Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I am talking about Tasmania and the impost of the carbon tax on every element of agriculture, fisheries and forestry. But that is not why I raised it, even though it is right on message. I raised it because I was wondering why you would believe anything the current Prime Minister says—anything at all. She has form. Didn't she promise the people of Australia that her party would not be part of any move to change the definition of marriage? And what have we been debating today in the chamber! So it is a matter of trust. What can you believe? Ask the farmers around Australia if they will ever believe any Labor promise in the future.

Tell me what the carbon tax will do to the cost of production for Australia's farmers, fishermen and foresters. Every element of their operational costs will increase, but there is no compensation for them, and they are all price takers. This is the thing the Labor Party do not understand, because none of them are involved in rural and regional industries at all. They do not understand. The sugar industry is a price taker. The sugar industry cannot say, 'We've got to pay more for our electricity and our fuel, so we'll add that onto our world market price,' because, when it went out into the world market, the world market would say: 'Bad luck, Australia! You get what we're paying everyone else. You know what the world market price is, and that's what you'll get. Don't try passing on to us a carbon tax that your stupid government put in place and which our governments would never countenance,' because other governments know that the introduction of a carbon tax just makes their primary producers even less competitive.

Tasmania has five Labor members who have done nothing to protect not only the forestry industry but the fishing and agricultural industries as well. In comparison, have a look at the knowledge of and commitment to agriculture, forestry and fisheries on this side of the chamber. There are farmers like Senator Heffernan, Senator Williams and Senator Nash. Senator Edwards is a very successful and productive agriculturalist. Senator Scullion is a real fisherman. And that is just in the Senate. I could go through dozens of lower house Liberals and Nationals who are farmers or fishermen—Alby Schultz, for example, was in meat processing. I do not think there are any foresters, but certainly there are many people who are committed to the forestry, fisheries and agricultural industries of Australia.

If you need an example of the Labor Party's regard for agricultural industries, I again refer you to the live cattle export ban. There were many pastoralists, including many Indigenous pastoralists, who had been making a living out of the export of live cattle or who had made investment decisions on the basis of that export trade. Overnight, without any warning, the trade was stopped. As a result of that, a very high percentage of landowners in Northern Australia now face financial ruin. It has not always been an easy industry. The people in it had always borrowed money—but they had worked out very carefully how they could pay their interest and pay their way. Then suddenly, overnight, without warning the trade was stopped. As a result, there is a group of pastoralists—upon whom many Indigenous communities and families relied—who are going out of business. And the Labor Party claims that it is interested in farmers—what a joke!

I predict that, after the next election, the members for the five rural mainland seats currently held by the Labor party and the members for the five Tasmanian seats currently held by the Labor Party will not be returning—because the farmers in those seats are just sick of a government which has done these things to a range of agricultural industries. We have a minister, Senator Ludwig, who has little interest in agriculture, fisheries and forestry. He goes through the motions but he has no courage and no conviction. He is not prepared to stand up to the Greens, his leader or the left wing of his party. He simply rolls over—to the detriment of Australia's farmers.

People from the capital cities—which is all of the Labor senators here and most of their members in the other place—can sit here and read about how things like the live cattle export ban impact on pastoralists and their families or how the marine reserves decision impacts on people in the fishing industry or how the stupidity of following the Greens hurts the forestry industry. They can read about that in the paper and think they are concerned, but I ask some of those Labor members and senators to go out and talk to people. I ask them to go out and see and go out and feel the despair and frustration of families whose lives have been ruined by the agriculture, fisheries and forestry policies of this government.

The fishing industry, if it hasn't already, will soon realise that there is no such thing as certainty under this government. A minister of the Crown encourages someone to invest big money in a big trawler. But then that same minister, now in another portfolio—the fishermen having followed his advice—turns around and destroys their investment and indeed their industry.

Let us talk about my own state of Queensland. Where I live, in the lower Burdekin area of North Queensland, there are a couple of very good aquaculture businesses—there are quite a few up there, in fact. One of them has been trying to set up a state-of-the-art aquaculture prawn farm at a place called Guthalungra for almost 5 years. I forget exactly what they said, and surely this cannot be right, but I think they told me they had spent $10 million—if it was not $10 million, it was a lot of money—just trying to get through the red and green tape to set up the farm. This is a farm which will provide Australia with clean, fresh seafood and will create a lot of jobs in my locality. But under this government it takes them three, four or five years and millions of dollars to fight through the green and red tape to try and get there—and they are not even there yet.

There was a cassava proposal, again in my local area—I am being a bit parochial here—with a great idea for a new biofuel source. But this government, through the environment minister—the same guy who was so duplicitous in his dealings with the fishing industry—has put them through every hoop in the world under the EPBC Act. This, I regret to say, is the Labor Party all over. They have no interest and no understanding.

Recently, when I was in Japan and Korea as part of a trade delegation, people there were predicting—as were some Chinese people I was talking to—that, whereas the last couple of decades have been the decades of the mining boom, the next couple of decades will be the decades of the food boom. And what are we doing in Australia to help provide food security for Australia and the world? We have governments like the current one, who go out of their way to destroy rural industry. Rather than encourage them, as a coalition government will do, we have, as the motion before the Senate quite rightly notes, 'the Labor government's abject failure to support Australia's agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries'. For this sector of Australia and for Australia's future, I can only hope that there is an election as soon as possible so that these industries can have some hope and some vision for the future.