Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

Once again we've been subjected to Senator Rice, on behalf of the Greens, deriding regional Australians, deriding our primary producers, our farmers, our fishers and our foresters, deriding people who are doing it tough in a drought. We are the nation of droughts and flooding rains. That is not just a part of our present and our future but it has always been a part of our past. The Australian Greens come in here as the ultimate hypocrites. They say they support farmers and farming, but the reality is they do not want to see us farming in this country. It is members of the Greens who promote civil disobedience as animal activists rush in to terrorise, intimidate, harass and steal from our primary producers. That is the reality of the Australian Greens and the view they hold of Australian farming families and their communities. The National Party have been in this place for 100 years, standing up for farmers and regional communities, not for some private slush fund, Senator Rice—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President. We fundamentally understand and know that our nation's entire wealth generation comes from regional Australia, from the blood, sweat and tears of our pioneers in the past and from the innovation and the hard work of our farmers going into the future. That's why we as a government are very proud to continue to support our farmers and communities to prepare for future droughts.

Those opposite—and we heard it with Senator Gallagher's contribution—complain about not knowing that the Future Drought Fund Bill 2019 was going to be debated this week. I don't know why they didn't hear that at the Bush Summit last weekend in Dubbo. I don't know why they hadn't heard. Maybe they don't read regional newspapers. But blind Freddy knew that this bill was going to be debated this week. I would have thought that any political party that was seeking to form government at this point in our nation's present would have a plan on how to deal with the drought, not just in the present—as we are doing, and I'll run through those initiatives—but onwards into the future, because this won't be the last time our farmers, our communities and our nation experience drought conditions. We need to have a plan to ensure we build resilience going forward.

We have a variable climate, and it continues to change. We'll continue to support our farmers to produce the best clean, green product but also prepare for ongoing droughts and climate contingencies. The politics being played by the ALP in the other place last night was absolutely farcical. At the Bush Summit run by The Daily Tele in Dubbo last week, you would have heard the Leader of the Opposition talk a big game about supporting regional communities and drought-affected farmers and then say he was going to take the politics out of it. Well, all I've seen in the other place for the last two days, on issues that affect drought-affected farmers, is politics being played. There was vote after vote last night, as Tony Burke threw a tantrum around us trying to move this bill forward.