Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

One Nation will be supporting this bill, but I'd like to make a few comments. The purpose of the bill is to increase the number of farmers entitled to temporary fortnightly income support payments as well as provide assistance for their farm business. As the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, Minister Littleproud, said:

… the bill proposes to pay a supplement to all eligible farm household allowance recipients that is in addition to their fortnightly income support payments.

In his speech he went on to say:

Australian agriculture is a story of success, resilience and prosperity.

Am I missing something? Or maybe a lot of Australians are? There is success in some sectors, but over the years we've seen the destruction of many farming families who have actually been destroyed by drought and a lack of assistance by governments, not only this one but previous Labor governments as well—and I will add to that the government's reluctance to have a banking royal commission. Now we are in the process of that commission, we are finding the problems the farming sector has also had in its dealings with the banks—loss of properties, devastation, suicides and everything else that has happened.

And what about the permanent changes being made by foreign ownership? The problem is foreign ownership of key agricultural assets. Asian countries are not satisfied buying food from Australia; they want to own the means of production and turn our farmers into subcontractors. Since the 1990s overseas companies have been buying up food-production assets in the form of dairy cooperatives, egg farms, meat processing works, fish canneries, sugar mills and grain businesses with the result that much of our produce is being exported. There is no legislation to prevent shortages of Australian primary produce, for example, shortages of baby formula are common, and Coles has a limit of two cans of baby formula per customer. In 2016 Chinese interests bought 17,000 hectares of dairy production in Tasmania. They now lease two Qantas flights a week to take fresh milk directly to China. Foreign purchase of dairy farms in Australia has changed the industry. We now have significant foreign ownership of our dairy production, and the remaining smaller family-owned dairy farms are struggling and leaving the industry because of the low farm gate price being paid to processors.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the ACCC, has found that supermarkets selling Homebrand milk for $1 a litre are not to blame for the low prices paid to dairy farmers, and the ACCC has called for a code of conduct to strengthen farmers' bargaining power and improve their share of profits. The ACCC has recommended a code of conduct be legislated for dairy farmers. I remember when I was in this parliament, in the other place, back in the late 1900s—1997 and 1998—the deregulation of the dairy industry had brought it to its knees. Farmers were suiciding. Both sides—both the coalition and the Labor Party—have been charged with holding the reins and have done nothing about it. That's why we see the demise. We're down to under 300 dairy farmers in Queensland, and we're importing about a million litres of milk from Victoria. We are going to be importing milk from New Zealand if we don't protect our farming sector.

We've seen the demise of the pork industry; we've seen the demise of the orange growers. This is because governments in this place have not done enough to look after them. At the last minute when our farmers are on their knees you actually want to throw them a pittance. That's all it is. It's an absolute pittance. Too much of what I see in this chamber is people getting up and talking about what is happening in other countries around the world. Here we have our farming sector which provides food for our tables and you are not doing anything about it, and then you stand up and criticise because the other side hasn't done enough. You both have to take responsibility for this, because both sides have not done enough to actually protect the farming sector.

We have the land. We don't have the water. What has either side done about allowing more dams to be built—the Bradfield water scheme, which will bring water down from the Ord River to water inland Australia? That will actually give people hope that we are not going to continue to go through drought year after year. When they're on their knees, you throw millions of dollars out there, but that money could be put into building more dams and pipelines to give us the water to grow the food that we need. But then again, if we do that, you'll probably just sell the water into foreign ownership anyway, so we won't own the water. That's exactly what you've done.

I'll talk about food security. We've allowed foreign ownership of too much of our farming land. Now they are actually sending most of the product to their own countries—not only the farming products but also the gas. We've lost to foreign ownership in gas, electricity, dairy products, milk powder and hay for fodder. We're going through a hard time here and we will not have enough feed for our own farmers, but we've got 1.2 million tonnes of feed in storehouses or already on its way to China, Japan and Korea. Are you worried about feeding their stock? The government should step in and say, 'We're not going to see that feed leave our country.' And that goes for all other products. If we have so much foreign ownership of farming land, which produces our food, we can do nothing to intervene and stop them exporting that food to their own people. We cannot stop it. We've allowed this to happen, and that's why Australians are so angry with both the major political parties—they're not dealing with the real issues that concern them. Australians do not want foreign ownership of our land. I'm sick of hearing about your excuses that they can't take it away. The fact is it's going from paddock to plate—paddock to plate. That means they own everything. They own the land, they own the trucks, they own the ports—as they do with Darwin Port—and they're moving in more and more to take up the assets that should be in the hands of the Australian people.

I want to offer congratulations to the Australian people, the hundreds of thousands of people, who have rallied around to donate to the farming sector. I'd like to congratulate those farmers who have given their feed—their crops, their hay—to help their counterparts in other states. They themselves have gone through extremely hard times and they know what it's like. That's why they're actually giving—not selling but giving—their hay to those struggling farmers. I take my hat off to them. That's what the Aussie spirit is all about. They are doing the job that the governments in this place should have done. It's been too little, too late.

I will support this bill. I do support the farming sector getting the helping hand that they need. But I'm warning this parliament and the government: start looking after our food producers, the farmers out there, because we're losing them. They're walking off the land, they're willing to sell it into foreign ownership, and you're allowing it to happen because you're not giving them any hope or any vision for the future. You've sold them out, and it's a shame on you.