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

I talk to our farmers every week, Senator Rice. I talk to farmers a lot more that you do; I can assure you. You're the people who want to ban live exports; let's take away the income of the farmers. Look what happened under Senator Ludwig, the then minister, and Prime Minister Gillard when they banned live exports. What effect did that have on the beef industry? It was a devastating effect. That's why they need to be able to access cheap loans, and that's what this is about. When you get into government, you destroy the viability of the beef industry. That's something you should be totally ashamed of. Then you wonder why you have to have some sort of loan structure to keep these people on their properties, feeding Australians and feeding millions of people around the world.

The Regional Investment Corporation is a good plan. It will administer the $2 billion farm business loans program, and the $2 billion National Water Infrastructure Loan Facility. We know the Greens will oppose any dams, because there might be a frog habitat there. To say that a minister with the stroke of a pen can say, 'This is where we're going to build a dam' is absolute rubbish. You have state EPAs. Environmental protection plans must be put in place. There is the whole green tape. You just can't say, 'We're going to build a dam there tomorrow.' You know it doesn't work like that, Senator Rice. That's just crazy to say that here in the Senate.

The Regional Investment Corporation will be governed by an independent board and a CEO with relevant commercial experience to effectively manage public funds, and it will be fully funded from the interest payments on Commonwealth loan schemes. The board will comprise a chair and two members. Members will appointed based on their appropriate qualifications, skills or experience in a range of fields, including agribusiness; banking and finance; water infrastructure planning and financing; rural industries and regional communities; economics; financial accounting and auditing; government funding programs; and law. It will be located in Orange and will be fully operational by July next year.

What a good thing it will be to have it in Orange, in the central west of New South Wales, close to most of the western area. The National Party's Ian Armstrong, as agriculture minister, shifted the New South Wales department of agriculture from Sydney to Orange. Why would have you 400 people working in Sydney in the department of agriculture? You should move it out to an agricultural area. Since then, the city of Orange has never looked back. No longer will the Commonwealth have to barter with the state government to process drought and dairy concessional loans to help farmers. This will be a one-stop shop. With the Regional Investment Corporation, the Australian government will be able to deliver the support to farmers in need and cut out the middleman.

The government has a 10-year commitment to farm business concessional loans. It offers access to the time limited farm household allowance during periods of financial hardship, and an increased deposit cap of $800,000 for the Farm Management Deposits scheme—and I'll come back to that later. Since 2013, $764 million in farm concessional loans have been approved for over 1,400 farm businesses. Not only that, because the interest rate is very low on these loans, the government has kept the banks honest and provided some good, honest competition in offering cheaper loans to farmers. Offering loans through the states lacks consistency because the government has to negotiate separately with each state government to change an existing arrangement or roll out a new program to farmers. The loans offered through the Regional Investment Corporation will boost productivity and cash flow and provide lasting benefits for rural and regional Australia, something those opposite simply do not care about.

Water and water infrastructure are vital for the regions. I look at dams up my way, like Pindari dam, just east of Ashford, and Copeton dam, not far from Inverell, which were built for irrigation and farmers downstream. The gross value of farm production is estimated by ABARES to have reached a record $62.8 billion in 2016-17. And what's more, it's sustainable. It's not like mining where you take the resource out of the ground, clean it back up and put it back to agricultural land. Agriculture goes on forever. Agriculture is now the largest contributor to GDP growth and is a fast-growing economic sector. It contributes 0.5 percentage points to the national total of 1.9 per cent growth. It grew the fastest of the all the 19 industries in 2016-17, increasing by 23 per cent. That's how good agriculture is going.

Agriculture contributed over $50 billion in exports last financial year, just under 14 per cent of our total goods and services exports. That's an increase of $9 billion from the five years previous. This government, and in particular Minister Joyce and former Minister Robb, worked hard to develop markets overseas to give our producers new avenues to sell their produce. Free trade agreements with China, Japan and Korea are working well.

