado farmers, banana farmers—all those who previously relied on the backpackers who came into our country in droves. Locally, there are a number of examples. In my area, the sale yards received $660,000 for an upgrade; beekeepers received $317,000; Bellingen Shire received $200,000 from the Future Drought Fund.

In closing, I do note that, in the half-hour of the opposition leader's address, he didn't refer once to the agriculture industry.

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yet again, we've had patronising comments from the other side that somehow Labor members do not understand what it's like to be in the agriculture sector. You've heard from someone who grew up on a dairy farm and lives in that area. You've heard from people in Tasmania, where agriculture is part and parcel of how that economy works. You're never very far from a farm in Tassie—an oyster farm, of course, being my preferred option. But I think there's a real gap in understanding. These people opposite me seem to think they own a space. I'm sorry: when you fail to act, you vacate the space, and that's what has been happening.

I'm not a farmer. I grew up in a city, but my dad grew up on a sheep farm not far from here, in Yass. His twin brother farmed that farm until his death. So, like many city people, I've been really fortunate to spend holidays on farms. But, more than that, I was fortunate to be in Old Parliament House as the rural reporter for the 2UE network back in the eighties. This was a time of great change in the sector, when technology was really just starting to come through, and I was always very happy to spend time with the National Farmers Federation, hearing from them about what they needed the then Labor government to do. Those two worked hand in hand. So this nonsense that Labor somehow can't work with farmers—you go back to that government, and you'll see great achievements and great collaboration.

I was then very fortunate throughout my professional career, when I had my own business for 25 years, that much of that was spent working with rural organisations. In fact, my very first client was the former New South Wales Farmers Federation. So I have spent hours, days and weeks of my life thinking about the issues that face farmers, and that was before I became the member for Macquarie—one of the key periurban agricultural areas in New South Wales. So don't patronise us. How about you listen to the things that we see in our communities? You might learn something that's useful. We would love you to learn from our communities, because they feel that they've been abandoned by you.

Over my five years as the member for Macquarie, I have really come to understand more deeply the unique environment that periurban agriculture is. I have breeders of prize cattle, which of course are showcased at the Hawkesbury show—the biggest agricultural show in New South Wales outside the Sydney show. I have uni students who are hoping to take over their families' farms and I have people who have farmed the land all their lives, like John from Enniskillen Orchard. He has fought to protect periurban agriculture for decades and decades.

I have the incredible Hawkesbury Harvest, which promotes the pick-your-own agri-tourism side of the agricultural sector. I have all the Maltese vegetable farmers, who were so badly affected by the floods, and the newer arrivals, the Asian market farmers and growers. Then, of course, I have the orchardists, with the apples around Bilpin, and the flower growers. The list goes on and on. It shows that in a relatively small space we can have a bit of everything. If you're a Hawkesbury farmer or, for that matter, a Blue Mountains farmer, you have been through a lot. You've been through drought, you've been through bushfires and you've been through floods which have washed away your crops. You're still probably looking at great big holes in the riverbank where you used to grow things. That applies to the turf farmers as well.

And they trusted government; they trusted government to do the right thing by them and they haven't seen that happen. That's the danger with biosecurity: the failure. They're trusting that the government will act on that. Yet the analysis that comes out from the inspector-general is that the system is not in a strong position to address the diverse and evolving biosecurity risks and the business environment expected in the next few years. Those opposite cannot sit back and do nothing, let alone take no action on climate change. It's going to exacerbate those things. Now is the time to act for the sake of our farmers.

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

To say that I'm a little surprised at this subject would be putting it mildly. Prior to coming to parliament I spent 35 years farming. I've spent 13 years here now and still have agricultural interests, it would be fair to say. I struggle to remember a time over those more than 40 years—almost 50, in fact—when the Australian agricultural sector has been treated better by government. A lot of my friends are extremely grateful for many of the things and the reforms that the government has done in this area. I'm going to go through some of those things, because I think it's worthwhile checking off on them.

For instance, we've had tax concessions for water, fodder and fencing. There has been the removal of the family farm from the assets test so the kids could get independent youth allowance. We fought long and hard for that and it's been a great win. Every year we match the grower donations from the registered agricultural research organisations—$250 million a year goes into agricultural research courtesy of the Australian taxpayer as a result of those decisions. There are grants to small, smart farms—I have had quite a number of those go into my electorate. There are a whole host of grants available to the innovative farmers out there.

There are water infrastructure projects. Only last week, there were two announced in my electorate, both on the Adelaide Plains. One will go to Seven Point Pork at Port Wakefield and will capture their wastewater stream and recycle some of it back through the plant, and the other will go to lucerne-growing enterprises alongside the piggery. A little further south of that, at Two Wells, the Olive Oil Project will see an extension of the Northern Adelaide Irrigation Scheme, which will use recycled water to grow olives. It should be the biggest olive plantation in Australia by the time it is completed—great for jobs.

