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

It is very hard to ignore them. I will do my best. It is very hard for the farmers to be green when so many are so far in the red. It is as simple as that. Look at a map of Australia: about 60 per cent of this whole island continent is in the hands of farmers and graziers. We expect them to look after the land, to farm the land and care for it—not mine the land, and they were forced to mine the land in a situation where commodity prices have been so low for so long. Now we have an opportunity to raise those prices, to bring money back to the farm gate, to look after the farms better, for young ones to say: 'Hell, life on the land's looking pretty good now. I always had the attitude that I'm not going onto the land. I've seen my father and my mother work pork and beef for decades and go nowhere.' That is probably why the average age of farmers is around 56 or 57 years.