Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Panama tropical race 4, the Asian honey bee, myrtle rust, leaf miner, zebra chip, golden potato cyst nematode, longhorn beetles—this exotic-sounding list is actually a roll call of pests and diseases which have the potential to devastate agriculture in Australia. In fact, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, or DAFF, lists these amongst the top 40 risks to Australia when it comes to exotica and unwanted plant pests. If pest infestations and diseases take hold, they could result in huge losses to our $100 billion agriculture, fishery and forestry industries. That's not to mention the potential impact on employment, with more than 63,000 people employed in the horticulture industry alone, and the fact that these pests and diseases could devastate our unique environment.

I know, Deputy Speaker Andrews, that you'll be interested to hear about my recent trip to Darwin on 4 March to look at the laboratories, where we saw the incredible work that the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry staff do in fighting something as simple as the fruit fly. That's why a strong and well-funded biosecurity system is crucial to Australia, and it's why I rise in support of the three connected bills: the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024, the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Charges Bill 2024 and the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies and Charges Collection Bill 2024. These bills will help to safeguard Australia's biosecurity. The Beale review in 2008 suggested that biosecurity is a responsibility shared amongst government, industry and the community. This suite of bills reflects that. As I said, government, industry and the community: three pillars.

I come from the small town of St George in the Balonne Shire out in south-west Queensland. Growing up, a lot of my friends were the sons and daughters of sheep and cattle people or cotton farmers, and some were veggie growers. I know how hard primary producers work. My brother-in-law and my sister had a cotton farm, and I know the incredible hours worked there. I also know about the devastation that comes when a pest or disease gets in amongst the cotton or other agriculture.

Maintaining Australia's biosecurity is critical for our agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries and for our unique environment, our economy and the lifestyle that we all enjoy—especially in Queensland. Australia has a very proud biosecurity history—cane toads aside—and, while we have the strong foundation of being an island nation, our biosecurity success is also due to the systems that have provided such vigilance and fast action. These have ensured that we are one of the few countries in the world which still remain free from some of the world's most invasive pests and diseases. There's no foot-and-mouth disease here and no African swine fever or avian influenza on our shores, and we must work hard to maintain that.

We only have to look at the spread of the cane toad to see how dangerous it can be. I'm more than happy to be called cane toad around state-of-origin night, but their spread is alarming. They're now well beyond Queensland—up into the Top End and the Kimberley, and fast heading south into New South Wales. While they're an introduced species, their seemingly unstoppable spread and hugely detrimental effect on native species illustrates the danger that exotic pests pose to Australia.

Changes such as the growth in the volume and complexity of trade, the effects of climate change, and the ever-increasing spread of pests and disease around the world are putting pressure on our existing systems. Now is the time to invest in our biosecurity system, to future-proof it and to make funding sustainable, predictable, equitable, transparent and secure. This was an election commitment and, once again, the Albanese Labor government is delivering on its commitment.

Obviously, a strong biosecurity system benefits all Australians—in the urban areas as well as in the bush. My electorate of Moreton contains the Brisbane Markets, the third-largest of Australia's six central markets for fruit and veg. It's where I like to go on weekends to pick up cheap fruit and veggies, and it's also a bustling place all week. Over 4½ thousand people work or do business there daily at 170 different businesses: fruit and veggie growers, wholesalers, providores, food processors, retailers, independent supermarkets and the food service industry. Brisbane Markets is a key part of the fresh produce supply chain, not just for Queensland but for the eastern part of Australia. Looking after biosecurity is looking after the people who work up and down the primary produce supply chain and the regional and remote communities at its core. This is another example of the Labor Party looking after the bush, something that the Nationals rarely do.

Our world-class biosecurity system needs investment so that we all keep benefiting. Labor understands this. In last year's budget we directed new and permanent funding to this of over $1 billion over four years, an extra $270 million per year ongoing from 2027 to 2028. It's all part of the strengthened and sustainably funded biosecurity system outlined in the last year's budget, and it's a first for Australia. Despite repeated expert recommendations, this country has never before benefited from sustainable and predictable biosecurity funding. It took a Labor government to make this happen and to put these critical protections in place for the 1.6 million workers in the Australian agricultural supply chain. This measure provides funding security and has been welcomed by industry. When we consider what's at stake if our biosecurity system is underfunded or has unpredictable funding levels, it's astounding that, under the former coalition government, biosecurity funding would have decreased by almost $100 million a year by 2026-27. The minister in the previous government, the member for Maranoa, thought that they could do biosecurity on the cheap. In fact, the Leader of the Nationals continues to talk about making the so-called risk creators pay more towards biosecurity, but it has taken a Labor government to take biosecurity seriously and deliver this. The member for Maranoa had over 1,300 days to get this done, but he failed comprehensively to make importers pay their fair share.

The Albanese Labor government has increased the contribution from importers. In total, they are contributing almost $100 million more in 2024-25, compared to the final year of the coalition government. Despite what those opposite would have you believe, importers are actually contributing the lion's share in additional funding to biosecurity. I repeat that: it will be importers who are contributing the lion's share in additional funding to biosecurity. By making importers pay their fair share, we are increasing biosecurity funding by around the same amount that the coalition cut from it. It will increase by $100 million per year.

The measures contained in the agriculture biosecurity protection levies and charges suite of bills are focused on increased payments from those who benefit from Australia's tough biosecurity system and from those who put it at risk. Primary producers benefit from our robust biosecurity controls. It allows them to sell a product at a premium. Over 70 per cent of all Australian agricultural production is exported. There are 26 million Australians, but we basically grow enough food for 75 million. These exports were valued at over $82 billion in 2022-23 by ABARES. Stringent biosecurity measures put Australian primary producers in pole position when it comes to ongoing access to export markets around the world. So, yes, we are asking them to pay an additional 5c for every $100 they produce. You might hear some fear coming from those opposite, so I just want to put that in context. It's 5c for every $100 they produce.

These bills were supported by industry in our initial consultation process. The Cattle Council of Australia, as it was known then, stated that biosecurity is a shared responsibility and that all parties must contribute. The National Farmers Federation agreed. The Australian Food and Grocery Council advocated a shared funding model. The Invasive Species Council called for funding from risk creators, then beneficiaries and, finally, government.

This suite of bills implements a new legislative framework to provide for the imposition, collection and administration of the new biosecurity protection levy. There are two imposition bills. The first is for biosecurity protection levies that are duties of excise for agriculture, fisheries and forestry products and goods produced in Australia. The second is for duties of customs in relation to these products being exported from Australia. The third bill provides for the collection and administration of those levies and charges.

The biosecurity protection levy will generate around $50 million per year in new revenue from primary producers. This equates to around six per cent—yes, I said that right: not 60 but six per cent—of the total $800 million cost of Australia's biosecurity system in 2024-25—six per cent. It's important to acknowledge that many primary producers already invest in wonderful biosecurity measures both on the farm and through membership fees for Animal Health Australia, Plant Health Australia or industry groups. These are a crucial part of the biosecurity jigsaw, but they do not fund the extensive work required to keep Australia safe and to protect those Australian jobs.

Protecting Australia's 60,000 kilometres of coastline is a complex job. The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry does the grunt work, using X-ray machines—huge X-ray machines, as we in the public works committee saw up in Darwin recently. They have quarantine measures, surveillance programs, detector dogs and screens. They inspect and clear millions of mail parcels, cargo containers, plants and animals. They have comprehensive biosecurity protection measures that are also taken offshore and at the border. Behind the scenes, there's also research on risk detection, the sharing of information and the continued review of risk in whatever is coming into Australia.

Labor will also introduce a biosecurity charge on imports with a value of less than $1,000, a measure that is forecast to recover around $27 million annually. We're also implementing a modest increase to the passenger movement charge for international travellers.

This suite of bills ensures that the cost of biosecurity is shared. Forty-four per cent of the cost will be contributed by everyday taxpayers. Importers will pay 48 per cent, so they're doing the grunt work. Primary producers will carry six per cent of the load, and Australia Post will pay two per cent. The biosecurity protection levy rate will be reviewed by the department every three years along with the review of the operation of the new system to make sure it's functioning effectively.

The Albanese government is committed to transparency regarding biosecurity systems. We recently announced the formation of the Sustainable Biosecurity Funding Advisory Panel. Members from the agriculture, fisheries and forestry sectors, importers and research organisations will meet three times a year and provide feedback on biosecurity priorities. The measures contained in this suite of bills position Australia to adapt and maintain our enviable biosecurity systems in the complex and changing global biosecurity environment.

The Nationals' amendment seeks to criticise the government for changing its mind on how the biosecurity protection levy is calculated. However, this is the result of genuine consultation with industry. Labor governments listen to feedback. As a result, we have made our new levy more equitable, more proportionate and more transparent, and we will continue to listen through the Sustainable Biosecurity Funding Advisory Panel. As I said, I'm sure we will hear fear campaigns springing from those opposite, but I commend this bill to the House with pride.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This would be laughable if it weren't so serious. The Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024 is based on an unfair and completely flawed principle that goes against the ethos of encouraging entrepreneurship, small business and primary production. That unfair and flawed principle is that the business owner, in this case a farmer, must pay for the costs of their competitor importing products into the country to compete against them. What sort of government does this to people? These are people who are out there trying to create wealth, jobs, economic activity and, in this case, fantastic Australian-grown food.

What's in these bills? The government's package of three bills seeks to impose a new biosecurity protection levy to be payable by certain producers in the agricultural, fishery and forestry industries in Australia. Two of these bills seek to implement a biosecurity protection levy or charge to be inflicted on Australian farmers to pay for biosecurity activities which are undertaken by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. The third bill, the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies and Charges Collection Bill 2024, will enable the collection of the levy, and the biosecurity protection levy will use each industry's proportional share of total gross value of production. For example, if the GVP—gross value of productions—of an industry sector is five per cent of the total GVP that it produces, that sector would collectively contribute five per cent of the biosecurity protection levy's revenue. Commencing on 1 July this year, Labor's biosecurity protection levy is expected to collect around $50 million per year over the next three years.

The principle of making farmers who are already doing it tough pay for their competitors to import produce into the country to compete against them is just another example of this government being anti agriculture. I ask this Labor government: what do you hate about farmers so much? They're doing a fantastic job out there in electorates such as mine, and it's really difficult work. They don't need the government working against them, but the government are working against them. I'll give you some examples.

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan was developed over a long period of time. Both sides gave a bit, and I can tell you that my electorate gave more than a bit. A huge amount of irrigation water was removed from production to be put into an environmental account, and that takes wealth away from communities because, when water isn't being used to grow commodities, all the people employed in the production or sale of those commodities don't get employed anymore. That's had a huge impact on my electorate of Nicholls, in the wonderful Goulburn Valley. But this government has decided that the deal that was already done, which saw a huge amount of water taken away from productive use in my electorate, doesn't go far enough, and now it wants to come after another 450 gigalitres.

This government has torn up the agriculture visa program that the previous coalition government put together, which was welcomed by people in my electorate, particularly those within the dairy industry. Wonderful families came from overseas to work on our farms and in our agriculture industries, and the ag visa gave them a path to permanency. It was welcomed not only by the agricultural businesses and the farms but also by the communities that nurture these people who come from overseas. This has led to an overreliance on the PALM scheme, from the Pacific islands, even though the scheme can't fill the estimated agriculture workforce shortfall of 172,000 people.

Then there's the ideological and reckless decision to ban the live sheep export industry. I don't have live sheep export in my electorate, but I did go on a fact-finding mission to Western Australia to talk to people. Yes, I'm a Nationals member and, yes, I believe in regional industries, but I had an open mind about live export. What I found was an industry that has seriously cleaned itself up over the last 15 years and put in some of the most incredible animal health measures to look after the sheep that get shipped overseas. I met with a vet working for one of the companies and I met the stock people. I saw a ship being loaded. I talked to the people out in those regional Western Australian communities. The thing about this one is that there is a market for live sheep in the Middle East, and we've got to accept that. If we're in it, then the live sheep that come from Australia get treated well, with the world's best animal welfare standards. If we get out of it, they'll source the live sheep from somewhere that doesn't have our animal standards. The activists are fine with sheep being mistreated, just as long as they're not Australian sheep. I think it's an ideological decision and it's ridiculous.

There's been billions cut from regional funding. Whole programs have been scrapped—infrastructure projects that are necessary for regional communities. For a place like Nicholls, which I represent, road projects are essential for getting produce from farms to processing facilities or to the port of Melbourne, where it can be exported. The projects that the previous government set up have now had the money withdrawn from them—for example, the attack on the pharmacy sector, particularly the regional pharmacy sector. You might wonder how that relates to agriculture. These agricultural industries only exist when there are communities and community infrastructure there to sustain regional communities.

Now, on top of all of that, the Labor government is targeting hardworking Australian farming families, people who have to get up early—a lot earlier, I would suggest, than a lot of people who work in this place, not to denigrate them—to milk cows, pick fruit, prune orchards and put grain into the ground. Labor wants those families, who are already doing it really tough, to pay a levy to fund biosecurity—to fund the people who are going to bring stuff into the country to compete against them. The overseas competitors will import produce that carries biosecurity risks, so they should be the ones to pay. If they want to import stuff into this country that's fine, but they should be the ones to pay for that.

I want to bring up the fact that this is being debated here in the Federation Chamber. This is not to denigrate the Federation Chamber or you, Deputy Speaker Young, but my understanding from talking to colleagues is that controversial legislation—important legislation such as this—is debated in the House. I think the fact that this has been put in the Federation Chamber indicates just how little Labor thinks of agriculture and controversial agricultural bills that should be debated in the House of Representatives. It's up here, out of sight and out of mind, like agriculture itself.

I would like to suggest to all the Labor MPs listening to this, including my friend the member for Tangney here: next time you go to Aussies, the trough or the Members and Guests Dining Room and get yourself a plate of food, before you grab your knife and fork and hoe in, have a look at what's on that plate. Have a look at what's on the plate and think about what people went through to get that onto your plate. There's salad, meat and fish. For all of these products, and the dairy products in particular, the amount of work, capital, labour and risk—I would argue there's more risk than any other business—that Australian people have gone through to put that on your plate is significant. The people who do that need a government that's going to work with them, not against them. This is an example of a government working against them. I want everyone who goes to the trough today and gets one of those good salads to have a think about what people went through to get that produce onto the plate.

I worked in agriculture for a number of years before coming into this place, and this is what it's like: really long hours and really hard work. It's hard, physical work, but it's also tough mentally, and that's because there are a lot of seasonal and climatic pressures. There's a lot of price variability and a lot of market insecurity. A lot of people ask, 'Why would you do it?' We do it because we believe in Australian agriculture and we believe that it is a noble profession. Putting food on the table of people around Australia and the world is one of the most satisfying and noble things you can do with your life. Yes, farmers want to make money, of course. The profit motive is there, as it should be. But the reason people put up with some of the things they have to put up with is that they love doing it and they believe in it. Farming is in people's blood, and you don't have to have been born into a farm for it to be in your blood. There are people who were born in cities and who go out and work on farms because they want to do that noble thing for their fellow Australians, which is produce food.

What you don't need on top of all the things I just described—the long hours, hard work, seasonal and climatic pressures, price variability, and market insecurity—is your government working against you. You don't need that. The perverse outcome we get from this is a fresh food tax. This is just another tax. Farmers have got to pass on all of these costs, and this is just one of the many costs. State and federal governments always look at farmers, or often look at farmers—the previous coalition government was an exception. I wasn't in this place then, but I was working with agriculturalists, and it was a good government for farmers. They haven't got a good government now. But the state and federal governments look at farmers and say: 'How can we clip the ticket on the way through? How can we get a little bit more money from them?' They always say it's a little bit. The member for Moreton was saying it was only little bit. But every government is in there trying to get a little bit, and it makes it more difficult to run a farming business.

Farmers then say, 'If we can, we've got to try to pass this cost on.' And then it becomes a cost-of-living pressure because food becomes more expensive, becomes more difficult to grow and becomes unprofitable in some cases, and we lose farmers. If we lose farmers we'll have less supply. If we have less supply—and I saw this in the dairy industry in my electorate—then the price will go up, and people will pay at the checkout.

I'm sure a lot of the conversation and the debate, particularly from the Labor Party, will be about needing stronger biosecurity. I know that. I worked as an agronomist, I worked in pests and diseases in orchard crops and I've seen the ravages. For example, there's a disease called fire blight, which affects apple crops in the United States, and it could decimate the pear industry. If the pear industry were decimated in my region, that would be a terrible outcome, because the Goulburn Valley produces over 95 per cent of Australia's pears. So, yes, we need a strong biosecurity regime and we need to keep out fire blight, foot-and-mouth, and all of these things. But this debate is about who pays.

There was a much better solution that was proposed by the previous government: a container levy. The principle of that was you make the importer, the person who wants to come in and compete, pay. We're a trading nation—I'm not arguing for protectionism—and if we want to send our goods overseas, we've got to wear the fact that people are going to try to import agricultural goods into this place to compete. But our system said to the Australian farmer, 'We're going to make the person who's importing the food pay.' This new piece of legislation makes the farmer pay a proportion of that. That is a deeply unfair and flawed principle.

The then agriculture minister, the Leader of the Nationals, announced this policy prior to the last election. It was going to be a container levy on the importers. That would have been a fairer outcome; it would have meant that if people who were competing against our Australian farmers and who wanted to make a profit out of bringing stuff into Australia—and good luck to them; I'm about the free market and a market economy—were posing a biosecurity risk then they were the ones who had to pay for it. That sounds fair. This policy is another attack on agriculture and regional Australia by a government that just doesn't seem to understand life beyond the suburbs. This Labor government sees primary production as a cash cow to exploit rather than an industry to nurture.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024. For the benefit of those opposite, I'm actually a proud dairy farmer myself, so I take this issue very seriously. Let's be really frank here: this is just another Labor government tax. It's either another direct tax on farmers or a tax on fresh food, as the member has just spoken about. It's cost-shifting by the government.

If we look at it, farmers are already paying $500 million a year in various levies—they already pay that amount of money. For those who have no experience in farming: my husband and I bought our first dairy farm property on the day we got married. In those days we bought a run-down old property—it was all we could afford and we had a massive debt. Our interest payments were $1,300 a month, and in those days you struggled to make $2,000. We had to do all that work ourselves, to build up the property and even to stay in farming. That's how tough it was. So we actually do need governments which support us. Young people who want to get into this industry need the support of a good government which says, 'We value and respect those of you who produce some of the best food and fibre in the world'—no question.

But this fresh food tax is where farmers will have no choice but to pass on that additional $50 million every year that they're going to cop on this one. It's a recurring cost either to farmers or to consumers, because this tax adds to the cost of production. That's how it is on your farm. I don't know what those opposite think life on a farm is like, but it's really hard work. I got a message very early this morning from my son, who was on his way to get the cows. It's hard work; we milk 365 days of the year. We can look at the increased costs that farmers have had to absorb into their businesses recently—much of that because of the decisions of this government. Put electricity on the table to start with: you might have to cool thousands of litres of milk, and then the government adds another tax on top of that. It's as if every cent doesn't matter. In our business, every cent matters. So, if we don't pay it as farmers, the consumer is going to pay it at the checkout, and those costs will be passed on at the time of a cost-of-living crisis. It's a very smart move!

Alternatively, the $50 million annual and recurring additional tax will have to be borne by individual farmers when either the supermarket or the buyer of their product doesn't actually pass that cost back to the farmers themselves. This also probably shows the lack of understanding of the agricultural supply and value chains demonstrated by the Office of Impact Analysis. It said that the tax would not impact on producers because the cost would be passed through to consumers. So it's either a fresh food tax on consumers or the farmers have to pay. But, as to the Office of Impact Analysis, when was the last time any of them tried to negotiate an increase in price from Coles, Woolies or other buyers for a perishable product, like milk, that has to be produced, processed, sold and consumed pretty well immediately? You are in a very vulnerable position as a producer of that product. And what happens when the processor has signed a multiyear contract with one of these and the new government, the Labor government, is simply adding yet another tax and cost to that production and processing cost? Will the supermarket pass the costs on to consumers or refuse to negotiate with the processors or those with direct contracts in relation to these additional costs?

We know that milk production across Australia has actually fallen, and it is a critical product. The Standing Committee on Agriculture in November 2023 actually recommended that the Australian government, as part of the National Food Plan, develop a specific strategy for reinvigorating the Australian dairy industry, one which lifts profitability and production while addressing the economic and environmental sustainability of the industry and identifies the resources and pathways required to achieve this. What we don't need is more taxes. A funny thing—the report didn't refer to the increased taxes on farmers now being proposed by the government. Often they have very finite margins.

