Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Williams for his question. I know his passion to see Australia's agricultural sector grow. We've already, as a government, delivered an agricultural white paper and record funding to the agricultural sector. That's helped underpin very strong growth in our agricultural production, employment and exports in the last few years.

This week's budget builds on those successes too. There's a very big win for agriculture this week in the budget, and I'd just like to highlight three measures in the budget in particular. We have invested $20 million into the National Forest Industries Plan—a plan to grow the forestry industry, the renewable forestry industry, that produces products right around the world and is taking advantage of the global increase in demand for timber products. We're also supporting $121.6 million in increased funding for biosecurity. So many of the agricultural exports from Australia rely on our image as a country to produce clean and green agricultural food and fibre products. This funding increase in the budget will take the overall funding for biosecurity in the government funding to $773 million, which is a 28 per cent increase since 2012-13, when we came to government—a big investment in maintaining our image. I would also like to specify that as part of that $120 million of funding we're giving $20 million to the Tasmanian government to assist with the management of the fruit fly outbreak in northern Tasmania. I know that many of our Tasmanian colleagues are particularly concerned about that outbreak in that state.

We're also investing a further $6.6 million to continue the fight against pests and weeds. I know how important our previous investments in fencing have been. Senator McKenzie and I visited some of those investments near Longreach. It's helping sheep come back on to that country, which produces a lot more income and a lot more employment for the people of western Queensland. With these investments we hope that the agricultural sector will continue to grow and thrive in our country.