We can see the benefits now flowing into rural areas, like the record wool prices. Why? We used to have 180 million sheep in the late eighties and early nineties. We have now gone from 180 million sheep back to about 70 million sheep. We have picked up the markets for our beef, and the beef price is showing that, likewise with our mutton and lamb. Take the wine industry, for another example. Australian wine exports are forecast to top 800 megalitres with a value of more than $2.5 billion in 2017-18, with strong demand in China and the United States. Australian wine producers have enjoyed excellent outcomes under the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, with exports to China increasing from $364 million in 2015 to $516 million in 2016.

I make a point about Landcare here. Landcare is a real winner. This government has invested more than $1 billion for phase 2 of the National Landcare Program, which is being delivered from July this year to July 2023. One of its key outcomes is funding for the establishment of the $20 million Centre for Invasive Species Solutions to drive research, development and extension activities to protect native ecosystems and habitats from pest animals and weeds.

With regard to rural financial counselling, in May this year Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources Barnaby Joyce announced an additional $1.6 million for the Rural Financial Counselling Service. This is a free service that will assist farmers by giving them free access to professionals to work through their financial situation and build financial self-sufficiency. As I said, it'll be set up in Orange. Orange, which is already the home of the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, will be the home of the Regional Investment Corporation. It is a good choice. In 2014-15 the gross value of agricultural production in the New South Wales Central West region alone was $1.7 billion, 14 per cent of the total gross value of agricultural production in New South Wales of $12.1 billion. The move to Orange continues the decentralisation focus of the Nationals in government. The APVMA is established in Armidale, in the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales, near where I live. It was reported in The Armidale Express on 27 September that more than 450 applications have been received for APVMA positions. Dr Chris Parker said that around 100 to 150 people will be based in Armidale once the agency's move from Canberra is complete in July 2019. Dr Parker said:

With the strength of having one of Australia's premier agricultural universities here, having the CSIRO service station here, having a number of farms and trial sites here that companies are already using … I think anything is possible in the future.

I agree with you, Dr Chris Parker.

Of course, Labor oppose the move, but they're no friends of the regions. Their history is all there for everyone to see. That's why they're so despised in the regional areas. The Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee conducted an inquiry into this bill, and I will quote from part of its report:

The committee recognises that the establishment of the RIC, underpinned by a streamline nationally consistent concessional loans scheme, would assist struggling rural communities to build the resilience, capabilities and financial viability required to sustain profitable farming and withstand the effects of natural disasters, market failures and inadequate commercial arrangements.

We have strengthened the farm management deposits scheme, doubling the deposit cap from $400,000 to $800,000, restoring the ability of farmers to withdraw without penalty within the first 12 months in the case of drought. We have introduced the ability for financial institutions to offer FMDs as offset accounts for the home loans. At the end of June we had record farm management deposit holdings of $6.09 billion. This is an increase of $1.03 billion, 20.26 per cent, from 30 June 2016. This investment reflects our efforts to make FMDs more attractive to farmers. The coalition government has restored the ability of farmers to return to income tax averaging, also a benefit to them.

We need a rural investment bank, if you want to call it that. If you think you can go on without building more dams, you have it very wrong. One of the essential items for human survival is water. In this land, we know it is life. Dorothea Mackellar wrote of the land of 'drought and flooding rains'. We need to harvest more water in times of floods and see that it's there for the tough, dry times ahead. Irrigation is essential for consistent watering of the crops, more yield, more production, more exports and more money in the regions. I don't know why people in this place oppose that. Why have you got such a set on the regions? A one-stop shop avoiding so much of the red tape, rules and regulations from the states is where farmers in tough times can seek a cheap loan to keep them going. We need finance to build dams. Minister Joyce has made it quite clear: the coalition make no apology that we are determined to build dams. Of course, hydro schemes follow dams. Perhaps the Greens might support that. They're very proud of their hydro schemes in Tasmania. Well, you've got to have dams to do it, so why are you so against building dams? We must store water, we must harvest water and we must manage it correctly to see that the whole nation benefits. I recommend the bill to the chamber.