However, the government will definitely contribute to further decreasing milk production through its 450 gigs of buybacks from the farmers in the Murray-Darling Basin. Milk manufacturers came to see me last year and said, 'We are really concerned about the lack of throughput and whether we can remain viable.' But clearly the government has no understanding of any of these realities or the impact on the farmers themselves. I can tell you what I see here. This is just Labor's latest attack on our farmers and another example of what I see as just the absolute contempt that they have for us as farmers, the men and women who are producing some of the best food and fibre in the world. What I see in this is just sheer contempt. Why otherwise would any Australian government tax their own farmers to pay for the biosecurity risk created by international competitors just to bring their products into this country? They are saying, 'You farmers pay.' That is just utter contempt. There's no other word for that.

Effectively what the government is saying means that we farmers, working our hearts out on the farm, are subsidising our competitors to compete against us in our Australian markets. Well, that's a great government initiative! What a contemptuous thing to come up with. Can you imagine? I thought, 'What would that discussion have been like around the cabinet table?' I wonder how many farmers were around that table. Minister Watt would have maybe said: 'I've got a great idea. Let's increase taxes on our Australian farmers to pay for the biosecurity risks created by their overseas competitors.' Obviously those around the table said: 'That's a genius idea. Let's make our farmers less competitive.' This is just saying, 'Let's tax our farmers to subsidise overseas farmers.' What a great idea!

Our farmers already operate in a high-cost-of-production environment made even worse by Labor's increased costs of energy, increased shortage of workers and overwhelming red and green tape. The list is endless. But I suspect this is just the next step the Labor government will actually use to get rid of more farmers by default after shutting down the live sheep exports and putting sheep producers and associated small businesses out of business. I was at Wagin Woolorama last week. You want to walk a mile in those communities where those farmers and those business people are already in great distress. Some of them I could see already have mental health problems.

Perhaps the government sees this as a way of reducing emissions by default and freeing up more productive agriculture and food-producing land for wind, solar and transmission lines. After all, the government is supporting the NHMRC's attack on the consumption of red meat, and here I actually thought the National Health and Medical Research Council's purpose was to develop and support high-quality guidelines for clinical practice and public health, not to attack farmers and food production in Australia. Perhaps the NHMRC and others think there's a better impact on the environment from shipping beef and meat into Australia from overseas rather than consuming local, high-quality—the best—meat produced here in Australia. Perhaps the NHMRC doesn't support the health benefits of a typical 150-gram serving of great Australian beef that actually contains 12 essential nutrients recommended for good health and is a great source of protein, iron, zinc and vitamin B. That's not a bad outcome, but that's just another example of a government that does not respect and value our Australian farmers but literally shows contempt for them. To every farmer out there today who is working their heart out: thank you for the food you produce; it's some of the best and highest quality food in the world. I don't want to see you face even more costs because of this government.

There is a lot missing from the bill before the House. Who is going to pay? How much will each one pay? Who are those certain producers mentioned in the legislation? The government is clearly ignoring the levies already being paid—that $500 million already being paid by farmers annually towards biosecurity, research, innovation and development. We are carrying our own weight. How's the government going to collect the tax from industries that currently do not even contribute to the existing industry imposed ag levy system? Good luck with that one! How much of the $50 million raised every year will actually go to the new levy or tax collection agencies and bodies you will need to do this?

Even more importantly, Labor clearly sees this tax as a revenue raiser; it's just going into consolidated revenue. We hear about a new body, but who knows exactly where and how the Labor government will actually spend this. It may not necessarily go into managing biosecurity at all. But I've got a good suggestion. Perhaps the Labor government could use it to better protect our northern borders, where, recently, boatloads of asylum seekers came ashore. They came from Indonesia, where two major threats to the Australian livestock industry exist: foot-and-mouth disease and lumpy skin disease. Yet these people are walking into the Top End of Australia, putting at risk at least $31 billion in production value—what about that very live biosecurity risk?

Australian farmers feed up to 75 million people, here and overseas, with really great quality food. We're constantly under pressure with layer upon layer of red tape. The pressure is on us in business, just to survive. One of my local dairy farmers said to me: 'We lived through the enormous pressure of the Aboriginal Heritage Act, and now we're facing the Nature Positive Plan. We don't know what's in that for us, as farmers, either, but it is going to add more pressure to our businesses and ourselves.' This farmer said to me that he produces milk that feeds 60,000 people a year. He said, 'Nola, wouldn't it be great if someone just said thank you and let me get on with it?' That's what I'd say to this government: don't add further cost to the very good people who get up at all hours of the morning and work their hearts out to provide Australians, and people overseas, with some of the best quality food and fibre in the world. Do not treat these people with contempt. Show some respect and value what they do, because if there are shortages of nutritious food then there will be a massive challenge for the government of the day.

In Western Australia, we only have just over 100 dairy farmers left to produce great quality fresh milk. What we don't need is the next tax—and what I see as a lack of respect for what we do in applying this tax in the first place. How many other countries that we export to charge their local farmers for biosecurity measures from the products that we export into those countries? How many other governments actually do that to their farmers? But that is what we've got here: a government that says, 'We're going to tax you farmers to pay for the risk created by those people who are going to put those other products'—I'll use dairy again; there's a lot product that come from overseas—'on our shelves.' They compete with our products every day. What this government is doing is saying: 'Too bad, so sad. You not only have to compete with them on the shelf; you also have to pay for the biosecurity risk that they pose to this country.' This takes some real beating, doesn't it? It just confounds you to think that a government would show this level of disrespect and contempt for its farmers.

As a very proud dairy farmer, but one who had to start out on a very steep learning curve, I would say this to every member of parliament and everyone who hasn't been on a farm, or lived our life, or worked their heart out and looked after the environment as we do, or produced some of the best quality food and fibre in a country where we haven't lived through the ravages that some of the Europeans did during World War II, when they were desperately hungry. In this country we make sure that Australians, as much as they can afford, have access to great food, and we do it day in and day out. All we ask for is a little bit of respect for the job that we do, and we don't need a government doing what we've seen today.

Colin Boyce (Flynn, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies and Charges Collection Bill 2024. The federal coalition firmly opposes Labor's biosecurity protection levy, also known as Labor's fresh food tax. This is a tax that will increase cost-of-living pressures and drive up food prices, impacting families across Australia. This legislation is another example of the Labor government biting the hand that feeds it. The levies will charge Australian farmers for the biosecurity costs of importers. In what universe would the Australian government tax their own farmers to pay for foreigners to bring their products to this country to compete with our own? Ultimately, farmers will be forced to pass on costs if they possibly can, which will mean families will spend more on their fresh food.

The federal coalition recognises that a strong and robust biosecurity system is crucial for protecting Australia against the threat of exotic pests and diseases. The federal coalition has always supported a sustainable funding model for biosecurity. However, in contrast to Labor's approach, taxing farmers was never considered to be a part of the mix. In the May 2023 budget, Labor announced a $153 million biosecurity protection levy that would apply from 1 July this year, which was essentially a fresh food tax on our hardworking farmers. At Senate estimates on 13 February 2024, in response to widespread opposition from across the agricultural sector to this proposed levy and its equitable application, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry announced that it would be rejigged. The Albanese Labor government will now set the tax rate of the biosecurity protection levy as a proportion of an industry's average gross value of production over a three-year period, instead of the former base rate of 10 per cent on industry led agricultural levies.

On 28 February 2024 the government introduced a package of bills into parliament to impose the new biosecurity protection levy. The legislation that has been introduced into parliament lacks any detail on the cost to farmers or how the levy will be collected. It also stipulates that the biosecurity protection levy can be set to nil, in case the cost of collecting the levy in some sectors exceeds the revenue that it raises. Labor's biosecurity protection levy remains a fresh food tax on Australia's 85,000 farmers.

Shamefully, this government has decided to inflict the new tax as a hit on Australian farmers to make them pay for the biosecurity risks of their international competitors. The industry was blindsided by the announcement of this levy. There was talk of budget measures to address the funding shortfall of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, but at no stage was a levy suggested as the solution. It was stated that consultation on the levy had occurred as part of the government's sustainable funding and investment into strengthening biosecurity. However, there is no mention of a levy in the 2022 discussion paper.

The Office of Impact Analysis determined that the policy proposal for the BPL was not good practice. The lack of a regulatory impact statement also does not give industries confidence in the department's ability to deliver effective biosecurity measures through the BPL. Levies are charges imposed by government, at the request of industry, following extensive consultation with stakeholders. Funds are spent on what industry requests. A recent departmental consultation process outlined that this levy would not be subject to producer voting arrangements in relation to its establishment or change, nor will producers or their representative bodies have a direct role in determining its use.

There are growing concerns that funds raised will not be put back into better biosecurity practices for the agricultural sector but, rather, will go into consolidated revenue. Stakeholder feedback has pushed for the levy to be renamed a tax or an excise to better reflect its functions. If the levy is to be implemented, industry has requested regular updates and transparent reporting from the department as to how the funds are being spent.

The industry is already investing heavily and co-funding biosecurity programs. These contributions were not considered when costing the levy. Not only is this inequitable but it has the potential to undermine pre-existing biosecurity efforts by increasing the cost of production for farmers and decreasing their ability to contribute to the levies they were previously contributing to. This threatens the statutory levy system by diverting funds away from existing levies that could be used to respond to a biosecurity threat.

If funds from the levy are not well targeted or not allocated to the industry at all—which is possible, given the funds would be transferred into unconsolidated revenue—the levy could disadvantage Australian producers in the wake of a biosecurity threat. Existing contributions should be recognised by the levy if it is to be implemented. My question to the agriculture minister is: can the minister guarantee that every cent raised by this levy will go back into biosecurity and the agricultural sector?

In contrast to the Albanese government, the federal coalition's approach to sustainably funding Australia's biosecurity system is targeted at the risk creators—the importers. Under a federal coalition government, Australian farmers will not be punished for the biosecurity risks that others pose. As the Leader of the Opposition announced in his response to the 23 May budget, instead of taxing farmers for biosecurity the federal coalition will introduce an importer container levy, as recommended by the independent Craik biosecurity review. Under the former coalition government, we were a considerable way down the path to implementing this approach; however, this has not been taken up by the current Labor government. Applying a charge to containerised cargo coming into Australia—an importer container levy—is a sensible and fair way forward. This is what the coalition stands for.

The Albanese government should apply some common sense, take the action that is required and scrap this tax. Two independent reviews of the biosecurity protection levy, conducted by the Productivity Commission and the Australian National University, have found that this policy is flawed. Adding to the frustrations of the agricultural sector, these bills outline no details on who the relevant producers actually are when it comes to determining who pays this new tax or how much. In fact, these crucial details will be set out in regulations, which can then be changed or amended. By the time the tax rejig was confirmed in February 2024, it was obvious that the government had no idea what the financial impacts will be on different industries. At Senate estimates, the department said they would 'formally advise industries of their rate in the coming weeks or months'.

A major issue is that these bills do not indicate who will be paying the biosecurity protection levy. The legislation only mentions 'certain producers'. It is expected that it is not just farmers who will be captured by this tax but also fishers and foresters. The chaos, confusion and absence of detail surrounding this new tax—which is due to take effect in July—is simply not good enough. When it comes to this policy, Labor's consultation process with the agricultural sector and industry stakeholders has been appalling. Additionally, the government does not know how it will collect this levy from the industries which do not currently contribute to the existing industry-imposed agricultural levy system.

Based on legislation, it is also not clear whether collection agents are aware how they will collect the levy change from an impacted industry. This is a Labor government that is making policy on the run. This Labor government is incompetent, directionless and not across the details of what they are proposing. The imposition of the biosecurity protection levy—a new fresh food tax on Australian farmers and Australian families—is yet another damaging blow to the agricultural sector, which is under constant assault by the Albanese Labor government.

Harmful changes are already being inflicted on our agricultural sector. These changes include tearing up the dedicated agricultural visa, which was the biggest structural reform to the agricultural workforce in our nation's history. With Australia's top peak food industry bodies identifying that agriculture is facing a shortage of 172,000 workers, the decision to scrap this visa was an absolute disgrace. There's Labor's hopeless reliance on the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility, or PALM, scheme to fill workforce shortages and then changing it so that farmers will be forced to offer a minimum of 30 hours a week despite the agricultural sector being seasonal. There's the ideological and reckless decision to ban the live sheep export industry. Labor is destroying an industry that is worth $85 million and that supports the livelihoods of more than 3,000 people.

There have been enormous cuts to regional infrastructure and water projects, including the federal government pushing back the start date of the beef corridor upgrade from the 2025-26 financial year to the 2027-28 financial year. These delays place a question mark over the sealing of more than 450 kilometres of Queensland's beef roads—a project that has had the support of seven mayors from seven Queensland local government authorities. The roads have been identified as some of the most important roads that would have the biggest impact on supply chains across Central Queensland. The roads that will be sealed under funding are the Clermont-Alpha Road, May Downs Road, Diamond Downs Road, Alpha-Tambo Road, Dawson Developmental Road, Fitzroy Developmental Road from Bauhinia to Duaringa, Fitzroy Developmental Road from Taroom to Bauhinia, Duaringa-Apis Creek Road and the Glenroy Road Corridor, including the crossing. So, on the one hand, the Labor government is betraying the agricultural producers by imposing a levy for something that is not even their product, and then, on the other hand, betraying Central Queensland by delaying the beef corridor upgrade, an upgrade that will not only improve road safety for all users but also form a strategic web of agricultural supply chains from east to west.

The Labor government has shown its lack of concern for the Great Artesian Basin by joining with the Greens in voting down an attempt by the Nationals in parliament to ensure that important safeguards are put in place to protect Australia's largest and greatest underground water source. The Great Artesian Basin is the largest underground water source in the world. We must protect this water asset of Australia, especially when it comes to carbon sequestration, for future generations and for the future of the whole water system in general.

The current EPBC Act does not go far enough in ensuring the appropriate approval process is in place. The fact that Labor and the Greens didn't support these amendments shows they are nothing but hypocrites when it comes to environmental protection. The Nationals are doing everything we can in Canberra to put some protocols around this carbon sequestration—the injection of carbon dioxide into the Great Artesian Basin—to ensure the prosperity of this water source for the future.

The Labor government has signed on to a reckless race to 82 per cent renewables by 2030, which means 28,000 kilometres of transmission lines, at a cost of $80 billion, will rip up agricultural land while also chopping down thousands of hectares of native bushland and pristine farmland for wind and solar factories. They've introduced a proposed carbon tax on new vehicles, whereby Australians could pay up to $25,000 more for their favourite SUV or four-wheel drive and up to $18,000 more for their favourite ute, according to research undertaken by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries.

A new tax on farmers will inevitably be passed on to consumers, which means higher grocery bills for all Australians. As the federal member for Flynn, I'm determined to stop this tax on our farmers and on our food. It is unfathomable that the Labor government would ask farmers to pay a biosecurity levy for risks from international importers from other countries. Instead of taxing our farmers, the future coalition government will scrap this tax. Under our plan, importers of foreign products will pay for the biosecurity risks that they pose—not the Australian farmers. That is the way it should be.

Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health, Aged Care and Indigenous Health Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm honoured today to support this amendment moved by Mr Littleproud in relation to the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024. In doing so, unlike many of our bureaucrats and politicians who seem to sit around a shiny table in their nicely pressed shirts and suits and make decisions that affect the agricultural sector within this country, I'll come from a very real place. In fact, I'm a farmer from the north-west coast of Tasmania, and I grow beef cattle down there, as well as spuds, peas, beans, broccoli, carrots, onions and opium poppies.

So I know what it's like to borrow money. I know what it's like to employ people. I know what it's like to take risks. I know what it's like to work in a buoyant international and domestic commodity-price market. I know what it's like to work with the myriad of compliance issues that we're continually bombarded with as an industry and that inhibit our growth. I know what it's like to deal with bureaucrats that have absolutely no idea. I know what it's like to deal with politicians who don't understand the fact that people on the land are growing food that feeds our nation and our world. I understand the very real risk that exists completely across our agricultural sector. To that end, I want to talk from that perspective today in relation to this proposed bill.

It has obviously been outlined that the Albanese Labor government will now set the tax rate of the biosecurity protection levy as a proportion of the industry's average gross value of production over a three-year period instead of the former rate of 10 per cent on industry-led agricultural levies. Effectively, what that means to me and my cohort of farmers right across the country is that we're now being asked to fund a biosecurity levy to have our competitors from overseas import products that compete against us in our domestic market. It makes absolutely no sense. In what parallel universe does anyone expect a farmer to pay for their competitors to operate on the same playing field as them? It's daft at best.

Farmers have got enough to put up with, and I'm going to cite a few facts. These are not speculative, anecdotal numbers; these are facts. The first thing that they have to deal with is the cost of farming. In my state of Tasmania, the average cost of an acre of land—that's an acre, not a hectare—is between $15,000 and $25,000. That's just to start off with. So you're already operating in an inflationary type market where you are borrowing that money at an interest rate. We know that, over the last two years, interest rates have gone up, up and up, and—guess where the cost of doing business has gone?—the cost has gone up, up and up.

The cost has gone up for fertiliser, like nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulphur—NPKS—which are the building blocks for growing food. The price of fertiliser has increased by 153 per cent in the last two years. When it comes to 'N'—that's the first letter in the NPKS—the price of any nitrogenous fertiliser has increased in excess of 170 per cent. The reason for that is it's driven by the petrochemical gas industry. Urea, or nitrogen, is basically solid natural gas. Guess what Mr Bowen's done to the price of natural gas? It has gone—that's right—up, up and up. Consequently, that's been borne by the farmer who has to put that on to his land.

We can look at phosphates, which used to come out of Ukraine and Russia. They no longer do. We're now having to go to Morocco and other places, and the price has gone up by 300 per cent. We can look at potash, the price of which has, again, gone through the roof. The price of sulphur has gone through the roof. My colleague who spoke previously talked about the cost of water infrastructure and irrigation for our farmers. Without water, plants and animals don't grow. How can we restrict the amount of water that our agricultural sector is using, up the price of fertiliser and up the price of interest rates when it comes to borrowing money to buy the land? That's without even stocking and planting the land. I'll talk about that briefly.

We can talk about the scale at which we need to operate nowadays. No longer can you have 100 acres, 70-odd hectares, and expect to make a living out of that. Now it's big, big, big, in order to get enough scale so that we can make a reasonable living. When you start doing that, you need bigger machinery. We've got tractors down there that cost in excess of $300,000. At the moment, they're digging spuds on my place with a $300,000 tractor and a $600,000 spud harvester. The people on the back of that spud harvester—there are half a dozen of them—are seasonal workers. There's another problem. All of a sudden, the price of employing labour, particularly seasonal labour, has gone through the roof. Farmers have to bear that. Farmers have to cop that. Farmers are expected to absorb that. Well, they can't. They've absorbed enough, and enough is enough.

There is the cost of diesel, the cost of energy, the cost of pumping water onto paddocks, the cost of irrigation, the cost of operating machinery. I've got tractors on my place now using 500 litres a day, and in the state of Tasmania we're paying $2.17 per litre. That's just to run a tractor. Then that product has to go on a truck, and of course that runs on diesel. So far as I'm concerned, we're a long way off coming up with a beautiful EV solution when it comes to tractors and trucks. That is the simple fact, the reality. The point I'm making is that the cost of getting your product to market, to the factory, has increased exponentially as well.

There are more insurance costs, because the risk involved with farming has increased because of seasonal variability. Farmers are expected to pay that. Farmers are expected to insure their crops and to take that risk. Farming is about mitigating risk, and that costs money. At the end of the day, that costs dollars and cents, and that's something that people in Canberra here who are making these daft decisions simply don't understand—the amount of risk that that farmer has to take every day just to make that crop grow or make that pen of animals grow to trade weight. They don't understand.

Shipping costs in the great state of Tasmania, and international shipping costs, have increased, and the time lag involved in getting empty containers, empty trailers, back into the state so that we can reload them and fulfil that logistics chain has been stretched out. Time is money, and that's something that people in this place need to get. Every day that that farm isn't operational, every delay that we place on the agricultural sector—or any industry, for that matter—costs someone, somewhere, money. Time is money in business, and I wish, I pray, that more people in this bloody place would realise that. I withdraw that.

The risk with production of a crop, and the risk with just being in agriculture more generally, when it comes to international commodity markets is exponential when it comes to securing your price for your product. On top of all of that risk, all those costs, all those delays and all that compliance that I talk about, we are now expecting our farmers to pay a levy on spuds from Europe being imported into Tasmania to be sold on our domestic market. We are expecting our farmers to pay for it! It doesn't make sense.

