Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this MPI. I was fascinated by Senator McLucas's remarks that Northern Australia does not have much agricultural potential. She was shaking her head when Senator Eggleston was referring to the food bowl. She obviously does not know what she is talking about but is also ignoring the facts. Since the Northern Development Task Force changed hands, from the coalition government to the Labor government, they have shut it down. They have found a whole lot of people who can find reasons why we should not develop Northern Australia for agriculture.

I would like to focus on agriculture against the background of what the world faces in the next 50 years—and Mr Acting Deputy President Edwards, you are aware of that because you are on the committee—that is, the doubling of the food task by 2050. Places like China will have to feed half of its population, estimated, barring a human catastrophe, to be two billion people by 2070, from somewhere else other than China. Of course, there is the consideration by the wider public in Australia that agriculture is somehow a mature industry and that we should rest on our laurels, think of the past and retire to the coast. I do not think so. An incoming coalition government will take a completely different attitude, with fire in the belly—firstly, from the people themselves and people like Senator Eggleston and Senator Macdonald—to find ways to get things done.

The challenge for the world is doubling the food task by 2050, in a world that is going to see 30 per cent of the productive land of Asia go out of production, while two-thirds of the world's population live there. The land that we are talking about is closer to two-thirds of the world's population than that of Sydney, but it is Australia. We should be giving hope to the next generation of Australia's farmers and we should be doing the things that do not necessarily have great political clout but have great vision for Australia and Australia's participation in the contribution of the global food task. I heard comments earlier about Cape York Peninsula. There is a plan by some people in this place to shut down the productive capacity of Cape York Peninsula.