There's accelerated depreciation. I can tell you that there are a lot of machinery agents that are pretty happy in the electorate of Grey with the accelerated depreciation at the moment. But that's not the only thing that farmers can get depreciation on at the moment. There was an article in the press only in the last few days saying, 'If you haven't got any silos ordered for harvest, don't waste your time.' It is too late to order paddock bins, because they're all booked out. The producers are absolutely flat out, knocking up the new equipment for farmers on the back of the support that comes from the government.

There's support for education and training. We've installed a number of uni hubs in my electorate where not only farmers but others can get tertiary-level education.

There's the drought. It's raining at the moment and it's easy to forget what the drought is like sometimes. The Australian taxpayer injected more than $3 billion into the agricultural sector through the drought. Farm household assistance was one of the backbones, and there were concessional loans. And we have established a $5 billion Future Drought Fund, which is contributing $100 million a year into agricultural resilience to deal with future droughts.

There are free trade agreements. Just to name some of them: Japan, Korea, the US—there's been a bit of criticism of the US; that was done back in the Howard years; you were here, Mr Deputy Speaker Andrews; it's reached maturity now, so those beef quotas have come to fruition—Indonesia, Chile and even China, where we have a few issues at the moment. But free trade agreements have given Australian farmers access to new markets. As I said, I struggle to remember a time when we've done better.

There's the dog fence in South Australia—a 100-year investment. It's 100 years old. We put $10 million in, the state government put $10 million in, and the producers put $5 million in. People thought it would never be done, but it has been done under this government.

The Pacific workers program has been a great program to get labour into Australia, and now the agricultural workers program is coming down the pipeline.

Transport routes—we're spent over $1 billion in Grey rebuilding the highway network so that farmers and others can get their produce to market. There's $400 million in the budget for biosecurity. We continue to support the diesel fuel rebate. I often wonder what our colleagues on the other side of the House want to do with the diesel fuel rebate.

And new mobile phones stations—over 1,200 across Australia, with 15 in Grey. We never saw a cent from the other side of politics. (Time expired)

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] There's a lot in this MPI on the government's failure to adequately support the needs of the agricultural sector that I could talk about. We could spend days, if not weeks, talking about this government's failures. The previous speaker had a shopping list of things that they claim are good outcomes for the sector. Many of these programs are riddled with failures. I can't believe anyone is still saying that the Mobile Black Spot Program is a success when all the data suggests that it's not.

But today I'm going to keep my remarks around the workforce. It's an issue that has plagued this government for many years and has only been made worse by the pandemic. The government's latest announcement around the agricultural visa is just more spin and more promise, with very little chance of delivery, and the farmers in our regions know it. They know that this government aren't serious—that they've just worked up a set of words to try and cover up for the fact that they've failed yet again to adequately address the concerns that the farming regions have when it comes to the agricultural workforce.

Over the past 12 months, we've had tens of millions of dollars in produce rotting in the ground, largely because we haven't had the workforce to deal with it. The government says that the new Australian agricultural visa will allow foreigners to work on Australian farms as well as in forestry, meat processing and fisheries. But it's not yet known which overseas countries these people will come from, who has signed up to it, how long people will come here for, what wage rates people will be paid or what conditions people will have, yet the minister is also claiming, as other speakers have, that it will happen by the end of next month. That's a lot of detail to work through in fewer than 40 days. We want to have people on farms after serving two weeks quarantine when we don't not have the places in quarantine to do so. Why would the minister go out there and make a fanciful announcement to the Australian people? Clearly it's just not capable of delivering. The previous speaker said it would be a game changer. How is it going to be a game changer if it's not going to happen?

On Monday, the minister said that the availability of workers to come to work here in the summer harvest would depend upon the quarantine facilities operated by the states and territories—another example of how the minister doesn't understand that quarantine is the federal government's responsibility. It states clearly in the Constitution that the federal parliament has the power to make laws in respect of quarantine. Perhaps the federal government needs to do some of the heavy lifting when it comes to quarantine.

The minister also stated that the government would focus on and allow people from ASEAN countries to come and work on Australian farms. Look at the vaccination rates of these countries, another issue that this government hasn't dealt with. Vietnam has fully vaccinated two per cent of their population; Thailand, 7.5 per cent; Indonesia, 10.5 per cent; and the Philippines, 11.6 per cent. So not only do we have a problem with having quarantine space for these foreign nationals who work here; we also have a vaccination problem, with the people in these countries not having access to vaccines. Why won't the government be clear about where this issue has come from and the deal that was done?