What should a farmer do—jump in their ute? They'd say, 'Oh, no, we can't jump in that, because the price of that is just about to go through the roof.' They won't be able to afford utes before long. This is just another indictment of attitudes to our industry. People in Canberra, people in the bureaucratic system, have got to realise that outside this place there's actually a real world where people take risks, and it's their own money that's involved. People have got to realise that. I wish that more thought was put into the person on the ground in our agricultural sector who is doing nothing but the right thing. Spare a thought for them. As far as I'm concerned, not much thought for them has gone into this particular piece of legislation. For the life of me, I can't understand why it would even be drafted in the first place.

I am vehemently against this. I support our agricultural sector. I believe strongly in biosecurity measures; don't get wrong. One infestation of a foreign product, pest, disease or pathogen in our ag sector could bring it down. I get that. We need to protect that. But it's not the responsibility of our domestic Australian farmers, the people doing the right thing, to pay to protect against foreign pests coming into Australia; it should be the responsibility of the person importing that. When it comes to the international playing field, we're expected to pay a levy as we export into foreign countries. Why shouldn't it be the same way in the opposite direction, for those importing? There should be user-pay arrangements whereby the person, business or country that's bringing those products in is responsible. And, quite frankly, they expect to pay.

In conclusion, you can close your eyes, Deputy Speaker, and imagine how disgusted I am with these proposed changes and how emotional I am about protecting the viability of our most precious resource: our farming industry. The government need to remember that they are biting the hand that feeds them and that eventually it's going to bite them back—enough said.

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the government's package of bills regarding agriculture biosecurity levies: the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024, the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Charges Bill 2024 and the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies and Charges Collection Bill 2024.

I'd like to begin my contribution to this debate by acknowledging the importance of maintaining a strong and robust biosecurity system. Ensuring we are protected from exotic pests and diseases is critical to the preservation and future of local food production, and I'm sure that Australia's 85,000 farmers would agree. Recent events surrounding the threat of foot-and-mouth disease so close to our borders have highlighted how we must remain ever vigilant to this threat. However, it must be said that the approach that's outlined in this package of bills before us today is absurd and completely unfair.

The so-called biosecurity protection levy will charge Australian primary producers $50 million per year to pay for the biosecurity costs of importers. Under this legislation, farmers and fishers from my electorate will be forced to cover the risks associated with foreign competitors. How ridiculous! Let's reflect on that proposition for a second. Australian producers, who are already struggling with the cost-of-living crisis, staffing shortages and issues relating to natural disasters, will be burdened with further fees in order to ensure that their competitor's produce does not present a biosecurity threat. It sounds like a joke. It sounds like someone has made it up. Why should it be the responsibility of grain growers in the Wheatbelt, in my electorate of Durack; of my cattle producers in the wonderful region of the Gascoyne; or of the cray fishermen in the Mid West to fund this process? This is just another stab in the gut for struggling producers and will no doubt adversely affect Western Australian producers. This bill is just the latest attack on WA farmers by this Labor government.

Again, I call on the minister for agriculture to release the live sheep export report that has been sitting on his desk since October, probably at the bottom of a very, very large in-tray, collecting dust. That trade is fundamental to the lives and livelihoods of so many Western Australian communities, and, at the very least, they deserve answers and some honesty from this government about what its plans are for this industry. The arguments to abolish the live sheep trade are not based on facts, and I believe this decision—if indeed there is a decision, but we do not know because the report is at the bottom of the in-tray—is simply a method to win metropolitan seats from the Greens political party. It has nothing to do with animal health. It's all to do with politics. Shameful!

It's worth noting that, just like their decision to end the live sheep trade, the introduction of the biosecurity levy is also pretty well universally opposed by producers around Australia. The Albanese government has failed once again to have a legitimate consultation process that takes the concerns of our Australian farmers and primary producers into consideration. In fact, over 50 industry organisations, many of whom represent farmers and producers in my electorate of Durack, have written to the government calling on them to axe this tax and take a different approach.

This morning I had the wonderful pleasure of catching up with Colin, Duncan and Barry from Grain Producers Australia. I'd like to thank them for their strong leadership and for standing up for Australian farmers. I must say that their frustration with this new tax was palpable. Barry Large is the chair of the GPA and is a WA grain farmer from Miling in my electorate of Durack. Barry has pointed out that Australian producers already pay hundreds of millions of dollars each year in various levies. They're already doing this, and now the government wants them to pay more. What they're already doing is delivering many public benefits, including opportunities for more research, as well as environmental gains.

Adding to the agricultural sector's frustration is the staggering lack of detail. These bills fail to outline exactly who will be paying the levy and only mentions 'certain producers'. This basic detail is expected to be set out in regulations and will likely cover farmers, fishers and foresters. Also missing is how much producers will be charged or how the levy will be collected. Incredibly, from all accounts that we've heard, the money that will get raised through this levy might not even contribute to the strengthening of our biosecurity system and will instead just be dumped in consolidated revenue. Honestly, you cannot make this stuff up.

If passed, these reforms are set to apply from 1 July—that's 1 July this year, just a couple of months away. That is just three short months away, yet so many important questions remain unanswered. This is despite the policy being announced in May 2023. The incompetence of this Labor government is, quite frankly, next level. This is just the latest example of this government making policy on the run and failing to properly consult with regional Australia. And it's not just industry and the coalition who are against this bill. Two independent reviews, conducted by the Productivity Commission and the Australian National University, have found it is very flawed policy indeed.

And it is no wonder, as another important consideration is that the cost of this levy will inevitably be passed on to consumers. As if the Australian public weren't doing it tough enough as it is, the government's going to make it harder, not easier, for them to put food on the table. This levy will drive up prices at the supermarket when Australians can least afford it. Through this legislation, Labor are essentially introducing a fresh food tax on Australian produce.

It's worth noting that I think even those opposite understand this legislation is a dud. Last time I checked, there were more than 20 members from our side, the coalition side, who are listed to speak on this debate. Of all the speakers in this debate, let me tell you, members of the public, there was only one person from the Labor government—the people who are creating this legislation—who had their name down to speak. Whether they have spoken or not, I'm unsure, but it was only one. When I informed my visitors from Grain Producers Australia about this, they weren't surprised to hear it, but they were very, very disappointed.

So I must ask: if this is such a good piece of legislation, backed by the government, where are all the Labor members of parliament lining up here to talk about this fabulous legislation? Where are they, particularly the ones from regional Australia—all those who say that they care deeply about regional Australia? Where are they? They're not here! Why aren't they lining up here to defend this ridiculous and useless piece of legislation? Their silence represents their contempt for, or at least their apathy about, regional Australia.

They were all too eager to speak about the so-called cost-of-living tax cuts bill a couple of weeks ago, to pretend that an extra $15 is going to make a significant difference. Inflationary measures like this one won't make that $15 go very far at all. If this bill is passed, Australian families will have to pay more for local meat, seafood, fruit and veggies in order to subsidise produce from overseas. Time and time again, Labor are responsible for implementing policies that drive inflation further and prolong this cost-of-living crisis. I don't know how long the Prime Minister and the Treasurer will continue to point the finger at somebody else when this is a crisis that they're responsible for. Guess what? Given my conversations across Durack, I think that regional Western Australians have woken up to this fact, and I'm sure that people in Perth and other capital cities are starting to as well. Unfortunately, Labor does have the numbers for this bill; soon, when we leave the Federation Chamber and head back to the main chamber, I'm sure every single one of these Labor politicians who say they care about regional Australia will line up and support this legislation. They should hang their heads in shame!

For those listening at home: the legislation will then make its way to the Senate. Given the multitude of issues with this legislation, I call on the Senate crossbenchers to do their homework—please. Understand what this will do to regional communities and make sure that this useless package of legislation receives proper scrutiny before a committee. It should not be rushed through to meet the deadline of 1 July without all these answers being resolved. At the very least, maybe we will actually get rid of this useless piece of legislation.

I want to conclude by returning to the point I made at the start of my contribution: we do need a strong biosecurity system. On this side of the House, we have a plan that's reasonable, makes sense and is supported by industry and independent review. Our approach is targeted at the risk creators, not at our local Australian producers. When we return to the government, which I'm sure will be very soon—after the next election—we will introduce an importer container levy. That will see the importers—yes, the importers: the people who are creating the risk—paying to cover the cost of our biosecurity system. Applying a charge on containerised cargo coming into Australia will mean that local farmers aren't punished for the biosecurity risks that others create. This was an important recommendation included in the independent Craik biosecurity review. Unfortunately, it has been rejected by this hapless government. If producers overseas want to sell their product in Australia, that's fine; that's the way international trade and markets work. But we shouldn't punish Australian farmers to enable this. If producers want to sell their product in Australia then they should be the ones paying to ensure that it's okay and doesn't present a risk.

Those opposite have reflected on the fact that the coalition has been the party of no. They've talked about it a lot. The fact is that when you put up rubbish legislation like this, which is almost universally opposed by stakeholders, favours international competitors over local producers and leaves all the important questions unanswered, then of course we're going to say no. They give us no choice but to reject this useless piece of legislation. Of course we're going to say no to yet another attack on regional Australia which this government seems hell-bent on pursuing. But we aren't just saying no; we've offered an alternative, which I sincerely hope those opposite take up. It's an alternative which would be welcomed by Australian producers and also by consumers who want to continue to enjoy local Australian produce.

I'm tired of hearing from farmers right across my electorate who are already struggling under this government. They need help right now—not another Labor policy that makes things even worse. I will not support this package of legislation and I call on the minister of agriculture to do his job, and to put Australian farmers first for a change. It's time to reverse course and to scrap this tax.

Sitting suspended from 12 : 55 to 16 : 0 5

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I represent an electorate that's home to a productive, dynamic and diverse agricultural community, from large dairy, beef and grain producers to world-class vineyards and smaller farms growing berries, cherries, apples and nuts. Agriculture in Indi doesn't just contribute to feeding the nation; it's also a major employer. More than 5,000 people in Indi work in agriculture, forestry and fishing, so it's with these farming businesses and workers in mind that I approach these bills, the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024, the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Charges Bill 2024 and the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies and Charges Collection Bill 2024.

As a regional Independent member of parliament, I consider each bill before me on its individual merits, and these bills are no different. I ask myself: Are they good for the nation? Are they good for regional Australia? Are they good for Indi? I also ask: Are the bills ethical? Do they reflect the principles of good governance, the principles that governments of all stripes must uphold? I hold concerns that these bills are not good for regional Australia and they're not good enough for the farmers in my electorate. I'm concerned about the consultation process that the government undertook in designing these bills, a process that does not demonstrate to me truly good governance. I will be voting against the bills at this time, until I can see that the government have listened to the farmers and primary producers that are so vital to feeding and clothing all of us.

These bills implement a 2023-24 budget measure of $47.5 million per year for a strengthened and sustainably funded biosecurity system. They do so by imposing levy rates on primary producers that are based on each industry sector's proportional share of total gross value of production, or GVP. So a large sector like beef will pay a higher rate than a small sector like potatoes. The government says that this levy will mean primary producers contribute to only six per cent of biosecurity costs, with the bulk of biosecurity funding being paid by the taxpayer and by importers.

With this legislation, the government intends to build a secure and sustainable biosecurity system, and I agree that we desperately need such a system. For a long time, we've benefited from our status as an island nation, where we can closely monitor and control biosecurity risks to our food and fibre production. But, with increased travel to and from Australia, added complexity in running farming businesses, a rise in the cost of delivering biosecurity measures and a flat line in revenue to fund these services, our biosecurity system has been faltering for some time. It has never been clearer to me than when fears of a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak arose in 2022. After the disease was detected in Indonesia, the fear in regional communities that it would come to Australia was palpable.

I was raised on a dairy farm, and today I raise beef cattle. I'm well aware of the potential damage that foot-and-mouth disease could cause. For full declaration, I am a fifth-generation member of a farming family. My family still farm in south-west Victoria. So I share the fears of farmers, across my electorate and more broadly, who were anxious that an outbreak would decimate their livelihoods and community and the broader Australian food system and economy. Like these farmers, I reviewed my farm's biosecurity plan in 2022 to be as prepared as possible in the event of an outbreak. I had locals writing to me asking me whether they should shut down the accommodation side of their business. Others were asking whether they should minimise visits with family and friends outside the property. These people were prepared to take measures into their own hands because they didn't have faith in the Commonwealth biosecurity system. I had constituent after constituent write to me concerned about the government's commitment to a strong biosecurity system. Others were upset about lax enforcement of mitigation measures while travelling through airports. This shows that the government must do more to build trust with agricultural communities and to reassure farmers and producers that their contribution to biosecurity is truly being put to good use.

But it's critically important that we get the design of any new biosecurity system right. Before I talk to the design of the new biosecurity levy on primary producers, I want to talk about the consultation the government undertook on the new levy. You can't get good policy without good consultation and, when in government, you must gain the trust of the people that will be impacted by your policy or your levy. Between August and October last year, the government undertook consultation with key stakeholders on a levy that would collect an amount equivalent to 10 per cent over past levy rates. After the significant blowback they received from farmers in the consultation period, they responded in two major ways. First, in response to concerns the levy was inequitable, they changed its design. Instead of a 10 per cent increase, the government moved to impose a rate based on the industry sector's proportional share of GDP. Second, in response to concerns that the levy would be going to general revenue and not directed to biosecurity, the government announced the Sustainable Biosecurity Funding Advisory Panel. This panel would allow the government to meet regularly with those who have a stake in strong biosecurity protections and give them a say on biosecurity priorities. These stakeholders will also get to see where the biosecurity levy is going. That's an important transparency measure.

At face value, these two responses are fine and perhaps they are the right way forward, but they were not the ideas taken to the consultation period with stakeholders. Indeed, the advisory panel was announced on the same day that these bills were introduced. As I said earlier, good policy is the product of good consultation. So I really urge the government to send these bills to the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport so that they may be properly scrutinised by stakeholders and there's a real, genuine opportunity for concerns to be addressed. I implore the government to give a decent amount of time for submissions to be made and scrutiny to be undertaken. It needs to be very genuine and it needs to have sufficient time.

In my own recent discussions with stakeholders, I've heard concerns that the GDP model will be an administrative nightmare for producers. Many will not know this levy is coming, because the new model will be imposed on some industries that don't have these levies in place at all. They may only see a new line item on an invoice from a livestock agent, for example, with no idea that this is actually for biosecurity measures. Since these bills were introduced only a few weeks ago, I have attempted to consult with the hundreds of primary producers in my electorate, But I get the real sense that not many of them know anything about it at all. The government have a clear responsibility to tell people about laws that will impact them, to tell farmers about a new fee they will be charged, and they are currently failing to fulfil this responsibility.

The government justifies a levy on farmers by saying that everyone has a role to play in strengthening Australia's biosecurity system, including contributing to cost—that is, farmers should pay a little bit to protect what underpins their livelihoods. They also say that the estimated cost for producers will be small, and a lot smaller compared to the fluctuations in farmgate prices. But, in criticising this bill, farmers are not asking government to do all the work, because they already contribute to biosecurity measures via existing levies, on-farm activities and much, much more. So, while farmers are under increasing pressure to produce cheap food while supermarket giants and others rake in huge profits, this new tax, no matter how small, will only add further pressure to farmers.

The Office of Impact Analysis, run out of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, has also found that some of the levy cost applied to producers would be passed through the domestic supply chain to consumers. Again, while the government may say that the cost paid by consumers will be very, very small, we are in a cost-of-living crisis, so any changes that may impact on the price paid by consumers will be felt. Every cent counts when we go to the supermarket to buy our meat, fruit, vegetables and milk.

Another major concern held by key stakeholders like the National Farmers Federation, the grain producers and others is that this new levy will be going into general revenue. There's no disbursement bill associated with this new charge and it won't go to the Biosecurity, Imported Food and Export Certification Special Account, which is used to provide biosecurity services. So there is no guarantee that this new charge on farmers will actually go to biosecurity measures, and that is an area of key concern. The government must address these serious concerns if it's to win the support, cooperation and backing of primary producers and farmers.

It's not just the farmers that are critical of the levy raised under these bills. Analysis undertaken by tax experts, the Productivity Commission and the Australian National University does not support the levy. They found that the overall cost of funding these measures will be higher if it comes from primary producers than if it were to come from general revenue. They also found that the lack of industry support, as is currently the case, and the cost imposition on a sector that will ultimately deliver a broader public good are important considerations in opposing such a levy from moving forward. The Productivity Commission was clear that, where a public benefit exists, like biosecurity measures, funding should be drawn from general revenue streams.

What are the alternatives to the model proposed by the government? A 2017 independent review of the capacity of Australia's biosecurity system, led by Wendy Craik, recommended that funding for the national biosecurity system should be increased by implementing a per-container levy on incoming shipping containers. The Craik review identified a container levy as an appropriate way to target the overseas risk creators and a justified measure to improve environmental biosecurity monitoring and surveillance. Many farmers and key stakeholders agree with this recommendation of the Craik review. The government have stated that the Craik review recommended a container levy or an increase in the full import declaration charge. They say they decided to increase the full importation declaration charge, which has resulted in full cost recovery for biosecurity measures at the border. With respect to the government, this is not entirely true. Recommendation 34 of the Craik review clearly recommends:

Funding for the national biosecurity system should be increased by:

The review said that such a levy, combined with other measures, is the best option. There is no such equivalent recommendation for a full import declaration charge. There are simply two small paragraphs suggesting it should be considered if a container levy is unacceptable. The Craik review did not recommend that the full import declaration charge be increased, and the government should not state that it did.

With this in mind, the government must address head-on why it will not support a container levy on importers. To date, they've indicated that it's complex and that such a levy could risk Australia's free trade obligations—seriously! This may be the case, but primary producers and farmers calling for this are yet to be given a wholly definitive answer, and they need one. I urge the government, via the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, to communicate a clear and final answer on this point. Let's get clarity. If it is the case, let's put that to bed.

The government must not pass this bill until it goes back to the drawing board to consider the concerns of farmers. I urge them to refer this bill to committee and to do so with care, not rush the bill through parliament. To make biosecurity work in this country, it's critical to have the full support of farmers. With that, I have no more remarks to make at this stage. I wait to see that committee being stood up and this bill going there.

Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you ever needed an example of the disconnect between the Australian Labor Party and regional Australia, this bill, the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024, is it. My National Party colleagues have queued up to speak on this bill because we have rarely seen a bill unite our farming sector like this one does. It is not positive for Labor. The peak bodies in agriculture and horticulture, as well as farmers in my electorate of Mallee, oppose this levy—specifically the element of hitting farmers for the costs brought into their farm gate by importers. Can you imagine, Deputy Speaker Sharkie, asking workers to pay a levy to prevent labour hire companies or employers taking work away from their workers? The unions would be up in arms, filling the galleries. This is no different.

National Farmers Federation president and Mallee resident David Jochinke said:

The agricultural sector, along with supply chain participants, have overwhelmingly objected to the levy—

a position ratified by the NFF Members' Council in October. In my home state of Victoria, the Victorian Farmers Federation said:

With the levy set to be implemented on 1 July this year, farmers are apprehensive about the additional financial burden and the lack of detailed information on how the levy funds will directly enhance biosecurity measures on farms.

The New South Wales Farmers Association holds a similar view, as do the farm organisations in every state and territory that complained, during the submissions process, of a complete lack of consultation and a lack of transparency on how the funds would be spent, and claims that producers would be unfairly slugged. More than 50 agricultural representative groups signed a joint letter to Prime Minister Albanese, united in their opposition, including Grain Producers Australia, Cattle Australia, Sheep Producers Australia, WoolProducers Australia, the Red Meat Advisory Council, Australian Grape and Wine, the Australian Table Grape Association, AUSVEG and many more. Grain Producers Australia described the levy as 'a fundamentally flawed policy proposal which fails to deliver better biosecurity protections'. They said:

It also undermines fundamental trust and confidence in the long-standing partnerships created through existing compulsory levies.

GrainGrowers chair Rhys Turton said:

The discussion to date has all been around revenue raising, but industry needs to understand how government will deliver better biosecurity outcomes in a rapidly changing environment …

The independent Tax and Transfer Policy Institute at the Australian National University proposed an alternative policy approach—precisely what we in the National Party have been calling for:

The first is to increase charges for those who create the biosecurity threats, such as importers and travellers, and the second is to further fund biosecurity protection through general revenue, given that the benefits flow to all Australians.

Hear, hear! The Tax and Transfer Policy Institute also highlighted:

Normally taxes would be applied on net proceeds, where production costs have first been subtracted from gross revenues.

Speaking of experts, the Productivity Commission in its report on industry levies recently said:

Funding via general revenue is generally cheaper than funding via industry levies. For primary producers that currently do not have a levy, there will be a clear increase in administrative costs.

