Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am absolutely delighted to follow Senator Carr and his question of where the country Liberals are, because the report about which he is speaking is one I presented to this chamber, and I presented it in June 2012. For the benefit of those in the public gallery, the normal protocol is that a government of the day responds to Senate reports and recommendations within three months. It is interesting that the then agriculture minister, Senator Ludwig, is also here, because at the end of three months I waited and at the end of six and nine and 12 and 15 and 18 months I waited and waited for a response. That is the level of interest of the then Labor government in agriculture and agribusiness. It took until we came into government for even the courtesy to be extended. So do not come in here and start asking where the country based Liberals are; it was my report—and you failed to even acknowledge it! But let me get to the interesting bit.

Senator Kim Carr interjecting—

Senator Carr goes on about the high cost of agricultural science degrees et cetera. Senator Carr, what this talks about is competition. One of the finest universities in the world in the field of agricultural science, I am very proud to say, is the University of Western Australia. It has a proud history going back over 100 years in light land farming, trace element deficiencies, animal nutrition issues and animal production issues. The unfortunate thing for me is that most of them did not want to do veterinary science because they would not go to the University of Queensland. Senator Carr, this is where competition comes in. You are not talking about $100,000 degrees. The vice-chancellor of the University of Western Australia, one of the fine universities of the world, has already said there will be a cap of $16,000 a year on his undergraduate degrees. Four years at $16,000—

Senator Kim Carr interjecting—

I have even got my shoes off so that I can count with my toes! Four years at $16,000 is a maximum of $64,000. To Senator Carr's embarrassment the government of which he was a member did not even have the courtesy to respond to this report. The report made 10 very sound recommendations. I am delighted to be able to report to the Senate that five of those 10 recommendations were endorsed in principle by the government—the coalition government, the one that had the courtesy to actually respond to this very important report—four recommendation were noted and only one was not supported.

I think it was probably 2012 when we again started to focus the attention of this parliament on the importance of agriculture and agribusiness. I can assure you that, when this other crowd were in government, they had no interest in it at all—and, in all honesty, there were plenty on my own side who were not all that focused. A few moments ago I made the observation that, as I speak, the Premier of Western Australia is delivering the Muresk Lecture at the Muresk Institute, of which I was an academic. In fact, the last person to present the Muresk Lecture was my good self, two years ago. Why is this important? Because Mr Barnett is now again seeing the importance of agriculture and agribusiness coming back into the balance as, unfortunately, our mining industries are dropping off—which is simply because of the failure of the last government to attend to and invest in mining exploration. Of course, Mr Barnett, like all of us, has seen the absolute value to the north of Western Australia. Over here, you are all Pacific West Coast US centric. But we in the West are of course Asia centric—and we are seeing the enormous value of the possibility of agricultural produce extending even further into the Asian markets. Indeed, our report recommendations did talk about the importance of the industry coming together to speak with one voice.

Under the excellent stewardship of Mr Andrew Robb, we have signed a free trade agreement with Japan—the first country in the world to do so. We are also about to sign a free trade agreement with South Korea—and I must acknowledge the support of the Labor Party—which will have an enormous impact for our agricultural exports in particular. And work is well advanced for us to become the first major power to sign a free trade agreement with China. Why will we be doing that? Because they have great faith in our value-adding capacity and our food safety.

I am delighted that Senator Carr sought and received the approval of the Senate this evening. I would have been incredibly disappointed not to have had the opportunity to draw attention to the failure of the then Labor government and its discourtesy in not even bothering to respond to a report which we now see as being so important in terms of framing the future for our country.