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

You make a very good point, Senator Gallacher. During the boom times for wool in the late eighties and early nineties, we had 180 million sheep. Now we're down to fewer than 70 million sheep. Why? Because people are staying with the cattle. The price has been good. So you're not going from commodity to commodity. Normally cattle would crash when wool was good. There was a guaranteed floor price for wool in those days. People sold the cattle, turned tractors off, went into sheep and oversupplied the sheep market and the wool market, and of course it all crashed. Now it is much, much better and the future looks brilliant, except for the rainfall, and we know that will come in time anyway.

What has brought these good times on in rural Australia? I will tell you: trade agreements—$60-odd billion worth of agricultural trade each year and the price going up. It is very exciting. I know it's hard for Australian consumers when they have to pay so much for their beef, lamb and mutton these days, but the trade agreements are bringing wealth into our country. We talk about wages, poverty and lack of wage growth. I'll bet you that good workers on farms today who have been at those farms for some time are getting paid above award wages, and they're probably getting free accommodation, electricity, fuel for their vehicle and some meat provided as well, and the farmer would be paying the fringe benefits tax, because good workers are scarce.

We talk about jobs, yet we are desperate for workers in many areas in rural Australia. Getting good workers is the problem.

These agreements have brought wealth back to rural Australia. When the Rudd government was in power, what saved us from recession? Agricultural exports saved us from recession. It has been so many years since we've had a recession in Australia, and I hope that continues. The wealth from exports through these free trade agreements means that we can employ more people and we can pay them more. Sure, it's a tough time. It's probably a poor analogy I'm giving now, because of the drought we're experiencing, but that will break. Of course, the price of land has gone up, simply because they're not making any more of it. That's just a fact. Agricultural land has gone up because it's earning more. It's more valuable. It's providing equity. It's providing a relief to many people on the land through the drought because they can go to their bank and borrow some money to help them keep going, along with government support et cetera.

My experience was that we got done over big time by the Labor Party. That's how I saw it. I thought it was crazy times when Paul Keating was removing barriers and letting in all these imports. Why would we want to import pig meat? We had plenty of pigs in Australia. We had our own market: about 99 per cent was consumed here and three per cent was exported. Why would we want to import pig meat? But we did. We freed up the trade. As I said, it hurt us. It hurt me personally and my brother Peter. It destroyed our life as pig farmers, which was seven days a week and a lot of work to set it all up. Now the benefit is here. We have seen other countries removing those barriers, as I said, and now we are reaping those benefits.

The problem with the Greens is that they have no idea of economics. One of the Greens senators is shaking their head; yes, you have no idea, I promise you. When are they going to learn that it is the private sector, the business sector, that derives our nation's wealth? That's where the wealth comes from. The private sector employs the people, and they pay the taxes to keep this place and the government services going. The more you cripple the private sector, the more you cripple a sector which derives our nation's wealth, the more you will reduce our nation's living standards in the future. So they're up the Labor Party and the Liberal-National party government for giving tax cuts to businesses—oh, those terrible businesses that employ people, that create our wealth and that give government the money to provide services! What a shocking mob they are! This is the attitude of the Greens. And, of course, there are these trade deals.

Why can't we get workers? Why do I have to talk to the management of an abattoir in Inverell where they employ 800 people about workers? It's a great business; it's competing in a world market. Why do we have to have so many workers from Brazil and the Philippines working in an abattoir in Inverell? Why won't the locals work there? We've got plenty of unemployment. The fact is that they don't want to work, or, if they do work, they might fail a grog test when they go to work on Monday morning.

Senator Dodson interjecting—

It's a fact, Senator Dodson. It happens—not only the grog test, but the drug test as well. They won't look after themselves on the weekend or at night, and then they get booted out of work because they've failed the grog test or the drug test. Why do we desperately have to train so many people from overseas?

Why can't our people here pick fruit? That amazes me. We had a big argument in this place—and the Greens actually sided with us to solve the problem—about the backpacker tax. There were 730,000 unemployed Australians and we complained about who was going to pick our fruit. Something doesn't add up to me. What doesn't add up is that some simply don't have a work ethic; they don't want to work. Some are not capable of work. They've probably done enormous damage to themselves through all sorts of drugs and other things which they've put into their body. That probably hasn't helped them mentally or physically one way or the other. These are the problems that we've got and that's why we rely on these overseas workers.

As we grow the economy with these trade agreements and with the lower taxes—guess what?—business grows. What does business do when it grows? It employs more people. If businesses can't get the people and demand exceeds supply, they have to put their wages up and then prices must go up. Of course, we have our regulator, Fair Work Australia. The fact is that we need trade. We need those barriers removed. And now it's working. I remember politicians coming round to meetings of the National Party, saying, 'Times are going to be good in the future.' I heard this 30 years ago. Well, finally, it has arrived. The trade agreements are here. We're getting the money into rural Australia, we're employing more people and the future looks brilliant.

The tax cuts we give to those businesses is to let them grow more.

What do you think they're going to do with those tax cuts? They're going to grow their businesses. They're going to spend some of that money and help it go around, especially in rural Australia, where we need money to be spent. The drought has not only affected farmers but also severely affected businesses. The wealth is not coming into those regions, because of the drought and the lack of production, and so businesses are suffering badly. That's why we're putting these million dollar grants now into the councils in the drought areas—to get some money into the local areas. So, thinking that tax cuts are bad and free trade agreements are bad is, to me, simply crazy, and I think this motion by the Greens is outrageous.