Citrus Australia CEO Nathan Hancock, who is also a Mallee resident, said:

… while our stance remains a firm no to this tax, there are still key elements missing in the Minister's statements, firstly that the funding raised through these measures is not hypothecated and secondly that industry still doesn't have a say on how the money is spent …

Probably most frustrating for the agriculture industry as a whole is that the recent statements continue to ignore calls for other sectors to contribute to biosecurity incursion responses, for example through a container levy.

The CEO of Summerfruit Australia, Trevor Ranford, who received the 2022 Australian Biosecurity Award, industry category—you'd think he'd know a thing or two—has called on Prime Minister Albanese to 'dump' what he describes as 'an insidious burden on Australian farmers'. Mr Ranford says:

All primary producers have been paying their share for Australian biosecurity for the past 26 years, since the Plant Health Australia and Animal Health Australia organisations were formed. This new tax is nothing more than 'double dipping' by the government to try and improve their budget bottom line.

Even the freight industry is against this levy, with the Freight & Trade Alliance and the Australian Peak Shippers Association presenting a position paper which proposed that Labor not proceed with its levy against producers but instead change the full import declarations arrangement to cover the cost. In a joint statement, they say:

We well and truly understand the need to protect against biosecurity risks and would be prepared to pay an additional levy or cost recovery fee on the proviso that an appropriate proportion directly translates to commensurate improved and immediate trade facilitation measures.

Given all those opposed to the levy, my question to the minister is: which peak body or grower group supports this levy? Where is the demonstrated widespread support? I would like him to report this back to the House.

The Nationals are listening to our primary producers. We committed soon after the budget that a future coalition government would abolish this levy. Labor's fresh food tax doesn't hit farmers in a vacuum. It comes after drier than expected years have halted very positive momentum towards a united target for primary industry in government, set under the former coalition government, to reach $100 billion in farmgate value by 2030. As momentum falters, Labor is slugging the industry with a $153 million tax over three years to 2027-28 to pay for the biosecurity risks farmers' foreign competitors bring into the country.

Our farmers work very hard in an unpredictable environment, but Labor's heavy-handed fresh food tax puts the handbrake on Mallee farmers' productivity by increasing their operating costs. Farmers will wear this cost and, consequently, Australian families will pay that cost through higher prices at the supermarket checkout. That's just what we need in a cost-of-living crisis! Indeed, Labor has kept farmers in the dark about the exact costs and the rate at which farmers will be taxed. We are expected to trust a government that wilfully breaks its promises to show us the costs when the regulations are produced. Labor's obfuscation has created more unnecessary confusion and anxiety. By contrast, the coalition government was well on its way to imposing the biosecurity cost where it was being created through an importer container levy.

The Craik review recommended such a levy to fund Australia's biosecurity levy system, recommending that funding should be increased by implementing a per-container levy on incoming shipping containers of $10 per 20-foot equivalent unit and a levy of $5 on incoming air containers. The proposed cost recovery on items of individual value of $1,000 or less would mean each item attracts a cost of around 40c. That's less than a third of the cost of a postage stamp. What if, whatever the levy rate ends up becoming—because the bill is before us, and maybe it will be decided by regulation—instead of hitting farmers with this levy, perhaps consumers are instead asked to pay with 50c instead of 40c on low-value imports? What about 75c or a dollar, perhaps? It's still short of the cost of a postage stamp. I think consumers would wear that cost, knowing that in doing so they are protecting our farmers from khapra beetle, varroa mite, marmorated stink bug or other risks they are bringing in from buying goods from overseas.

Speaking of which, this bill comes in the context of major biosecurity loss for Australia and a big scare in recent years. We lost the battle against varroa mite, and there isn't time left for me to trace the history on that, but now under Labor we have shifted from an eradication to a management setting on the outbreak that came through the Port of Newcastle. In addition, we had a close call on both foot-and-mouth and lumpy skin disease, with outbreaks in Indonesia that took considerable vigilance. I also recall it took the shadow minister for agriculture, David Littleproud, badgering Minister Watt and federal Labor to impose stronger travel precautions, particularly coming from Bali, which ultimately detected—among other things—a Darwin traveller fined thousands of dollars for failing to declare fast food brought back from Bali.

We also have a mandatory electronic sheep traceability system being set up nationwide, modelled on Victorian arrangements. This has been so mishandled by the Albanese Labor government that WoolProducers Australia have withdrawn their support after calls for many months for an equitable funding arrangement. In short, the industry expected government to fund its fair share and it is not. WoolProducers CEO Jo Hall said:

While the funding commitment that has been received to date from state and federal governments is welcomed, it is still a long way short of the required financial assistance.

And there's the rub. When Labor look at farmers, they see a cash cow. Labor's disconnect with country Australia means they don't see the cost of production, the struggle farmers go through, the compliance costs and the huge cost burdens. They don't even get that farmers' competitors often have a lot more government support. It is not a level playing field, and our farmers do a mighty job in our great exporting nation. Labor looks at all the primary production land in Australia and sees an opportunity to rob the regions to buy votes in the city. It has been in Labor's DNA for some time now, as opposed to generations ago, when Labor actually got it. They like to dust off their 'Country Labor' label, but it's an oxymoron now. There's no country left in Labor, and that's a fact.

Let's take an example: buying back water from irrigators for environmental benefits. The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder has on average, since its inception, carried over 32 per cent—call it one-third—of its water every year. In other words, it hasn't used it. In the 2022-23 year, it carried over more than half—51 per cent. Labor's solution is to buy even more water to carry over every year, to mothball farms and to go away from patchwork quilted, irrigated and dry farms. Now it's going to be 'spot the farmer'. It really beggars belief, and it's all so Labor can hang on to the electorate of Boothby in Adelaide, because they figure that green concerns might sway the vote there.

The former coalition government introduced the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme, but Labor is undermining it by imposing by a 30-hour week, whether or not there is a crop and whether there's rain, hail or shine. Yet again, Labor is looking at workers through its union goggles and hasn't got a shred of understanding of the realities in regional Australia and for our farmers. The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry highlighted, in late January, that the number of workers in farm labour fell 29,300 in the last three reporting years, and that was a loss of overseas contracted workers. The largest horticultural farms—and we have some big ones in my electorate of Mallee—accounted for almost all of the horticultural workforce losses. The agricultural visa, initiated by the Nationals and created by the coalition government, was meant to help with the huge horticultural workforce shortage, and, after it was undermined by elements in the union movement, we've finally got 1,000 workers coming in from Vietnam under the ag visa.

Thankfully, the coalition's PALM initiative stepped into the breach, with the department estimating in late January that, in the 2019-20 reporting year, 58 per cent of the horticulture workforce comprised PALM workers, and that became 82 per cent in 2021-22. PALM workers are not ideal for every context in agriculture and horticulture, and I urge the government to work diplomatically with our nearest neighbours to undo the badmouthing of the ag visa by union representatives and to broaden the labour pool through the farm workers that regional Australia desperately needs. Time will prevent me from speaking about Labor's pay-off to their union masters and about the industrial relations laws that have passed this place and that are no help to the agricultural sector.

In conclusion, this biosecurity levy is yet another blow for our farmers, and it yet again shows that Labor is robbing the regions to buy votes in the city.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker Sharkie, I know that you're very aware, coming from a rural area, of how important rural produce is. It sits at the cornerstone of the economy. I know that the member beside me, from the tomato industry, is very aware of how industries such as these work. We try to do so much. We go in the paddocks—I'm in the cattle industry—we manage the stock, we try to manage the weeds, we manage the wages that are involved and we pay our levies. When we go through the saleyards we have to pay a levy. We're just sick of people lumbering new costs onto us! We're actually delivering to the nation's profit and loss; we're putting things on the 'P' side of profit and loss. We're actually making the nation wealthier. We're feeding and clothing people, and now it looks like we're going to pick up another tab—for $153 million, as put forward in the budget. We're price takers; we can't do anything about that and it's just going to come straight out of our pockets.

One of the frustrating things for so many people in regional areas is that they can pick out so many other things the government does and ask about wasting money on things like the Environmental Defenders Office or subsidisation of wind farms. These are swindle factories; there are secret agreements and we don't know exactly what these Chinese, Singaporean, Dutch or French companies are being paid. But I bet it's a lot more than $153 million for the taxpayers who are paying for it! I can assure you of that. And, for that, we get ripped off at the power point. These are costs.

Biosecurity is incredibly important. My father was a vet and I remember growing up through the brucellosis eradication campaign and the bovine tuberculosis eradication campaign—which we were successful at, by the way; we actually eradicated those diseases. As the ag minister I was responsible for getting rid of white spot in prawns, which got into Australia—and we were successful, with a great team. So I know all about biosecurity: cactoblastis to get rid of prickly pear; calicivirus and myxoma virus to get rid of rabbits. And I'm very aware of the threats; if foot-and-mouth disease got in here, and it's right next door, there would be an immediate stop. People think, 'Oh, it's about the cattle industry.' No! It goes beyond that. It's any earthworks, anywhere—things that have moved across soil all stop. It's a complete shutdown. It would be disastrous for Australia and would cost us tens to hundreds of billions of dollars. So I understand how important biosecurity is.

Might I say, just as a tangential issue to that: now that we have people arriving by boat on our shores, in the north-west of Western Australia, rather than being found at sea and arriving at Christmas Island, God help us if they decide to bring a pig with them or something like that. We're opening ourselves right up to foot-and-mouth coming into Australia. Away from whatever people's views are on immigration and refugees, we have to be very, very careful about that issue.

What I can't work out with this bill, the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024, coming forward is that it's yet another cost. It's the easy way out. Seeing that the farming industry is basically putting the money on the plate for Australia—just like the coalminers are and the gas exporters are—then actually help us to do our job and we'll earn you more money. Don't just come in and put your hands back in our pockets to take more money out. This is an isolating industry, and a biosecurity levy is something which is incredibly clumsy. I know that it's biosecurity on us sending things out, but is it coming in from the other direction? Are things coming into Australia going to be hit with this levy? Is it going to hit them, or just us? Of course the answer to that is that it's pretty crook: the competition doesn't get the levy but we do. We have to make sure that what we do for our nation assists our nation to become stronger.

We're also now having to deal with the 30 per cent environmental restoration act that's coming in. That's 30 per cent of the countryside—how's that going to work? This will be dynamically bad. If we look at it in its purest form and say that 30 per cent of the countryside will now revert to scrub, then that's exactly what it will become. It won't become pristine rainforest; it will become scrub. If you want a biosecurity problem then you'll have a massive one there. The countryside will be full of feral pigs and feral goats; that's exactly what happened in our area. Once you lock up an area for a national park, it just becomes infested with feral animals and weeds. So we've got to do this in a different way. The coalition has said that they don't support this. From the most recent discussions—and I say this on the record—if we get into government, it will be removed; it will be reversed. I'm saying that clearly on the record so that, even on our side, there's no walking away from this at a later date. It will be removed.

When I was the ag minister, this was bowled up to me so many times, over and over and over again, and the answer was always the same: 'Go back to your department and absorb it.' I will sit down as a parliamentarian, as the member for Dawson would and as so many others would, and say: 'Open your books and I will show you $153 million. I will show you an alternate place to get $153 million. If you're looking for $153 million, I will find it for you!' In support of land rights claims and legal fees on Indigenous land rights claims, we spend well in excess of a billion—$1.3 or $1.4 billion. We support farmers who have to go to court on these things. I think that's at about $40 million. We're even getting rid of that minor support. So there's some fat in that budget; you could trim it off that. You could look at some of the so-called arts projects, as marvellous as they are, and I bet you could find $153 million in that portfolio.

I've sat down with public works in the past, and I've seen some of the defence costings. I remember there was a kilometre-and-a-half of road, and they built it out of $3 million—to grade it! You can find the money. But this is a very clumsy way to find yourself $153 million, because you're actually going to the people you want to make as much money as possible. For example, take our operation: it's a small operation. We pay the levies when the cattle go in. We pay McDonald Bros Transport for moving the cattle. We pay for the seal posts. All of these things have GST. We pay for the drenches. We pay wages. They pay their pay-as-you-go taxes. We pay the tax rate at the end of the year. It's not as if you're not making money out of it. There's excise on the petrol. With the diesel fuel rebate, we get the excise back. But we don't have those vehicles on the road, that's why they don't pay the excise. But every way we go, we're paying money to the government. And when you've got hopeless roads, no doctors, no local post office, no local hospital within easy reach and no public transport, the question that gets asked by so many people is: why do we get hit with a new levy?

If you looked into the lives of those in regional areas, you'd see the price per person of support that a person in a city gets, with child care, multiple hospitals, better roads, public transport and arts precincts, is vastly in excess of what we get in country areas. That is another reason to look deeper when you come up with levies and say: 'What is the actual government support for these people in these areas? Are we putting a levy on people who are at the bottom end of support from the taxpayer?' Why are we hitting them with a levy?

We all understand how important biosecurity is, whether its screw-worm fly, rabies or foot-and-mouth disease. There are the boring insects and the decimators. There are so many other issues around. We were the only country without varroa mite and now it's here. We do need to be protected from these issues, but that is an investment from the government, just like they have an investment in the Defence Force. Do we have a levy for the Defence Force? Do people have to pay a levy in regional areas? Should we go to Sydney and say, 'Well, you've got the naval base there, so we're going to have a certain levy just because you've got the benefit of that there'? Should we go up to Newcastle and say, 'Williamstown is there, so we're going to put a levy on you'? Should we go to Perth and say, 'Well, you've got HMAS Stirling, so we're going to put a naval levy on you for protection'? You'd say: 'Hang on. It's the role of the nation to protect our nation's sovereignty if someone attacks us.' This is another sovereign protection, and it seems peculiar that you'd go back to the farmers and ask them to pay for it. When you think about it, even in another form, it's a biosecurity levy.

On our places, we're not going to give anybody foot-and-mouth disease or anything like that, because it's not here. If it's going to arrive here, it's going to arrive from overseas. So why am I paying for a problem that I can't possibly deliver to anybody? Why am I paying the levy for something that I can't cause? The things that are going to cause the problem are the products coming in, not the products going out. It's a levy to protect us from diseases coming in; it's not a levy to stop diseases going out. So you're even going to the wrong person and charging them for this outcome.

It also fundamentally goes to this question: is the Labor Party going out and actually talking to people in regional areas? I've got no problem when people say, 'There are hardly any farming seats or farmers in the Labor Party.' That's not an issue at all for me. The issue is when a government member in that portfolio has a lack of interest and actually doesn't spend time on the road checking things out.

Senator Murray Watt is the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. I'd imagine, if Senator Watt's doing his job, he would have a lot of delegations of people saying to him that they don't want to pay a levy on what they produce in order to subsidise something coming into the country and not going out of the country. If it's the biosecurity defence foundation, it should be absorbed and it shouldn't be putting a levy on anybody. It should be paid for by your taxes—that's how you pay for it. But I don't think that Senator Watt is actually going around the countryside. I can't remember him being in New England. He might have dropped in there or walked through there, but there wasn't an intense interest. I don't know whether he's been down to Bowen or if he's had an intense interest in what's going on there.

Unfortunately, what I have noticed about the government, at this stage, is that they have an intense interest in taking money away from us. There's the Bowen pipeline, Urannah dam, Dungowan dam, Hells Gate dam and Emu Swamp dam. The Inland Rail is now basically in mothballs. They've stopped that. So many of our beef roads and the Black Spot Program, the Roads to Recovery Program and the Bridges Renewal Program—in these things, when we do see the government acting, it's usually to take money away from them, not to invest in them.

It's not as if we're a cot case. We're actually putting money on the table for Australia and we're doing our very best not only to feed Australia but to feed our very small section of the world. We're not the food basket of the world, but we feed a very small section. We assist in stopping people from starving to death. We assist in clothing people. It's an honourable profession, and we do our very best.

But what this says to farmers is, 'For your labours and your endeavours in the job that you do'—which is an inherently moral and good occupation, one of feeding and clothing people—'we're going to find another arbitrary tax and flick it your way.' When really, if you gave some diligent thought about how to do it, you would find so many better alternatives that would be able to fund the $153 million.

Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024, the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Charges Bill 2024 and Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies and Charges Collection Bill 2024. For me, these bills aren't just political. They are personal. These bills will hurt my people.

The Albanese Labor government is calling this a biosecurity protection levy. But let's call it for what it is—it's a tax. It is a tax on our hardworking, underappreciated and undersupported farmers, who supply this country with the food and fibre we need to sustain life. It is a tax on the individuals and families who make their livelihoods working the land and who support our economy. It's a tax on the same individuals and families who are being ripped off at every turn—by supply chains, by Mother Nature, by supermarkets and now by the Albanese Labor government. It's also a tax on every single person in Australia struggling through this Labor-created cost-of-living crisis, and the people of Australia have every right to be as appalled at this bill as I am.

On 8 January 2022 the current Prime Minister tweeted this:

Our farmers deserve our respect for providing us with the essentials wherever we live. They need a government that listens to their concerns and acts on them.

Then, on 30 January 2022, the Prime Minister reinforced his support for farmers by tweeting:

We will invest in a future made in Australia—we must make Australia more self-reliant and that starts with ensuring our agricultural sector is thriving.

On 2 January 2024 the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, sent out a media release announcing the ACCC inquiry into supermarket price gouging, which read, 'We want a fair go for families and a fair go for farmers.' Well, I have something to say to the Prime Minister and the Treasurer: if you had any conviction whatsoever, you would not be doing this. For me, as a third-generation farmer, the idea of being forced to pay for my competitors' imports and supply makes me sick to the stomach. What Australian government in its right mind would tax its own food producers, its own farmers, to pay for the biosecurity risks of their international competitors bringing competing products into Australia? No country in the world does this to its farmers and food producers—not one—so why would we?

Those opposite can't even make up their minds on how the policy is going to work. Firstly, they misguidedly but confidently announced, 'We will hit Australian farmers with a bill equivalent to 10 per cent of their existing industry-led agricultural levies.' Those levies, by the way, already collect $500 million a year, which goes towards biosecurity activities as well as research, innovation and development. I'm no mathematician, but I think everyone in this room can figure out that 10 per cent of $500 million a year is an enormous amount of money for an already struggling industry.

Then, in true Albanese Labor government style, they flip-flopped like a fish out of water before announcing they would be rejigging this tax. The Labor government has now announced that it will set the new tax rate as a proportion of an industry's average gross value of production over a three-year period for certain producers. It is estimated to collect around $50 million each year over the next three years, which, by a quick calculation, is the same amount they were proposing to collect from the original model. Isn't that amazing! At the same time, the legislation states that the rate of the levy can be set to nil. In some sectors the cost of collecting the levy actually exceeds the revenue raised by it.

Not only do those opposite have no idea what they're doing with this legislation; their rejigging of this tax has done our farmers no favours at all. Those opposite cannot even tell us who the relevant producers are when it comes to determining who will pay this new tax, or how much. Instead, the legislation only mentions 'certain producers', with the department saying at Senate estimates on 13 February 2024 that they will formally advise industries of their rate in the coming weeks or months. I just want to make sure that I've got this right. This policy is set to come into effect on 1 July this year. The department will advise industries of their rate in coming weeks or months, and we're now in mid-March. We have April, May and June, which is three months. The Albanese Labor government are so generous to the industry that they're going to give a whole three months notice, and, if not, that's too bad.

The arguments for this new tax aren't even sound. Those opposite say that Australian farmers should have to pay the fresh food tax because they benefit from strong biosecurity. The reality is that those opposite are ignoring the fact that our farmers already contribute to biosecurity through their existing industry-led agricultural levies. Those on the other side say that the supermarkets are taking our farmers for a ride. However, those guys are the ones operating the roller-coaster. This is another example of the Albanese Labor government making policy on the run. It's another example of a Labor government who are incompetent and directionless and not across the detail of what they're proposing.

The one thing the Albanese Labor government and the minister have done, though, is they have managed to successfully unite every industry and organisation in their outrage against this policy. The scale of widespread concern about this policy was demonstrated in December last year, when 50 industry organisations cosigned a letter to the Prime Minister expressing their unified opposition and concern about this flawed proposal. Two independent reviews of the biosecurity protection levy, conducted by the Productivity Commission and the Australian National University, have found that the policy is flawed, with major issues surrounding who will be paying this tax. It is expected that it won't just be farmers who will be captured under this levy, but our fishers and our foresters will be too. If this is true, you can almost say goodbye to Australia's world-class fishing industry completely.

Everyone has heard me speak about the decision by the Minister for the Environment and Water, Tanya Plibersek, to ban the use of commercial gillnet fishing, which will not only destroy an entire industry in my electorate of Dawson but drive down supply of Australian local, wild-caught fish nationwide and ensure that we have to import lesser-quality fish from international suppliers.

