John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I did not get a gig, and I am sure Senator Sterle did not get a gig, in The Killing Season, but many did. But it is quite amazing how we spend so much time and so much of taxpayers' money in this chamber—on what? On politics. What about looking at the real issues?

We had several questions from our side, today, on the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement. What does it mean to rural Australia? Quite amazingly, a few weeks ago I hosted two fellers, one from China and one from Hong Kong, who stayed at my farm for two days. We went to the Inverell abattoirs. That is a great business, exporting beef, employing 850 people. When you live in a town with a total population of 12,000 people, and 850 are employed at the local abattoir, that is a big employer—it is the biggest in the district. Of course it is not only about employing people; they are actually going to the cattle sales and bidding on the stock, and now we have record prices for our cattle. Those people from China and Hong Kong said to me, 'We just want to buy what is grown in Australia.' We have a reputation: a clean, green image of good, safe food. They want to buy our wine. They want to buy our dairy products: we are flying fresh milk into China, and it is retailing for up to $8 a litre, which is just tremendous for the dairy industry. And of course this free trade agreement is removing 95 per cent of the tariffs on imports into China within four years. The wine industry has had a terrible oversupply of wine for many years, and I know people who have been pulling their grapevines out—what a tragedy. Now the market is there.

But there are some people in here who cannot see the forest for the trees. They are simply blinded. I will tell you what blinds them: it is a mob called the CFMEU. They blind them with money. The figure mentioned today was $6 million. And this is to the Greens, I might add; it is not just to the Australian Labor Party. The CFMEU is throwing money at the Greens, and they will take it from anywhere—from Mr Graeme Wood of Wotif; he gave $1.58 million; that was the biggest donation in the political history of Australia.