The UK is one of the first countries to say to Australia: 'How our nationals are being treated in your country, how our backpackers are being treated in Australia, on Australian farms, has to end. We do not want our young people being exploited on your farms, so that rule about 60 days working on a farm to get the extension in the backpacker visa has to go.' Because of the free trade agreement, a deal was done, and that's where this visa has come from. But that hasn't dealt with the underlying issue of exploitation on our farms that is not being dealt with.

Review after review by this government, by this parliament, by universities and by the sector has demonstrated that there is widespread systemic exploitation of farmworkers in our country, yet we don't have a solution for those issues. What we have is a half-baked promise of an agricultural visa, which is supposed to be the Holy Grail to solve all agricultural workforce issues that we have. The government is not being serious here with Australian farmers and the Australian people. It is not fair. It's time that the government got real and implemented the reports it already has on the table as opposed to writing more fairytales with visas like—

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order. I call the honourable member for Braddon.

Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the federal member for Braddon, I represent the agricultural powerhouse, in Tasmania. It's the epicentre of agricultural excellence. But I also stand here as a farmer. I run a co-owned agribusiness operation where we breed black cattle on the north-west coast of Tasmania. We grow crops, including potatoes, and my family has been farming in that region since 1852. So I know a little bit about agriculture, and I've got quite a network involved when it comes to agriculture.

As a farmer, I can say that what I've had to listen to over the last 10 minutes or so has been quite the metric truck ton of excrement. However, when you talk to our farmers, it's a far more positive situation that they paint. When a farmer is faced with an issue, a farmer rolls his or her sleeves up and they farm around it. They find a solution, they find an outcome, and they get about their business. They don't whinge, they don't bleat, and they don't carry on like headless chickens. I think there's something in that for all of us here today.

The ABS commodity figures out for Tasmania for 2019 and 2020 indicate that Tasmania's agricultural production was up by 14.7 per cent compared to a national figure of just 0.4 per cent—quite a staggering difference. I would suggest that the reason for that is that we've made a significant investment into the agri sector in the state, and, together with the Gutwein government—which has been in for quite some time and has established protocols around supporting our industry—in conjunction with the federal government, we are producing results and we're giving that agribusiness sector the confidence it needs to grow, to thrive and to better itself.

If we look at our investment in agricultural irrigation in Tasmania, we seem to be the only state or territory in the nation to be serious about building dams. Irrigation water is liquid gold, and that's the message I have for everybody out there today. If you're not building dams then you're not in the race. We've invested $100 million into tranche 3 of Pipeline to Prosperity, delivering 10 irrigation schemes—78,000 megalitres; thousands of jobs. And $114 million has been projected in increases in agricultural outputs, in the ag sector alone, due to that $100 million.

But it's not just that. We've backed that in with a further $80 million, just in the last budget. We're going to back this in even further. We're going to augment it, because our farmers can see that this is turning marginal country into good country. That's my message for the nation today.

When it comes to supporting the fiscal situation around our farming operations, I know, with COVID, we've done it hard—I know our farmers have done it tough. They've had to cut corners and they've had to make adjustments. But they've done it with the federal government's and the Tasmanian state government's support. We've stood by them, right by their side, the whole time. Just recently, we've spent $1.2 billion in the agriculture sector, supporting them, as the member for Cowper just alluded to.

As to that money, when we start looking at JobKeeper, and JobSeeker, and the instant asset write-off—I mean, the amount of machinery that's coming into the great state of Tasmania is incredible. There's more machinery than we can get on the ships. A mate of mine runs the local John Deere dealership down there, Midland Tractors—a bloke by the name of James Darcey, a terrific fellow. He can't get stock, because farmers are making the investment in capital equipment, sponsored by the federal government. But what that does is to add to their bottom line; it improves their processes; it makes it easier for their farming operation to survive.

As well as that, we're making great progress with free trade agreements and diversifying our trade commodity markets throughout the world, as we see shifts in the international commodity market, particularly for our dairy industry. Our dairy industry in Tasmania had a record year, with 960 million litres—that's 11.2 per cent of the national milk production, right in Tasmania, right in my backyard. The electorate of Braddon punches well above its weight.

When it comes to the beef industry, the lamb industry, the pork industry and the seafood industry, again, the figures that we're seeing from the ABS data are incredible increases. The only ones not doing any good are the poor old poppy farmers—and a big shout-out to all our poppy growers out there today; the bottom has dropped out of that market, due to the lack of operations being done throughout the world during these COVID times. So, again, our poppy farmers will have to diversify. But they will, because they're 'can do' people and they get the job done. (Time expired)

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order. The time for this debate has come to a conclusion.