The Albanese Labor government now wants these producers to foot the bill for these importers. This is just ridiculous. You couldn't make this up! What about the approximately 1,500 farmers and farm managers in my electorate of Dawson, who would normally employ more than 70,000 people? During a Labor created cost-of-living crisis, when the cost of everything is going through the roof, this policy is going to be more severe and more detrimental and have massive impacts on farmers and families in my electorate.

Farmers are already struggling with increased operational costs. There is a shortage of up to 174,000 workers Australia-wide—thanks to the Albanese Labor government's decision to scrap the dedicated agricultural visa. There are enormous cuts to regional infrastructure and water projects. Then there is the Labor government's reckless race to renewables which will see 28,000 kilometres of transmission lines rip through prime agricultural land, not to mention the thousands of hectares of native bushland and pristine farmland that will be decimated to make way for wind and solar farms. Plus, there's the announcement of a carbon tax on new vehicles, and that could see Australian farmers pay up to $25,000 more for a suitable vehicle, just to do their job. Those opposite want to make these Aussie farmers pay more so that their international competitors can import goods into our country. Who do you think is going to wear those costs? It will be the consumer, who is already being held hostage by a cost-of-living crisis. The consumer is inevitably going to end up paying more at the checkout. Tell me how this is fair.

Under the Albanese Labor government, our farmers have been under siege since the beginning, with every announcement and policy sending shockwaves through the industry, even forcing the National Farmers' Federation to take the extraordinary step of launching its largest protest campaign in almost 40 years. Labor continues to decimate the industry and the regions. These decisions are not good enough, and I cannot in good conscience support these bills as they are here today. I could not go back to my electorate, look at the people in the face and tell them that I am fighting for regional Australia if I support these bills as they stand today.

The federal coalition does not underestimate the importance of biosecurity for our nation. In fact, our experiences and backgrounds mean that most of us understand these risks better than anyone. We also understand the need for a sustainable and commonsense approach, but what we have achieved under this Labor government—what we've seen and received—is proof that they truly have no idea. In contrast to the Albanese Labor government, the federal coalition's approach to sustainably funding Australia's biosecurity system is targeted at the risk creators, and they are the importers themselves. It's quite simple. Those who pose the risk should pay the cost.

As the Leader of the Opposition announced in response to the May 2023 budget, instead of taxing farmers for biosecurity, the federal coalition will introduce an importer container levy as recommended by the Craik biosecurity review. Under the previous coalition government, we were well on our way to implementing this approach. And then the Labor government decided not to continue it. Those opposite will do and say anything to throw a good policy in the bin if it comes from a different side of politics, even if it means destroying our nation's productivity and economy.

The Prime Minister said, 'No-one left behind,' and, 'Everyone gets a fair go'. Where is the fair go for our farmers and their families? Prime Minister, you once said that farmers deserve our respect for providing us with essentials wherever we live and that they need a government that listens to their concerns and acts on them. So where are you? Why aren't you listening? Our farmers are hurting, our families are hurting, our people are hurting and our nation is hurting. It all starts with the primary industries that the Prime Minister and his government are so intent on destroying.

We all know the importance of biosecurity. But the biggest security risk to Australia right now is this current Albanese Labor government. Our farmers are in for the fight of their lives, and if we lose this fight, we all lose. I will stand shoulder to shoulder with our farmers and fight to get rid of this outrageous tax. After all, without farmers, we all starve.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024. Let me start by saying that biosecurity for this country and the agricultural sector is paramount. We're an island; that gives us enormous advantages over our competitors, and our clean, green image is second to none anywhere in the world. That's why it's so important that we protect our borders and make sure that diseases, pests and insects that are impacting other parts of the world do not come here.

Thirty years ago in Florida I saw the impact of fire ants in that part of the world. At the moment, the fire ants have a bridgehead, if you like, coming out from South-East Queensland. If we can't contain that outbreak and it spreads across to other agricultural areas, then it will not be possible to run small animals like sheep, goats or poultry in free range, because fire ants, from my observations, completely obliterate any industry that is vulnerable on the ground. Lambs or goats or whatever would be incredibly vulnerable to them.

At the moment, we have an explosion in wild pig numbers. Just in my electorate, there are millions of feral pigs. Just on my own little farm, in the last break when I was home, we put out considerable kilograms of bait, and we still are battling those feral pigs. I am convinced that, if we got foot-and-mouth disease in this country and it got into the wild pig population, we could not eliminate it. We could not eliminate that.

I'm just saying this to reiterate that security of our borders, for biosecurity reasons, is paramount. That's why, in the last government, the agriculture minister, Mr Littleproud, had got to a point of getting an agreement that importers would pay a levy to make sure that there were appropriate amounts of scrutiny placed on our borders. It only makes sense that the people that are supplying the risk factors pay the price. Things like the varroa mite, fire ants and noxious weeds mostly would come in on an unclean container, and that needs to have the correct scrutiny.

To ask Australian farmers to pay for the risk that their competitors are posing to their own industry seems incredibly bizarre to me. To put it into context, if you sell a load of cattle to a saleyard, a feedlot or an abattoir at the moment, a levy is paid on that consignment. I'm assuming—because some of the guidelines are not particularly clear—that this extra $50 million that is to be raised will be tacked on, and that will be the point where that will happen. If the cattle are going to an overseas market, then there would be an obligation for that consignment to be paid for by the Australian connections, whether it's the processors or the farmers going into the other country. It should be the same when products come back again. We're subsidising products that are coming in to compete with the products that Australian farmers are producing, whether processed meats or the like.

In some cases, the information is very vague. In some of the emerging smaller industries, there is not really a process identified as to how this will be delivered. One of the concerns is that the cost of putting in a framework for compliance will actually exceed the income generated from that industry. The other issue around these levies is that it appears that they will go into consolidated revenue rather than going directly to where that money needs to be spent to protect our borders. It's just another case of how this government really has contempt for regional Australia and farmers.

The fact that I'm speaking today in the Federation Chamber on such an important issue as this while downstairs there is a debate about an issue that quite frankly the Australian public would not know or care about, I think, is a clear indication of the contempt for the agriculture sector. There is no reason for this. I have been here for a long time. This is my 17th year and, quite frankly, I have never seen legislation as important as this debated in this chamber. Don't get me wrong; this is a very important place for debate, and for a while as Deputy Speaker I had the responsibility for this Federation Chamber. But it was never, ever designed to debate legislation that will have a critical impact not only on the farming sector but on the rest of Australia as well. But it ties into a pattern that we are seeing on the lack of understanding of regional Australia. The attack on the Murray-Darling Basin, on the farmers and communities in that area, is just a clear indication of the lack of understanding. We're now seeing advertisements on TV saying this government is going to stop the rivers from ever drying again. They are ephemeral rivers. They have been since time began. Good luck with that! But that's the sort of blind ignorance and misinformation we are seeing from the government on this.

This can be fixed. We need to make sure that we do have the processes in place. There's no argument about that. But this is having the farmers paying for their opponents, and there are already levies paid. Just on our little farm, we pay a levy now for biosecurity to the local land services that provide a great service. The farmers are paying for that. Just in the last two days in this place I have been talking to grain growers from all over Australia, from Western Australia right through to Moree in my electorate. They are terribly concerned about what it's going to cost them—whether it's in a container or whether there's a levy to what goes out in bulk. I also had a meeting today with representatives from the wool producers. They are terribly concerned about what it's going to mean for them. They have some other issues that the government needs to work through around a national identity scheme. Now that the price, particularly of mutton, has come back in the saleyards, we are seeing that sometimes the electronic tag that is compulsory in Victoria is nearly half the value of the sheep that is being sold. So farmers are copping it from every direction.

I represent a large agricultural area and a large livestock area. The Pastoralists' Association of West Darling represent those big stations, as the name would suggest, west of the Darling River. They have incredible concerns about the costs that are being inflicted on their industry in an area on fairly steep margins. It's low-rainfall country. Their management skills and ability to care for the land mean that they can operate in that part of the world. But they don't have a surplus of cash that will enable them to be paying levies willy-nilly.

In just this last couple of weeks we have seen the other impost—and the member for Dawson mentioned this—on the essential tools that livestock farmers rely on: the utes and SUVs that they need. There's no replacement for them as yet. They are going to be hit in the neck again when it comes time to replace those vehicles because they'll have no options. The electric ute that's on the market now wouldn't even get you to town if you lived on a station near Broken Hill. It's got a range of 150 kilometres with a half-a-tonne load on it.

I'm incredibly disappointed that we have got to this point where we are debating such an important issue and there appears to be a complete lack of empathy or understanding of the issue. This just seems to be an easy hit that makes it appear that the government is doing something—and why not let the farmers pay for it? If you're cynical enough, they're saying, 'They don't vote for us anyway, so they can pay for this.' The short-term impact on farmers is great, but the longer term impact of not having a biosecurity system in place that's robust, paid for by the people that use it and paid for by the people who are introducing risks to this country is greater. This is a very poor, second-rate proposal compared to what we could have. I'm thoroughly disappointed that we've got to this point, and I will not be supporting this bill.

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

It's rare that you get such a united front in the agricultural world, but what we are seeing now is a universal rejection from the whole industry of the concept which is embodied in this legislation. The Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024 is basically a second GST on primary production. Let me be clear. It is a second GST. It is a thought bubble which will be counterproductive. It's based on a false premise that primary producers don't already provide funds to support biosecurity in their industry and in the broader food and fibre production of our country.

The attitude behind the bill is there in black and white when you look at the comments. When the proposed bill was described in one of the departmental responses to consultation and analysis of the impacts, they said the levy is set to be negligible to consumers, given the value of what they pay at retail. Hello? It is not going to be retail alone where things hit trouble. The GST value of 10 per cent will be added onto existing levies. The producers have no say. The representative bodies have no say. There's no detail of exactly what these charges will be. People down the value chain of agricultural production, such as the administrators of saleyards and brokers buying and selling on-farm produce or delivered farm produce—a lot of them are just realising that they're going to be the ones collecting it.

The cost recovery system is applied in many other industries, but the same principle applies. The government provides these sorts of services—the protection of the nation, the protection of our food and the protection of our health. These are government responsibilities. Already, there are many industry levies that the industry bodies and the producers have a say in, and they are already contributing to their own biosecurity. We did provide a policy that the biosecurity levies for importers of food and other products should be increased—because current producers in Australia pay their industry levies and they also pay on the arrival of their product in other countries. But, instead, our producers are going to be contributing the vast majority of the fees that should be levied on people bringing risky product into Australia. This is a double whammy for our producers—paying in the country that they're going to as well as in their own country. It's just bizarre that someone thought this was fair and equitable!

On collecting it: as I mentioned, there are 7,000 agents involved in livestock saleyards. There are brokers and a huge numbers of collection points, and many of these agents will be drawn into the collection nightmare. Nothing is safe. It will apply to grain, wool, cotton, hydroponic food production and forestry products—even little old fungi and algae get a mention. It will be on all horticultural produce; wild-harvested livestock and flora; hunting and trapping; grape production and viticulture; fishing—you name it. It will be on lambs, goats, beef cattle and dairy—you name it.

So I won't be supporting the bill. We all understand the importance of biosecurity, but we have a system in place that is fair and equitable. As the former speaker mentioned, we pay for local land services. These are state administered bodies which also look after biosecurity. We can't expect the primary producers of the food and fibre that feed and clothe our nation and our neighbours to continually carry the can. Once this is there, we'll get a lot of low-margin food and fibre production, which may have a margin of only 10 per cent or lower, depending on what the commodity prices are, coming in. It's not like when you're a salary earner, and you know what you get for every hour you work. There are so many variables in the production of primary products: the weather is variable, and there are fertiliser costs, energy costs to harvest and to sow, and chemical bills for protection. All those things are basically out of your control. So if someone comes along and says, 'You're going to get another 10 per cent on the existing value of your product,' it might mean that harvest or that amount of protein won't make a profit for that person.

I think the government should go back to the drawing board and make sure that the industry bodies do what they're doing. And if the departments are going to recover their costs from the industries that they're supporting then why do those departments get an appropriation in the budgets at state and federal levels? They're not driving any efficiencies themselves. Leave agriculture—food and fibre production, viticulture, horticulture, fishing, seafood and all of those things, those primary products that are already doing their fair share—alone.

We need to put a levy on the containers that are coming into this country which are competing against our food and fibre production. There's a misguided concern by some people that this is against World Trade Organization and trade agreements. That is wrong; if you're applying biosecurity levies like that, as long as you're not using them to make a profit, it's allowable under free-trade agreement deals. So there's no excuse; they need to go back to the drawing board and stop cooking the goose that laid the golden egg, which is primary production.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on this Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024, although I must say that I'm deeply concerned about it. I'd like to draw the attention of the House—and, in fact, the nation—to the lack of government speakers on this bill, and to the fact that we're debating this bill in the Federation Chamber. This is a critical bill on biosecurity, and when I look at the list of who is speaking on it, it is a long list when it comes to the opposition and regional members on the crossbench. But, apart from one speaker that I can see, nobody from the government side, apart from the minister, has actually come into this place and prosecuted the argument for this tax on farmers. And that's exactly what it is: a tax on farmers.

Biosecurity is critical for Australia's wellbeing—not just the wellbeing of primary producers but the wellbeing of all of us. Lumpy skin disease, foot and mouth, varroa mite—there are so many biosecurity risks on our doorstep. We are somewhat fortunate; we are an island. But the risk is forever present. But what this bill is going to do is charge farmers for it. Primary producers are going to pay a tax for not the risk that they create but the risk that is created by importers. That is nonsensical. We're talking about grape producers. We know that the wine industry and grape producers are having a perilous time at the moment. It's going to impact fishing. We're going to be saying to the local fishing industry: 'You need to pay a levy, you need to pay a tax, because of imports of fish.' Horticulture, sheep, lambs, forestry, cattle, dairy—it's going to cover the lot.

No peak body is supporting this bill—none; not one. In fact, this has united all primary production peak bodies against it. And there's the time frame for this. We are now coming towards the end of March. This is supposed to be implemented by 1 July. Again, it's nonsensical. It's a bad bill, it's poorly consulted on and it's just a tax on farmers when they can least afford it. I think it's rather galling that we don't have members of the government speaking on this, and it's highly inappropriate that we're using the Federation Chamber for this incredibly important issue of biosecurity.

I guess you can tell, Deputy Speaker Chesters, I do not support this bill. I implore the government to investigate alternative approaches that are fair, that are equitable and that are not saying to primary producers in this nation, 'You should bear the cost, to the tune of $153 million, for the risk that importers will cause.' It's not us here. It's not those who were up at four o'clock this morning milking cows. It's not our Australian farmers. It's those from overseas.

The other issue is that our farmers already pay around $500 million worth of levies. In fact, the first industry levy was introduced in 1929 to finance the marketing and research and development for the grape industry, known as the wine grape levy. Since then, the number of industry levies has grown to at least 248 across all sectors.

In 2016 the Productivity Commission reported on the regulation of Australian agriculture, and they found that farm businesses are subjected to many regulations which are complex and in place at every stage of the supply chain. They are often the wrong policy tool, they are inconsistent across or within jurisdictions and they are costly. The regulations across the agricultural supply chain include: native title; environmental protection; biodiversity conservation; agricultural and veterinary chemical standards; biosecurity, including pest surveillance and export control; national land transport regulatory frameworks; water access and regulation; animal welfare; livestock identification; food labelling and standards; food safety and certification; and statutory marketing. The list goes on. Honestly, I'm exhausted reading this.

Knowing that this is what our primary producers are already managing, the fact that this government wants to put an even further burden, a tax, on farmers is appalling—knowing that they're also working seven days a week for us. There's no Christmas Day off if you're a dairy farmer. There's no 'I don't like to work Sundays' or 'Do I get paid time and a half?' Not at all. They get up and they go to work, whether it's drought or it's flood.

It's unbelievable that we are doing this. What we should be doing is one of two things. Either the money should come out of general revenue or there should be a container tax targeting the businesses that are creating the risk, rather than charging our farmers. That makes sense; that is equitable. We're effectively saying to the victim, 'You should pay for the pest incursion; you need to pay protection money, rather than it being on the importers and containers.'

I have 1,965 agriculture, forestry and fishery businesses in my electorate, and 1,934 are small businesses with fewer than 20 employees. These businesses are being squeezed out of existence with rising power costs and labour costs, exacerbated by industrial relations changes and supermarket duopolies dictating prices. Potentially, we might see the price go to the consumer, but I doubt it, because our farmers are not price makers; they are price takers. This levy is wrong. The minister needs to go back to the drawing board and work with the community and work with industry to get this right. This is just a tax on farmers, and it needs to be stopped. I urge the government: do the right thing—pull the bill. And let's do this right.

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

Today I stand alongside my fellow coalition colleagues in resolute opposition to Labor's biosecurity protection levy, the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024. This is simply a fresh food tax. It is a poorly disguised attack on our farmers, a burden on Australian families and a missed opportunity for collaboration on a critical national food security issue.

The 1,714 farmers in my electorate of Capricornia are already battling significant challenges. They are the backbone of our nation's food security and they deserve our support, not additional burdens. This levy adds another layer of pressure, squeezing their already tight margins. The inevitable outcome: farmers will be forced to pass these costs onto consumers, pushing up grocery prices at a time when affordability is a major concern for Australians. Imagine a young family struggling to make ends meet. Every dollar counts when it comes to putting food on the table. Labor's fresh food tax will make this even more difficult, forcing them to choose between essentials like fresh produce and other necessities.

This biosecurity protection levy is not just bad economics but also a betrayal of trust that undermines the very foundations of Australian agriculture. Biosecurity is not a partisan issue. It's the bedrock of Australian agriculture, a vital national security that safeguards our $80 billion industry and the livelihoods of tens of thousands. From the early days of Australian agriculture, when strict quarantine measures were implemented to prevent the spread of animal diseases, successive governments have recognised the vital role biosecurity plays in protecting our agriculture industries, like the vitally important Central Queensland beef industry.

The coalition has a strong track record. We established the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment in 2020 and we invested $49 million to aid communities in the management of feral pests, including species like wild pigs and deer, and weeds like gamba grass. Additionally, the coalition government dedicated $20 million towards eradicating yellow crazy ants in the wet tropics region. Also, in 2021, in spite of the worldwide pandemic, the former coalition government recorded a striking increase of over twofold in the detection of pests and diseases through air and sea cargo compared to the preceding year.

We understand the need for a sustainable funding model for biosecurity, but this levy is not the answer. It unfairly targets our most successful industries and risks jeopardising the very security it aims to achieve. Let's be clear: this tax is a tax on Australian success. Our farmers are world leaders in innovation and productivity. They invest heavily in biosecurity measures, from on-farm biosecurity protocols to cutting-edge technologies. This levy penalises this very investment. Imagine a scenario where a farmer adopts new biosecurity technology only to be hit with a higher levy for their proactive approach. This discourages innovation and hinders our collective biosecurity efforts.

The impact of this levy extends far beyond the farm gate. Our agriculture sector is the backbone of regional communities. Millions of Australians rely on jobs in agriculture and related industries. These communities thrive on the economic activity generated by our farms. A levy that hurts farmers will inevitably hurt these regional communities. Consider a town like Clermont in my electorate of Capricornia. Many families there rely on the income generated by the local farms. This levy isn't just a tax on farmers; it is a tax on the very fabric of regional Australia.

The levy also creates immense uncertainty for the agriculture sector. Critical details such as who will be taxed, by how much and how the levy will be collected remain shrouded in mystery. Initially Labor proposed a blunt 10 per cent increase on the existing industry levy. This one-size-fits-all approach ignored the vast differences between agriculture sectors. For some industries, a 10 per cent levy increase could be crippling, while for others it might be less impactful. This lack of consideration for the specific circumstances of each industry highlighted the deeply flawed nature of the policy from the outset. Following widespread criticism from farmers, producers and industry groups, the government announced a so-called rejig. However, this doesn't change the core problem; it simply changes the calculation method from a flat percentage on an existing levy to a levy based on a percentage of an industry's production value. While this might seem like a concession, it remains an unfair and unsustainable approach.

Firstly, the levy fails to account for the varying profitability of different agriculture sectors. A sector with high production volume but low profit margins could be disproportionately impacted by this levy. Secondly, the legislation offers no clear information on how the exact levy will be determined for each industry. This lack of transparency creates uncertainty for farmers and discourages investment.

Independent reviews by the Productivity Commission and the Australian National University have slammed the levy as 'flawed'. These independent bodies known for their rigorous analysis raised serious concerns about the equity and effectiveness of the levy. Yet the government continues to ignore expert advice, clinging to a policy clearly out of touch with the reality faced by Australian agriculture. This lack of transparency adds stress to farmers already grappling with rising input costs, workforce shortages and volatile weather, such as inevitable droughts and flooding rains. These are hardworking Australians who deserve clarity and certainty, not a poorly conceived tax that throws their businesses into disarray.

The details surrounding this levy remain shrouded in confusion. The legislation offers no clear information on who exactly will be responsible for paying the levy, how much they will be charged or how the collection will be implemented. This lack of clarity creates chaos for farmers. Farmers are left scrambling to understand the financial impact, while collection agents already overburdened with regulations are thrust into this mess with minimal guidance. This is policymaking on the fly and it is a recipe for disaster.

The biosecurity protection levy represents a missed opportunity for collaboration. The coalition have always advocated for a collaborative approach to biosecurity. We believe in working hand in hand with industry stakeholders to develop effective solutions. Labor's unilateral approach, with its complete disregard for industry concerns, is a recipe for disaster. Consider the frustration of organisations like the National Farmers Federation, who have expressed unified opposition to this levy. Their voices, representing thousands of farmers across the country, have been ignored. This is not how we build a robust biosecurity system. It's how we erode trust and hinder progress.

The coalition proposes a far superior solution—an importer container levy. This levy would directly target the source of the biosecurity risk: imported goods. An importer container levy is a well-established and proven approach that's already used successfully by many of our trading partners, including the United States and New Zealand, and is a fair and sustainable way to fund biosecurity, ensuring that the cost is borne by those who introduce the risk, not by our own hardworking farmers. The importer container levy is simple and efficient to administer. This stands in stark contrast to Labor's complex and confusing levy scheme, which will be a bureaucratic nightmare to implement.

The biosecurity protection levy is just one example of Labor's poor track record on agriculture. From scrapping the agriculture visa to reckless water buybacks, Labor policies are hurting farmers and our regional communities. We need a government that supports Australian agriculture, not one that burdens it with unfair taxes.

Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Biosecurity breaches are a huge threat to our country. Funding biosecurity threat abatement is an absolutely critical investment in our nation's future. Every dollar is an insurance policy against potentially catastrophic costs to our communities, environment and agricultural producers. This threat is expected only to multiply over time. The climate crisis and increased trade and movement mean Australia will need to fortify and strengthen our biosecurity prevention systems over the coming years. As we've seen with the recent varroa mite outbreak, biosecurity breaches are very costly. The impacts on community health, businesses, the environment and agriculture extend well beyond the billions in response funds needed when outbreaks occur.

The Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee recently took evidence that 40 million bees have been euthanised in the last 18 months following the varroa mite outbreak. Livelihoods have been devastated, and the threat from this biosecurity breach is likely to become more serious over time as we move from eradication, which has failed, to management or living with this pest. It was reported only this week in the Sydney Morning Herald that red imported fire ants alone could end up costing Australian taxpayers $38 billion if funding responses are not up to the task. That's just one invasive pest. Our biosecurity offices and workers deal with multiple threats on a daily basis.

In my home state of Queensland, the government was warned about this 20 years ago. In 2001, it launched the National Fire Ant Eradication Program, which was supposed to have fire ants eradicated by 2006. And yet, after spending almost $1 billion of public money, Queensland has seen the area of infestation increase tenfold. That's over 800,000 hectares. It's absolutely out of control and threatening the entire country. Senior scientists warned the program that there was little evidence to show that eradicating the entrenched fire ant infestation was even feasible. They said to instead look at containment options lest we end up where we have actually ended up now, with thousands of infestations across the country.

The Queensland government chose to adopt a doomed-to-fail eradication program because it knew it could send most of the bill back to the federal government rather than having to fork out money for containment. Then, when senior officials within the program tried to raise the issues of mismanagement and misreporting, they were sacked. The government was warned that its programs were failing, and instead of doing anything about it, it tried to quietly sweep it under the rug. Despite the ongoing inquiry into the spread of red imported fire ants, it seems the government hasn't learned its lesson and continues to stick to its line on poorly governed and mismanaged eradication programs.

That's why the Greens support the imperative for the Australian government to implement a sustainable funding model for biosecurity now and into the future. It appears that pretty much everyone in this debate agrees on this crucial point. When considering priorities for a new sustainable funding model for biosecurity, the government should be prioritising the environment. The government could do this by committing additional funding packages for environmental biosecurity protection and response measures. This levy is a significant matter of public interest and concern, and this parliament needs to find a way forward.

Basically, biosecurity funding has two key components. The first is prevention programs to stop problems before they start. Prevention is always better than a cure. The second component is responding to biosecurity breaches and funding for response measures that can be sourced directly from stakeholder levies in the agricultural sector. Farmers pay levies and can vote on the manner in which these levies are directed through priorities for the sector and areas of most need. Plant Health Australia and Animal Health Australia receive their funding directly from these levies paid by producers. It's really understandable that farmers have concerns. Not only are they now paying a second levy for biosecurity but also they will have no input into or avenues for feedback for accountability. The Greens believe that, on this point, the government has reflected these concerns in its commitment to a taskforce constituted from agricultural groups. However, we're yet to see the full detail on how this would work or allay farmers concerns. It's also reasonable that some farmers are asking why they should pay a levy on the basis of food production when this food passes up through a supply chain where numerous other interests profit from the work of farmers, but in this bill they are not being asked to also contribute.

The Greens have met with many stakeholders and listened to their concerns about this bill, the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024. We understand that farmers are doing it tough, including being forced by the supermarket duopoly to accept rock-bottom prices for the food they produce. Many of the concerns raised with the Greens are very worthy of interrogation in the Senate.

The Greens have serious concerns about the lack of transparency and oversight applied within the bill itself in regard to the allocation and dispersal of the revenue collected from this levy. The direction of collected levy funds into consolidated revenue is a key concern with the bill in its current form. The current structure and application of this legislation needs work. My colleagues in the Senate will be doing their job to properly interrogate and scrutinise this bill and any sensible amendments that may be required.

We also believe that risk creators, like importers, need to pay their fair share. The Greens will be pushing the government to commit to progressing a levy on risk creators in the form of a container levy, or similar, as a matter of priority. We acknowledge that risk importers are being asked to contribute more through other elements of the government's biosecurity funding plans.

Recent revelations around taxpayer funding into the red imported fire ants eradication program have raised red flags over efficacy, over governance, over transparency and over accountability of funding of these types of biosecurity responses from consolidated revenue. The Greens want to ensure accountability around how the government undertakes its role on biosecurity. Too much money has been wasted. We want to see clear performance measures against contributions made by primary producers through any new levy.

The Greens will be voting against this bill in the House of Representatives and reserving our final position in the Senate, pending consultations with the government.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased that I have been joined here in the Federation Chamber by the member for O'Connor. The reason I'm pleased is that he understands farmers and he understands agriculture. He represents an electorate, as large as it is, that in an average year produces 10 million tonnes of wheat—10 million tonnes of wheat a year. I know that the Grain Producers Australia chief executive officer, Colin Bettles, is also in the chairs behind me, and I acknowledge his presence. Both the member for O'Connor and Mr Bettles were in parliament earlier this week to celebrate all that is good about grain production, all that is good about farmers and all that is good about agriculture. I note, too, on the speakers list—and I'm not using it as a prop, so I'll give it back—that it is dominated by coalition speakers, appreciating that the member for Ryan from the Greens just spoke. But this list is heavy with coalition members addressing this very important matter.

Every member of this House should be speaking on this bill, the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024, because it is that important. As Labor has finally admitted—after being dragged, kicking and screaming, to the table—we are in a cost-of-living crisis. It's a crisis, I would argue, that has been brought about on Labor's watch because of its policies. Yet here we are, talking about slugging our farmers—our hardworking cockies; the best in the world, make no mistake—with what Labor calls a levy, but I'll call it what it is: a tax—a tax on them to do what? To pay for the biosecurity of their competitors' products coming in from overseas and going onto the same shelves as their own products. What other nation in the world would do something like this? What other country would be so god damn stupid as to slug its farmers, who produce the world's finest food through their hard work and sweat, to pay a biosecurity tax to prop up the not-so-good products coming in from overseas by their competitors? It just makes no sense!

That is why I can't understand why there are very few, if any, speakers from the Labor side. I saw and appreciate that the member for Moreton is on the list. He speaks on most pieces of legislation, and good on him for speaking. I can't understand why, when we are in a cost-of-living crisis, why every Labor member isn't speaking on this bill, particularly every Labor regional member. They should be defending what they're doing and explaining what this bill is all about, because the essence of this bill will mean that consumers will pay more at the grocery checkout. They'll pay more for their food. They'll pay more for their vegetables. They'll pay more, whether its imported food or whether it is home-grown, fresh produce.

To a degree, I don't really care that Paraguayan pawpaws—I'm not sure if they even grow pawpaws in Paraguay, but possibly they do.

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

Sure they do!

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm told by the member for Grey that they do. The member for Grey would know, he is another good farmer—a very good member from a farming electorate. I don't really care whether some of those products that we get in, Portuguese pears or whatever they may be, are going to be more expensive than what we produce here in Australia. That's because what I want to see is our farmers not only being able to compete fairly with the supermarkets and the duopoly prices that they give them—farmers, let's face it, are price takers not price makers—but I also want to see our farmers treated fairly when it comes to the prices paid at the grocery store. I don't want to see our farmers slugged unnecessarily because they have to pay for the biosecurity charges to assist their competitors from countries that, quite frankly, many Australians would not even be able to pronounce.

I say that with all due respect, because often you have to look at a label to see where the product comes from. Many of the products that we are getting are coming in from overseas, and I know that there are a lot of WTO arrangements in place but, gee whiz, I've seen too many cases of dumping over the years to know that our farmers are up against it. They are up against it. I know the WTO rules prevail and I know that there have been a lot of cases brought forward, but our farmers should not have to be treated unfairly by our government—their government—the government that is bringing in these new biosecurity taxes on my people, on the member for O'Connor's people and on the member for Grey's people.

It doesn't matter to Labor that our farmers are going to have to pay for this, which is a sad aspect of this wholly unnecessary, ill-thought, ill-conceived legislation. Don't take my word for it, Barry Large from Grain Producers Australia is encouraging all members of parliament, especially crossbench senators, to carefully consider the findings of the report that has been produced and to talk with producers actually impacted by this bad policy. His words were 'actually impacted by this bad policy'. Here's the challenge to Labor members opposite: start talking to your constituents, particularly if you are in a regional area. But, more importantly, don't just talk to them; listen to them. Thankfully there aren't too many regional Labor members, but I urge and encourage those of them who are in this place to listen to their producers, whether they're producing small volumes or large. Particularly listen to them.

Mr Large had this to say:

Producers across all farm commodities have provided a strong and unified voice against this proposal, given we already pay enough in levies to fund multiple public good outcomes—including environmental benefits and increased taxation generation for the nation.

The member for Ryan talked about the environment coming first. I don't necessarily disagree with her, but let's put people first. Let's put people at the heart of this. Yes, the environment is important. The best stewards of our environment are who? Our farmers. The member for Grey knows. They are our farmers, because, without good soils, without sustainable rivers, they wouldn't be able to grow the food that is the finest in the world, which is now going to have to compete, unfairly, with overseas interests.

Mr Large also said:

It's unpalatable and we really believe it should be scrapped … a good consultation period in the beginning would have saved us all a lot of grief.

Haven't we heard that over and over again, ad nauseam—the fact that Labor doesn't consult as it should, that it rushes through ill-thought-through policy? Mr Large also said:

Australian producers take biosecurity seriously on our farms every single day. That's why we already pay significant amounts to fund biosecurity protections directly within our own businesses.

He's right. He added:

We also pay directly through other compulsory industry levies that raise hundreds of millions of dollars, including biosecurity levies.

Here's the rub. Whatever amount of money this raises to pay for biosecurity—which is what Labor say it is for now—Labor, knowing how they love taxes and new taxes, will use this as a cash cow. This is the thin end of the wedge, because, when Labor see that this works and raises $10 million here and $10 million there, they'll say: 'The farmers are pretty easy to touch up. We'll whack 'em more. Why not? They make plenty of money.' That's what Labor think.

Our farmers work so hard, and, during COVID, along with our miners, they kept this nation going. Make no mistake; they kept this nation fed. They kept other nations fed besides. They kept our exports up, as did our miners. And our health professionals saved people's lives. Yet we hear, over and again, the Treasurer saying, 'What have we got to show for a trillion dollars of Liberal Party debt?' Well, it wasn't just the Liberal Party—it was the National Party as well—but there is not a trillion dollars of debt. It's nowhere near a trillion dollars, and absolutely every time he says that, and absolutely every time Labor get their talking points and read that directly from them, because they can't think for themselves, it should be disparaged.

David Jochinke, National Farmers Federation president, said:

We call on Senators to see commonsense and hit pause on this legislation so they can listen carefully to the criticism this flawed policy has drawn.

It's not just Australia's 85,000 farmers who have raised alarm bells, it's also the Productivity Commission, the Australian National University, the Office of Impact Analysis and even importers.

That's what he said. He called on senators. I call on members. Why doesn't the phone in the Labor whip's office start ringing hot with Labor members wanting to speak on this bill? Why isn't there a long list of Labor speakers? The member for Corangamite is just about to walk in, and I welcome her. I hope she is going to start the flood of Labor members of parliament coming in to speak about this important bill and to defend it passionately. At the moment, there is no defence of this bill. There is absolutely no defence of this bill, because it's bad policy. It's not just me saying that; it's the NFF president and the Grain Producers chairman saying that. It's Michael Guerin, the AgForce Queensland CEO, who says:

Let there be no doubt, this biosecurity levy is a tax in thinly veiled disguise, and farmers resent being blindsided in this way.

My father wasn't a protester. He was a good, hardworking sheep-wheat farmer. He didn't like meetings. He once gave me the advice: 'Don't get on too many committees, because you'll have to turn up to too many meetings.' I really listened to him in that regard, didn't I! I like to think that I do my bit for farmers by being a political representative. But my father did turn up to the big rally outside this place when Bob Hawke was the Prime Minister, and Bob Hawke actually listened. He didn't do what the farmers wanted, but he actually listened. That is what a good government and a good prime minister do.

I hope that Labor starts to listen instead of just bringing in these flawed policies and this ill-conceived legislation at a time of a cost-of-living crisis, when people are already paying way too much at the supermarket checkout, when people are hurting, when food banks are getting people who would never have presented before, never have gone to Salvos or St Vinnies, turning up to get food hampers because they can't afford it.

What are we going to do? We're going to slug our farmers unfairly. We're going to cripple them with even more taxes that they can ill afford and can't pay. For what outcome? Nothing! It's a typical Labor policy which does nothing to help our good country folk, those people who don't mind getting dirt under their fingernails to grow the food and fibre that prop this nation up, that help support, feed and clothe this nation and many more nations besides. I say to Labor members: get off your backsides, get out into your regional communities, start listening to the farmers, start listening to the people who make a difference in this country.

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

Might I say to the member for Riverina, 'Hear, hear!' This is a terrible policy being put forward by the Labor government. Despite its rhetoric, it's pretty clear that the current government has a pretty low regard for people in agriculture. I'm going to take you through a bit of list that I've compiled, Mr Deputy Speaker Wilkie.

Let me start with the abolition of the live sheep trade. Then there are the vehicle emissions standards, which are being spoken about in this place even today, which will add thousands of dollars to vehicles that farmers rely on. There's the recommencement of the indiscriminate water buybacks in the Murray-Darling Basin. Only a couple of months ago, I led the coalition agricultural policy committee up through the Murray-Darling Basin, and we went into communities and talked to them about what these indiscriminate water buybacks will mean. There's the closing of the fully sustainable Gulf of Carpentaria gillnet fishing industry, supposedly to protect the Great Barrier Reef, which is thousands of kilometres away. There's the building of transmission lines and renewable energy parks through high-value farming lands.

There's the abolition of the ag visa program, the reduction in the instant tax write-off for capital purchases and the abolition of the Native Title Respondents Funding Scheme, which was established to ensure that landholders would have equal representation when claims were made against their property. This is a very important policy that was put in place and a very important funding instrument to actually protect farmers, to give them the same kind of standing when they go into court and some native title group says, 'We're going to take our land off you,' or says that it will take their access to it or stop them doing something on their land.

There's the commitment to expand Australia's parks and reserves from 20 per cent to 30 per cent. I think a lot of people let this one slip past them at the last election. That's a 50 per cent increase, going from 20 per cent to 30 per cent. It is enormous. I know where the land's not going to come from. It's not going to come out of the electorate of Clark, I can assure you, Mr Deputy Speaker Wilkie. It'll be coming out of the farmlands and rangelands of Australia—that extra lock-up of land.

Then there's the commitment to strengthen the native heritage acts around Australia. There was the commitment to strengthen the native heritage acts around Australia—remember the debacle in Western Australia? There was the allowing of big emitters to buy up agricultural land to set aside and use to offset emissions in order to comply with the government's safeguard mechanism. I've barely started. I could keep adding topics: increasing fuel taxes, the lack of spending on infrastructure, reams of regulation, moves to make the labour market less flexible and stamp duties on GST and insurance. It goes on and on.

And here we are today, debating yet another attack on the ag sector: imposing a biosecurity levy on farmers to inspect imports brought into Australia by our competitors. This is for foreign food imports and even for non-agricultural businesses, with goods as diverse as televisions, washing machines and electronic games—anything at all. I am just dumbfounded. What a concept! We're actually going to charge farmers a levy to inspect television boxes coming into Australia. It is completely absurd. It's like a protection racket. I know I'm not very good at a Brooklyn accent, but just imagine this: 'It's funny how things burn, sonny! You're going to hand over the cash and I can stop the fires.' That's what this government is saying, 'Farmers, you hand over the cash and we won't let the beasties onto your properties.' It's just absolutely absurd. It's actually penalising the potential victim of a crime. Farmers are the victims of biosecurity breaches; they aren't the perpetrators.

Australian exporters, including agricultural exporters, pay the cost of biosecurity in the markets which their goods need access to. They pay for biosecurity checks in foreign ports in other countries. How can they be responsible here? How can we, as farmers, be responsible when importers are bringing things into our country? We need more resources for the biosecurity challenge in Australia, and I'm not arguing about that. There's a plethora of exotic pests, weeds and diseases which threaten our agricultural production. Top of the list would be foot-and-mouth disease, but the list of threats is almost endless. There are plant rusts, smuts, blotches, blots, viruses like swine fever, and encephalopathy—I knew I'd struggle with that one! There are bird, horse and cat flus and there are weeds from all over the world, all looking for a fertile place to put down their roots in Australia. There are bat viruses and mosquito-borne diseases, and I haven't even scratched the surface. Absolutely, we need good biosecurity. But it isn't farmers who are the actual threat here; it's the importers who run the risk of bringing those things in.

The agriculture sector is worth more than $100 billion a year, and it's about 12 per cent of gross domestic product, from the paddock to the market. I might suggest that if farmers are to pay this, well, it will be the Treasurer—government tax receipts—that will miss out in the long run because it'll drive people out of farming. If we drive people out of farming and keep driving the costs up then they will pay less tax.

So there's no argument: we need good—we even need better—biosecurity. But let's charge the sinner and not the victim. Let's charge the importer of the washing machines, the fridges, the honey, the toys, the pharmaceuticals, the cheese, the processed meat, the potatoes or whatever it is. Surely it's the importer's job to make sure that their container is clean, weed free and disease free. If you import a foodstuff—let's say it's truffles or cheese—the importer is absolutely responsible for the contents of the jar. Why then would they not be responsible for the container in which the jar is packed at the point of dispatch? They're responsible for what's in the jar, and they pack their jars inside the containers, so why aren't they responsible for those containers? It seems that the farmers here in Australia are responsible for those containers. It is just an absurd correlation and does not make any sense.

The government hasn't even shared any detail on how this tax collection would work. It's much like their concept of the Voice, Mr Deputy Speaker—I'm sure you recall that well. Basically it's just, 'Let's vote for it, let's get it into place and then trust us.' That's the last call of the most corrupt businessman in town, isn't it? 'Just trust me and it'll all be alright.'

My information is that the biosecurity protection levy will be calculated by the proportion of the nation's GDP that an industry is responsible for, with the gross value of the production average over a three-year period levied at a rate that is not specified—wow! What on earth does that mean? I haven't got a PhD, but I can't work out what that means, and I'm doubtful that too many people could. It is just complete babble. It sounds like it was invented in Canberra!

It is clear the government have no idea what it means either. And who determines what proportion? Who polices the average? Or who sets the levy? Presumably, it's an already existing levy on an industry which may or may not exist. And at what rate will it be in order to meet the budget objectives of the government? I used to be a farmer—I still own a farm—and we would say that is as clear as mud in the bottom of the dam. You've got no idea what's going on here. It's been roundly opposed by farmers, producers, industry groups and stakeholders, including the National Farmers Federation and their state equivalents. The member for Riverina just listed a number of grower organisations that are opposed to this proposal.

A tax on farmers eventually becomes a tax on fresh food. The cost, we presume—and the government even suggests so—will be passed on to the consumer, even though, as we're finding now with the ACCC and Senate inquiries into supermarkets, farmers often struggle to pass on their costs and are instead expected to absorb them. We've known forever that farmers are price takers, not price setters, in the market, so they can't really pass those costs on easily. Farmers are expected to absorb those increased costs. How do they do that? By increasing efficiency to meet the financial challenge. Given the enormous advances in computing power, electronic monitoring and remote surveillance, it's a pity that government departments don't seem to be able to do the same and meet the same criteria of improving efficiency. I would have thought there are myriad tools available for biosecurity at the moment that weren't available, say, 20 years ago. But instead it seems to require more and more money all the time. The fact that it requires that means we should be questioning the measures. And the money shouldn't be coming out of the farmers' pockets.

There has been little, in fact pretty much no, consultation with the industry. There's been no modelling on the impact and certainly no consideration of the range of pressures coming from other sources. At the beginning of this speech I detailed what those other sources are, and I gave a whole list of attacks on agriculture and the accumulated impacts across the board of these attacks on agriculture. What is the government thinking? Why attack farmers? How on earth will it work?

The opposition has made a clear decision. We will scrap the levy if it should get through the parliament. We will scrap the levy and replace it with an incoming levy on containers. Costs will be met by the importers and rightly passed along to the terminal purchaser. The last person in the chain, the one that actually wants that bottle of truffles, should be the one paying the biosecurity levy. That's as it should be. It's simple, transparent—the user pays—and perfect. That's what the coalition will do, should we get into government.

In the ALP's defence, I don't actually think they hate farmers, even though I've got to give myself a good talking to every couple of days. I don't think they do, but I do think they think that farmers' interests are totally expendable and totally tradable. If the government are under pressure from the Left, from the inner-city Greens—they know they are; just look at the recent Brisbane council elections—they've got to give a bit of ground, and they're thinking: 'The farmers have plenty of money. They're always complaining. They own big properties worth millions of dollars, and we'll just kick them. That'll be alright. They don't vote for us anyhow.' I don't think they hate farmers. I think they actually understand that we do have to have a farming sector, but they don't think that any of these blows will actually make any difference. I listed at least 10 things at the beginning of this speech. The accumulated impacts do make a difference, and it's getting tougher and tougher to be a farmer.

I'll get on to a little bit more about that in a moment if I've got time, but I'll move on to Western Australia. I've just come back from there, and the live-sheep export ban is totally demoralising the industry there and driving people out of livestock. In some of these areas, if you're not in livestock you probably won't be in farming long. That's the simple fact of it.

The black clouds over the WA sheep industry at the moment are incredible. I could not believe the amount of anguish. We held seven different forums over there, and one in Adelaide, in South Australia. The impact of the looming ban in Western Australia is driving people out of sheep. Over 25,000 sheep a week are coming over the border into South Australia at the moment, and our market is running at about 30 per cent of what it was a couple of years ago. We heard from a small grower in Adelaide, and she said: 'I have a thousand ewes. The income from my turn-off two years ago was $144,000, and this year it's $44,000.'

South Australia is not even in the eye of the storm. In Western Australia, in Katanning, 200 sheep didn't get a bid or an offer on the day they were there, but the farmer certainly got a freight bill for them. They'll have to freight them back home again and perhaps put them in paddocks.

Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. They were destroyed.

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

There we go—they were destroyed. It only cost a bullet. They had to transport them one way; then they had to dig a hole for them and pay for a bullet. It's pretty tough. The government just thinks: 'We can make these decisions. It'll make somebody in the middle of Melbourne happy, and the farmers will be right. What the hell! They've been complaining since Adam was a lad. It'll all be okay.' It won't be okay. You can't just keep pushing it and pushing it and thinking it's all going to be okay in the end.

What these widespread attacks on agriculture—random attacks on agriculture, if you like—and this live sheep trade dispute have done is to draw a line in the sand. It has actually brought some farming organisations out to say: 'We're going to fight on this one. This is it. If we don't have a moment where we all come together and say, "No more," we are going to go under.' The farming organisations have come together in Western Australia. They've launched an appeal to raise $6 million to fight for the five marginal seats in Western Australia, to bring them back. I don't even know that they'll bring them back. They're going to argue for a coalition member to sit in them. Perhaps they'll be voting for an Independent, Deputy Speaker Wilkie, but what they will do is to spread the message: 'Keep me farming. Put Labor last.' That's the message we need to get out there, and we'll do it. If we can get farmers motivated, they will do it right across Australia on the issues that are hurting them in their own constituencies.

This is a bad bill and it should be condemned.

Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We know that the Australian agricultural industry is a $100-billion-a-year industry, which equates to about 12 per cent of GDP. The farmers have done this, and they've continued to get out there before the sun comes up every morning, even under the extremely difficult circumstances of the past two years. We've seen electricity prices go up 20 per cent, gas prices go up 27 per cent and fuel prices go through the roof, and the farmers have continued to get out there. We know that they put the food on the table and the fibre on our backs in Australia, and they are recognised worldwide as best-practice farmers. In my electorate alone, I have horticulture—bananas, blueberries and strawberries. There's the seafood industry and the oyster industry, the beef farmers and the corn growers. I could go on. They're out there contributing to Australia's economy and contributing to our regional areas. These are things that people in the metropolitan areas would never dream of. To them, the food simply appears, miraculously, on the supermarket shelves.

What does the Labor government do to thank our Australian farmers for the $100 billion industry and the 12 per cent of GDP, for getting out of bed before sparrow's fart? It puts another tax on them, through the agricultural biosecurity protection levy. It's a tax.

In what parallel universe does the Labor government think that the pub test would be passed where our farmers are paying a levy for biosecurity—which is very important, and I'll talk about that shortly—for things that are being sent from overseas to our country? That doesn't pass the pub test. If you go to any other country—and we export to all these other countries—who pays for that levy? We do. And we should. But the fact is that those countries and those exporters should be paying for the biosecurity levy for things that come into this country. Whether that's a washing machine, a grape or a bottle of olives from Italy, they should bear the cost for their own either reckless or bad biosecurity practices in their country. Why on earth would you punish an Australian farmer for their practices? It does not make sense.

I do not want to see one Labor member stand up in this House and say how good Australian farmers are. If they are supporting this bill, the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024, they should hang their heads in shame, because they are punishing our farmers, who are doing it tough already. They are doing it tough with the cost of living and the prices of fuel, electricity and gas, not to mention all the other bad policies that Labor have imposed in the last two years. Biosecurity is important, and we have the best practices here. Our farmers already contribute to biosecurity protection. There are already taxes and tariffs on our farmers. But the Labor government in their wisdom decided to give them another one: 'We'll just tap that farming community.'

What they will do is push our farmers off the cliff. And then what are we going to do? We're going to import our produce from overseas. Farmers are going to walk off the land. They've already started walking off the land. It is getting tougher and tougher, yet there is no recognition for our farmers. They get a slap in the face with this bill, which will make them pay for other countries' bad practices. That's exactly what it is. But don't ask me; ask the people in the industry. I'll give you a few quotes from them.

I'll start with the National Farmers' Federation, who represent all the major agricultural commodities and jurisdictions. In their submission, they cite the following issues with the BPL tax:

Its inconsistency with established levy imposition and collection principles; Its inconsistency with the agreed principles of the National Biosecurity Strategy; The likelihood of a range of negative unintended consequences for agricultural and biosecurity systems …

…   …   …

The lack of recognition of existing producer contributions to the biosecurity system …

Labor is double dipping here. They're double dipping on our farmers, and they're hurting our farmers. They should be approaching those countries who are, with the benefit of increasing their GDP, exporting to our country to pay this levy.

You could ask Grain Producers Australia. They were in the House today. Funnily enough, there was no mention of this levy by the government in question time. Surprise, surprise! They know it's bad policy. It's a bad bill. Grain Producers Australia, who act for 21,000 levy-paying members, say that, without a cost-benefit analysis and without any consultation or a strategy, this is just a money grab—that's 100 per cent; you are spot on—this is just a money grab:

Tax the Importers before introducing a new tax on grain growers. Stop flogging the farmers who take all the risks and already pay levies. Fuel, chemical and fertiliser costs have risen sharply since covid. No more expenses can be tolerated.

If you're not a farmer and you're listening to this and you're thinking, 'Well, this isn't really going to affect me,' think again. Our farmers cannot, and should not, absorb these costs. If this tax doesn't push them off the cliff, then those costs will be passed on to you and your family sitting at home. Think about how much more you had to pay 18 months to two years ago. For me, I do the shopping. I actually enjoy going to Coles and doing the shopping and doing the cooking. I know that my grocery bill has increased by 30 per cent per week. Are you prepared to absorb the increase from this tax? If you're not, get in contact with one of the Labor members. Email the Labor members and say: 'Why are you beating up on our farmers? Why are you contributing to the cost-of-living pressures that we are facing right now?' Because that is exactly what this will do to you, so you should take an interest. If you're not a farmer, you should take an interest in what this Labor government is wanting to do to our farmers who feed you and put food on the table and fibre on your back.

I digress. AUSVEG also highlighted the exact same concerns, going so far as to say that, while biosecurity is everybody's responsibility, unfortunately, the BPL—this tax—is passing this tax burden to growers who already contribute to the biosecurity protection through their levies and as one of the beneficiaries of the biosecurity system. It is incredibly disappointing that one of the most significant risk creators, the container trade, has not been brought under the fold of the levy.

The Red Meat Advisory Council, which represent the interests of 76,000 businesses, said that it reaffirms its support for an adequate, resourced and sustainable biosecurity funding model and acknowledges the Commonwealth funding for biosecurity outlined in the 2023-24 budget but remains deeply concerned with the proposed biosecurity protection levy and recommends the existing and projected biosecurity funding shortfall be primarily covered by a long-term bipartisan commitment for increased budget appropriation and/or be covered by risk creators. Risk creators are those countries sending their goods here. They need to lift their game. They need to make sure their biosecurity measures are as good as ours. And we need to ensure that our farmers don't get slugged with another tax.

This does not pass the pub test. I have called various people, various farmers, whether they be banana growers or in the fishing industry, and they're gobsmacked. They cannot believe that this government would punish them. That is what it is. It's a punishment on them for farming. We don't see this in any other industry. It's a punishment on them for farming, and yet they are the ones who abide by the highest biosecurity protocols in the world. We have the best biosecurity protocols in the world—they're best practice—and yet the government continues to punish our farmers by making life more difficult and more expensive.

The member for Riverina is so correct: it is unfair. The government is happy to take the money in the coffers from the work that our farmers do and then, on the other side, punish them for the work that they do. It makes absolutely no sense, and we will overturn this. We will change it once we get back into government. I urge all the farmers to get out there leading up to the next election and let everybody know what this government has done to them. But I would expect most people, whether farmers or not, would know what this government has done to them, because they are hurting. We will overturn this because it is unfair. Those people who create the risk should be paying for the levy. We will change that.

I will finish by referring to a direct quote from the president of the National Farmers Federation where he said just a couple of weeks ago:

We're shocked to say the least that they'd ignore the unanimous voices of farmers, importers and policy experts. If they aren't listening to this broad church of voices who are they listening to?

The answer is: no-one.

Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak on and strongly oppose the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024. I want to begin by acknowledging my coalition colleagues who are here to support me. We support each other and we certainly support our communities. The members for Riverina and Casey are from great agricultural electorates and areas that produce tremendous produce.

I also want to acknowledge the presence here in the chamber tonight of Mr Colin Bettles, the CEO of Grain Producers Australia. The reason why Mr Bettles is an important player in this game is that he represents much of the Australian grain industry.

In my electorate of O'Connor we produce about 70 per cent of the Western Australian grain crop. In 2023, that crop fell to about 13 million tonnes. The previous year it was 23 million tonnes. So we produce a very large part of the Western Australian and Australian grain crop, but my electorate of O'Connor also produces a lot of other wonderful produce. I will come to that later.

This legislation is some of the most egregious I have seen come forward in this parliament in terms of the process being proposed and the impact it will have on my community. Firstly, the notion that the farmers should pay this biosecurity levy, not the creators of the risk—that is, the people who are importing product into this country—is extraordinary. There is a view, I think, amongst the government members that, because Australia has such a good track record with biosecurity—and we are one of the cleanest and greenest countries in the world—the farmers are the ones that benefit from that. Yes, they do, but let me tell you, as a farmer: if, for example, a strain of rust comes in and I can no longer grow a particular plant, then I will grow a different plant. But the person who will suffer is the consumer, who will pay more for that particular product. This notion that farmers should pay so that we continue to produce the cleanest, greenest and, for many, the most cost-competitive agricultural products in the world is an absolute nonsense.

The coalition policy, quite rightly, is that the creators of the risk—the importers, the people who bring in product in containers—are the people who should pay for biosecurity to continue to protect our country from many of the exotic diseases that we currently don't have. I completely support that policy. Hopefully, when we return to government in a little over 12 months time we will be able to implement that policy and, if this very egregious legislation passes, put it to rights.

I came up earlier to listen to the member for Ryan from the Greens party. She seemed to indicate that the Greens are not going to support this legislation in the Senate, which is very interesting given that the Labor Party and the Greens are usually in lock step on many of these issues. But even the Greens can see what a terrible piece of legislation this is. The member for Ryan certainly indicated that the Greens were supporting the container import levy, and that shows an unusual degree of common sense from them.

As I said earlier, my electorate covers an enormous area of the Wheatbelt, but it also has some of the best horticultural country in Australia. Within that, in the Southern Forests, in the Manjimup area, there is a little piece of paradise called Channybearup, which is in amongst the karri forests, with rainfall of about 1,000 millimetres. In amongst the 300-foot karri trees, there is some of the most amazing horticulture country that you will see—possibly anywhere in the world, and certainly in Australia. I have received a letter from the owners of Moonlight Forest Avocados, Eugene and Gail Henningheim. I'm going to read from their letter about what the impact of this may be on their family business. Eugene and Gail say:

The policy—which will impact on us and our business and nearly all of Australia's 80,000 producers and thousands of supply chain participants—will come into force … on 1 July 2024.

Let's hope that doesn't happen. They continue:

The Australian avocado industry—

which is a very successful and strong industry in that Manjimup-Southern Forests region—

has already invested millions in Australia's biosecurity system and is committed to future funding through biosecurity response plans. This is true of all Australia's producers who already contribute significant amounts to biosecurity activities and pest and disease management, through their existing levies systems, on-farm activities, investments in traceability systems and contributions to state and regional landholder agencies. The Federal Government needs to stop, recognise and quantify this existing financial support BEFORE it puts a new levy/tax burden on farmers.

That is an extremely sensible and pertinent comment to make. They go on to say:

The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry was said to say that the Biosecurity Protection Levy was to fund border security, this is the responsibility of the Federal Government NOT FARMERS. Risk creators, such as importers, who instigate the introduction of foreign materials into our country are also key stakeholders who should contribute to Australia's border security and the biosecurity system.

Eugene and Gail go on to say:

We, like our fellow farmers, remain disappointed that the proposed Importer Container Levy has not been implemented by the Government. The agricultural and environmental sectors have both supported a broad-based charge on risk creators, importers. The reasons why the Importer Container Levy is not being implemented should be made clear.

It is important to note that representatives of major importers, including the Freight and Trade Alliance (FTA) and Australian Peak Shippers Association (APSA), are publicly advocating their willingness to absorb the 'complex proposed levy against producers.' These organisations are just the latest in a chorus of parties concerned about the complexity of the proposed levy and calling for an alternative approach.

Those are some very, very sensible comments and contributions from Eugene and Gail Henningheim of Manjimup.

The legislation that has been put forward doesn't actually specify how the levy is going to be collected or what the mechanism is. This is extraordinary. As previous speakers have mentioned, it's kind of reminiscent of the Voice debate, where the government said: 'We're not going to give you any detail. Just trust us once the legislation is through.' I don't think anybody in this place should be voting for and supporting legislation which doesn't actually specify how this tax is going to be collected. It would be an extraordinary precedent that the parliament would pass a piece of legislation that allows for the collection of a tax without having specified the mechanism for how that tax would be collected.

There are many other speakers on this particular issue, and I'm looking forward to the contribution from the member for Casey. Tonight I simply wanted to get on the record the concerns of my grain producers, as represented here by the CEO of Grain Producers Australia and also by a very heartfelt, very well researched, and well put-together contribution from some avocado growers in the most beautiful part of the most beautiful electorate in Australia.

Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I want to commend the member for O'Connor not just for his words and his tireless advocacy for his community but also for his work as the deputy chair of the agriculture committee. I'm lucky enough to serve with the member for O'Connor on that committee, making sure that we're a voice for agriculture. Last year, we completed an inquiry into food security. Unfortunately, while it was a bipartisan committee report, the government clearly didn't take the time to look at the report, because what it showed is that Australian farmers are struggling and they're under pressure. The member for O'Connor, I and anyone in the farming industry knows that. They are under significant pressure at the moment, and clearly this government didn't take the time to read that report and understand the pressure they're under.

We need to understand that, if we can't feed ourselves as a nation, what are we as a nation? If we can't feed ourselves, what are we? Let's not muck around and beat around the bush. Australian farmers are doing it as hard as they have ever done it. The pressures coming at them from the left, right and centre are harder than ever. The Prime Minister can stand up and do a little bit of a showpiece about the ACCC and about the Coles and Woolworths duopoly—and there's no doubt that that's putting pressure on farmers across the country—but let's be serious and realistic. The constraints on inputs and the pressures on them is crucifying them as well.

I'm proud to represent the community of Casey, which has a strong history in agriculture. My family made their way in this country when they came in 1952 from Italy and started a farm in Silvan in my electorate. I know the member for O'Connor was a farmer. The member for Riverina is a great journalist, but I'm not sure—

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Came from a farm.

Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Came from a farm! I'm happy to admit that I didn't work on the farm much, but I got out there on school holidays to wrap the strawberries, back when we did it manually, and I still remember burning myself. But I do say with all sincerity that, while I do not have the hands of a farmer, I've got the heart of a farmer because I've spent my life watching my uncle, my cousins and my family struggle with some of the challenges in farming. We wouldn't be here today without farming and without agriculture. I wouldn't be making this speech today without farming and without agriculture.

There are many great lessons I learned from my Uncle Sam, but there are a couple in particular that stay with me when we're talking about levies. He was the president of the Victorian Strawberry Growers Association and president of the national strawberry growers association for decades. When I got into this role, he went, 'Never forget that those levies are not government money; they're farmers' money. Never forget that it's farmers' money when you talk about those levies.' That's something I'll never forget.

I also remember Christmas Day 2011, when his crop was destroyed by hail. The strawberries were wiped out. Our community was destroyed by that hail. He sat down and ate his Christmas lunch while my cousins were a little bit stressed, and he said, 'Well, what are you going to do? That's farming. We can't control the weather.' But that's why bills like these are so abhorrent. Farmers can't control the weather. They can't control if their crop gets destroyed by hail or by flooding or by any other disaster. But we can control the inputs and the impost that we put on farmers. This is putting an unacceptable impost on farmers.

We all know the importance of biosecurity for our country and for agriculture. There were many lessons learned through the last few years, and biosecurity importance was one of those. But let's understand the ridiculousness of what the government is asking: it is asking farmers to pay money—to incur a cost—to support their competitors. This government is asking Australian farmers to pay more money, at a time when the costs of growing their produce are as high as they have ever been, to bring more competition into the country and bring their sales down. It makes no sense at all. As one small example, I was talking to a strawberry farmer in my community about two weeks ago. The labour costs on his produce are 60 per cent, before he can think of anything else, and this government wants to add another charge to that. But, to make it even more ridiculous, this levy is not going to be charged on profits; it's going to be charged on revenue, which shows no understanding of the cost base, the profits or the loss that farmers go through.

There are close to 100 strawberry farms within Victoria. However, the majority of the farms, 75 per cent, are located within my community of the Yarra Valley. I want to add my comments to those of many other speakers who are representing, and have given quotes from, industry today—because it is clear this government has ignored industry. I'm going to read a few quotes from Berries Australia. They described it as 'unfair' and a 'poorly conceived levy'. They said, 'The so-called biosecurity protection levy should be called out for what it is: a tax on farmers.'

Berries Australia Executive Director Rachel Mackenzie said: 'Berries Australia, along with more than 90 other industry associations, provided submissions vigorously opposing the levy and the proposed mechanism to base contributions on the existing levy system. Not a single submission supported the proposal, but the government is going ahead regardless.' She continued, saying: 'They are now basing the contributions on industry GVP, which disproportionately impacts horticulture, as our crops are high value but also high cost. Very rough initial figures put the contribution of strawberries and blueberries at the $300,000 a year mark and the rubus industry at $150,000 per year.' Continuing, she said: 'Taxing on turnover, not profit, is ridiculous. Once again, there was no consultation, just a knee-jerk reaction.'

It's clear that this government does not understand farming and agriculture. Wanting to add additional costs at a time when Australians can least afford it just shows how out of touch the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the government are, and how they make the wrong decisions for the Australian people. Let's play out what will happen for farmers in my community at a time when 60 per cent of their costs are for labour; their energy prices are going through the roof; their fuel prices are going through the roof; the price of plastic punnets for berries, as an example, is going through the roof; every input is going up; and they are under pressure from Woolworths and Coles and other supermarkets to bring prices down in the shops.

Logically, a couple of things have to happen. To be sustainable and absorb this levy, the cost needs to be passed on to the consumer; the consumer has to pay more. If the consumer doesn't pay more to absorb this cost, the farmer has to absorb it. That makes many of their crops unprofitable, putting their livelihoods at risk. It's an accumulation of hit after hit to our agriculture communities. They need to be profitable when there's a good yield to cover them for when there's a bad yield or a significant weather event, like hail. They need some buffer to survive. This is not packaged goods; it is not a set-and-forget. This is the problem that we face.

Our industry is under pressure. We need to be honest: our industry is ageing. In my community, many older farmers are retiring and their children are not taking over. That's really sad, but the children are thinking, 'Why would I get in when we're getting hit after hit and the government is continuing to take us for granted?' We need to find better ways. The fact that this government wants to tax farmers, not the importers, who are the risk creators, is outrageous. In no other country would this happen. It again shows that this government is out of touch.

This bill also lacks detail, like many of the government's bills. We don't know how the levy will be collected. We don't know who the affected producers will be. This is the standard formula for this government: 'We'll work it out after we pass the bill.' That's not acceptable for our farmers and for our community. It is another example of the Albanese Labor government making life harder for the Australian people, making it harder to put food on the table for farmers and for the Australian community. It is disappointing that this government is refusing to listen to industry. We have to sit in question time and hear the charade of this government talking about consultation. They haven't consulted with industry, as we've heard from the many examples from speakers on this side. It is disappointing and it is a shame that this government continues to make bad decisions that impact the Australian people.

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank you, Deputy Speaker Wilkie, and acknowledge your high office in the Speaker's chair. I will firstly give an overview of my electorate, situated in Queensland, in which the largest contributor to GDP is agriculture. Beef production is No. 2 and horticulture is No. 1. All of my growers—my horticulturalists and my graziers—are captured by this. I look around this Chamber, to my coalition colleagues to my left and my right, and I see how instrumental agriculture is to both of the members in this House. The reason why they're in this Chamber is not to have the argument, not to just participate in the debate, but to genuinely encourage this government to reconsider a very poorly constructed piece of legislation, the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024. It's poorly constructed for a number of reasons. This afternoon I had the great privilege of spending some quality time with two growers from my region, who are in the parliament today for another function being hosted in Parliament House. Both of them, without prompting, raised this piece of legislation as a catastrophic concern for them moving forward.

In a nutshell, what it looks like is that this is a levy. The two gentlemen that I spoke with that were here this afternoon are significant growers. They grow for our big retailers, and they're participating in the Senate inquiry. But they're also exporters. What they were able to very loosely articulate to me was that, when they compete in the international market and export their product in shipping containers or by airfreight, depending on the shelf life of the product they're sending, they pay for the biosecurity risk that goes into that country. That is part of the receiving country's risk profile. That's part of their business model. They're happy to participate in it. But this piece of biosecurity legislation is obscene. When competitors from other countries send their shipping containers into our market here in Australia, this is what they are being asked to do. When we send stuff out, we have to pay our biosecurity costs to other nations. But this piece of legislation is asking that, when competitors send their product to Australia, our growers have to pay it with no benefit. We're being asked to pay for the biosecurity risk at $150 million over three years, estimated to be $50 million a year. It's uncertain at this stage where that cost is going to be generated from, and I'll get to that later on in this speech.

To give you an overview, this is the obscenity of this piece of legislation. When we trade internationally, we pay our biosecurity costs for the countries we export to, and we own it. But we do not want to be paying the biosecurity risk for the very product that will sit on our domestic shelves and compete with our products when we don't have to do it in other jurisdictions. That is the fundamental flaw of this. When you drill down to it, the federal government has always supported a sustainable funding model for biosecurity. That's not our gripe. We will always back up and pay our fair share when it comes to biosecurity, because it is a very powerful tool that we weaponise in protectionist ways, particularly with bananas, which can be imported from other countries. It is a powerful tool. However, in contrast to Labor's approach, taxing farmers was never part of this mix. Can I say that we have to encourage the government to reconsider this cost and where the funds—the $150 million, which is 10 per cent levy—will be generated from. It is obscene that we would be asking this of our growers, who are already doing it tough enough with increased fuel prices.

I'll try to give you some statistics from the WA Grains Group situation report. I noticed earlier on that we had someone there in the gallery from this organisation. This was prepared in March 2024, so it's a very recent report—for your consideration, Mr Deputy Speaker. Their opening comment is that Australian grains production is already at crisis point, with cost pressures, uncertainty in government policy and direction, instability in global markets and the increasing costs emerging at the farm gate. This report goes on. I will pull some dot points out of this, and then I will speak to the AUSVEG report. In this report earlier today, I was able to find this. When it comes to profits for a farmer, these are some of the costs that they endure as a sector before the government can think up another tax to lay on top of them. The receival fees that they pay when they're exporting products are up 26 per cent. The source of this is the WA Grains Group situation report. The cost of freight to port, from paddock to port, is up 64 per cent just here in Australia—increased costs because we're going through an inflationary period. Freight to the silo is up 58 per cent. But it's not all doom and gloom. They're saying that, as a result of the Ukraine conflict, the price of grain has gone up due to global demand and supply. The farmgate value is up 50 per cent. That's so I'm being absolutely transparent and not just painting a political image of a holocaust. Levies are up 56 per cent, and the end point of royalties is up 21 per cent. Wages on farm and onboard ships across the sector are up 104 per cent. Fertiliser and soil inputs are up 125 per cent. Fuel and oil are up 99 per cent. Chemicals—pesticides and herbicides—are up 54 per cent. Repairs and maintenance are up 109 per cent. That would be mostly tied to labour force pressures. The cost of machinery and replacement is up 71 per cent.

You've got an industry outlining just how tough it is to compete in this sector, and you have a government with its eyes shut, running around the country, saying: 'Hey, we've got a great idea. We've thought of a whole new tax that you'll get no benefit from, that we can inflict on you'—the Australian farming sector—'and let's make it an arbitrary 10 per cent.'

This is one of the few things I have seen in this place that has overwhelmingly united the agricultural sector, which can be mercurial and fragmented in its approach. But this piece of legislation has united all of them—the National Farmers Federation, peak bodies from the states, AUSVEG. There is not one peak body out there which is supporting the government's position on this obscene tax. Why would we disadvantage our local growers and give a competitive advantage to those who are importing products into this country, in an environment which is already crippling?

In the AUSVEG document, the No. 1 point in their conclusion is this: 'No consultation was undertaken with key stakeholders before implementing this BPL.' That's obscene. How does a peak body put that as its first recommendation to a government that has this brain position? You've got a peak body saying, 'We weren't consulted.' Now, of course, the government have a right of reply and will put their position. This is the industry body. These are the state bodies of Western Australia. I cannot find anyone, whether it's the National Farmers Federation or any others, that is claiming that this tax is fair and equitable for Australian farmers. It's a disgrace and it's a sham. The last point in their recommendation is about 'a lack of transparency and appropriation of funds collected towards the industry biosecurity'—there's a lack of transparency. Not only are they saying that there was no consultation but they are saying that it just doesn't make sense. This tax does not make sense.

I do not intend to delay the House any longer. I think I have articulated well enough that this is a tax that is not deserved by a primary industry sector that serves our nation professionally, with integrity, and adopts new technologies in a very sophisticated way to give them global competitiveness. This is an industry that deserves the support of government. This is not an industry that deserves to be treated like this by a government that hasn't consulted. I cannot fathom why the government that sits opposite me today would design a tax to advance an international competitor coming into our market when the same position for us when exporting commodities into other markets is a cost that we bear internally. It's a disgrace.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of the amendment by the Leader of the Nationals, the member for Maranoa, David Littleproud. The amendment is one that effectively speaks against the bill, and that is what I am doing. I'm speaking against the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024. I am doing this is because it is a fundamentally flawed bill. It is an unfair bill. It will not promote agriculture. It will not help our agricultural sector, which is what any biodiversity regulation should be doing. This will actually hold them back. It is unfair.

Once again, history shows that the greatest threat to agriculture in this country is not drought, rain, flood, plagues of insects or even disease and biosecurity risks. The greatest threat to agriculture in this country is the Australian Labor Party. They take to agriculture every time they get into government. They treat the sector like they are some sort of cash cow, and ultimately they implement policies that hurt them. We only have to think about the 2011 cessation of live exports to Indonesia to have the perfect example of how they came in and, after one Four Corners episode, shut down an industry, destroyed lives and destroyed businesses. It took years to get over. Not only did it take years to get over but it was ultimately found to be illegal. It was unlawful. They had to pay massive amounts of compensation, and I think that's still ongoing. It speaks to the attitude of the Australian Labor Party when it comes to agriculture: they do not care.

This bill seeks to introduce a tax of $153 million on fresh food over the next three years. That's $153 million! It's tax via a levy that will be placed on farmers and primary producers. These are people we know in our communities. In my community, I think about the pineapple producers around Maryborough and the cane producers. We have avocado producers, macadamia producers and bean producers, and we have wine producers in the west. They will all be subject to this outrageous Labor tax. The reality of it is that they can't afford to bear that cost. That fee or levy has to be passed on, and it will be passed on. It will be passed on to the consumer at a time when the consumer can't afford any further increases in their daily expenses. The cost of food under the Albanese government has already gone up by nine per cent, and they are going to introduce this ridiculous tax on fresh food and agriculture.

The madness of this tax is not only that it's imposed during a cost-of-living crisis, when our primary producers are doing it tough; it's a tax that's actually paying the bills of their competitors. Our producers, who are competing with importers in the domestic market, are paying a levy so that international producers can import their goods to Australia. The biosecurity measures that are required for that are paid by our Australian farmers. It makes no sense at all. We have 85,000 farmers in this nation and that's 85,000 people that this government has just turned its back on.

When we went to the election it was pretty clear that Labor had a platform which said it would be easier and cheaper under them—that the cost of living would be less and electricity costs would be lower. The price of electricity was going to be $275 lower—that was said 96 times by the Prime Minister, but he hasn't said it once since the election. They had all these promises. Imagine if the platform they had before the election actually said what they were really going to do? 'We're going to come in and introduce a whole range of new taxes. One of them is on fresh food. We're going to manipulate the tax cuts that we said you'd have so that a whole big cohort of Australians will pay more tax. Electricity? Well, it's actually going to go up by about 30 per cent.' I don't think they would have had the same result that they had back in 2022 if they had been honest. But I'm not allowed to say that they're not telling the truth on purpose, and I won't.

This bill is just another attack on honest Australian primary producers. There hasn't been any consultation around this bill. Peak groups have said that they weren't consulted; in what consultation there was, those peak bodies gave the absolutely firm message that this shouldn't be done. And that firm message which peak bodies delivered to the government before they made this crazy decision was also backed up by independent reviews. The Productivity Commission and the Australian National University both came out saying that the policy was flawed, and yet the Australian Labor Party, in its ongoing war against agriculture, said: 'No, that doesn't matter. We'll just slap this tax on our farmers and it'll all be okay.'

The coalition agrees wholeheartedly that we need strong policies around biosecurity. That's a no-brainer. Everyone in the nation benefits from that. But it shouldn't just be on the farmers; primarily, it should be on the importers—those who are seeking to access our markets to take an advantage and make a profit out of that market with their goods. They should be the primary ones paying it. If there is an added expense, it shouldn't be directed at our farmers. The government is willing to subsidise every other thing. It's willing to subsidise these crazy renewable projects that are jacking up the price of electricity for everyone. They'll subsidise those but they won't subsidise a farm. They'll actually charge a farmer for something that they don't cause the cost of. It just makes no sense. This is a time when things are so competitive. Our international competitors, those people exporting to us in Australia, are getting subsidised by their own governments. The EU and America are subsidising their agriculture while we're charging our producers with a crazy levy like this.

So I stand with the Leader of the Nationals and the elements of his amendment to this mad legislation. This is un-Australian, and it once again proves that the greatest threat to agriculture in this country is not drought or flood; it is the Australian Labor Party.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand to confirm the federal coalition's opposition to Labor's biosecurity protection levy. Let's call it for what it is. It's a tax on fresh food. I've been sitting and listening to the debate, and I'm thinking to myself, 'In what parallel universe do those opposite think that a tax should be imposed on the farmers of our country to pay for the risks associated with foreign farmers bringing their product onto our shores?' You have to be wrongheaded to come up with an idea like that. I called it a very unparliamentary term on ABC radio, and my staff said, 'You can't say that on radio,' and I said, 'Well, I just did.' The reality is that I can't repeat that phrase here, but it describes it perfectly. The best I can say here is that it's simply wrongheaded. And my colleague is right. Those opposite have come to this place with the intention, I'm sure, of bettering the lives of every Australian they represent. Sometimes I wonder whether I can maintain that view, but I still do. I just don't think they spend enough time in the regions to understand the impacts of something like this.

But it's not just this. I'll get more specific on the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024 and related bills in a minute. Before I do, let me agree with my colleagues. This is not the only attack that those opposite are perpetrating today or right now on the Australian agricultural sector. There are a multitude. In my own electorate, there is a plan to acquire gargantuan amounts of water entitlements from farmers, meaning that farmers will be pushed off the land and that fresh food will be more expensive. We'll get to the cost-of-living impacts of this decision. It seems that those opposite think you can remove water from productive irrigation systems and not impact those communities, nor will you drive the cost of food up. Well, you will.

There is, of course, the abomination of a decision impacting the sheepmeat industry, where live export will be phased out over a period we're told will be in this term of government. Having spent considerable time in the last fortnight in regional Western Australia talking to farmers impacted, I can assure the Federation Chamber that they regard that decision as an attack on farmers. And having spoken, even today, to producers in my own electorate about the price of sheepmeat in South Australia, many thousands of kilometres away from Western Australia, I can assure those opposite that my producers know why they're not getting paid a fair quid for their prime lamb, and it's because of a decision made in this place.

This is what drives farmers spare. We're happy to deal with commodity price fluctuations—that's farming. We're happy to deal with the vicissitudes of the weather—that's farming. We're happy to pour our hearts and souls into our properties and work every hour God made—that's farming. I'll tell you what we're not happy with. We're not happy when decisions made by people who should be acting in the national interest cause that harm, and that's exactly what we have here. We're in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, which thankfully those opposite are now cognisant of—almost as if they've been mugged by reality, bearing in mind we spent a long period of time with their focus being on anything but the cost of living. Their focus was principally on an ill-fated attempt to alter meaninglessly the Australian Constitution. But, now that they've got their focus on the cost of living, surely they must understand that asking Australian farmers to pay a fresh food tax will do nothing but drive the cost of fresh food up. It stands to reason, doesn't it?

While I'm on the topic of the cost of living, it would be nice if their energy policy, industrial relations policy, transport policy and environmental policy did something to drive down the cost of living, but of course none of that is happening. In fact, you'd be forgiven, Mr Deputy Speaker, for thinking that their objective in many of these policies is quite the opposite—to deliberately drive up the cost of living. Otherwise why would you have an energy policy that is determined to drive the cost of electricity up? Why would you have an industrial relations policy which drives the cost of everything up?

While we're dealing with fresh food and horticultural products—although this fresh food tax in not limited to horticultural products—I can tell you that horticultural products use a disproportionate amount of labour. The impacts of an industrial relations policy fall sharply on the horticulture sector within agriculture more generally. Why would you have a transport policy that's putting the cost of freight up? Obviously, everything we grow or raise needs to be transported to market. We've also got environmental policies like the one I mentioned earlier, with water buybacks becoming a feature of the Murray-Darling Basin once again, after they were thankfully off the table under a coalition government, for nine years or so.

So it's little wonder that there has been widespread opposition to this proposal from the agricultural sector. Whilst that sector and everyone in it understands the importance of biosecurity, they also understand who poses the risk. In any measured consideration, the entity that creates the risk should be the entity that meets the costs of managing that risk. That's why our position couldn't be more different than the position adopted by those opposite.

When our leadership team got together and considered the need for greater investment in biosecurity, under the guise of the former government, we embarked upon a process that would bring about a container levy on the people who want to bring product into this country and, with it, the potential biosecurity risks that put Australia's agricultural sector—a sector that's growing strongly towards $100 billion by 2040, we hope—at risk. It should be those people who pay the levy that allows that risk to be managed.

The tacticians amongst those opposite thought, 'No, that's not the right approach.' I wonder if that's just how you transition from opposition into government. You just oppose everything and then, when you get there, you're stuck with that position of opposition. But the reality is that their decision was to slug Australian farmers in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis. I've got to repeat it, because most people in my electorate can't believe it. Having spent some time at the Lucindale field day on the weekend, I've got to tell you that, like we heard earlier from my colleagues, people were simply raising this policy unprompted. They were also raising the muddle-headed idea that you would ask regional Australians to pay more for their vehicles and subsidise EVs for people who are living in metropolitan centres. They were raising that disproportionately as well. Just a word to those opposite: they might want to be careful about both of those policies.

You'd think we'd have the detail by now. The problem is that the legislation has been introduced to the parliament but it lacks detail about the cost to farmers and how the levy will be collected. It also stipulates that the biosecurity protection levy can be set to nil in the case of some sectors, where the cost of collecting the levy exceeds the revenue raised from it. It sounds to me a lot like those opposite who are proposing this approach are a little confused, or at least uncertain, about how they may go about it. I'm sure that they've had some feedback from those that manage the collections—I've certainly had that feedback. It was clear that it would be shambolic. The plan now is to create a whole new collection mechanism.

The former prime minister Tony Abbott once described government to me as a massive ship. I was asking for relatively small change, and he said, 'Tony, what you need to understand about government is that it's a very big ship and it takes a very long time to turn around.' I've got to say that whoever has designed this has no idea of the cost of collecting a levy or a tax like this. We're talking about what are reasonable sums of money but which in the scheme of government—that very big ship—are relatively small sums. And we're talking about collecting it from literally tens of thousands of producers who produce tens of thousands of different products. My family produces prime lambs, but I represent people who grow citrus, avocado, watermelon, cattle, grain, wine grapes, forestry and fishing. How is it going to be structured? This is a levy, a fresh food tax, which I hasten to suggest will end up costing more money to collect than it delivers. We've been there before, of course; when those opposite last had the great privilege of being in government, they were going to raise a mining tax. People may remember that but, ultimately, it cost more money to levy it than it raised. I would have thought that those opposite would still be suffering from PTSD about that. But it seems that we're back right where we started.

The coalition strongly opposes this bill, and I support the Leader of the National Party's amendments. In my final contribution—and my apologies to the member who has attended—I'll say this: could those opposite please think about the farming sector? The continual attacks on them and the failure to support them has them exasperated right now. They feel like there's a very limited future for them. I'll use my wine-grape growers as an example. They're beyond anxious about where they find themselves. There's a three billion litre oversupply of red wine in this country, with a sales to stock ratio of 2.77. That means that if we don't pick another grape for the next two years we'll still have three-quarters of a year's supply for sales of red wine. That's not just domestic; it's total sales. These people are desperate, and they want to know they have a government that has their back. They cannot ask for help from the weather gods, although they do, and they deal with commodity price fluctuations borne of changing attitudes to products. They just want to know that the people who get the great privilege of getting into the Comcars and flying business class to Canberra stand up for them, govern in the national interest and have their interests at heart.

I've got to tell you that, for almost everything that emanates from this building courtesy of those opposite, people are left with a sense that nobody in Canberra cares. I can't even get the minister for agriculture to come to the Riverland and eyeball the very people he won't stand up and support. I can't even get him to come to a meeting. He said: 'Get them to come to Canberra. I can meet with them in Canberra.' These are people who are about to lose their farms and he says, 'Come to Canberra.' They feel desperate. Stop attacking them.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:3 0