Sam McMahon (NT, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the final report of the Select Committee on the effectiveness of the Australian government's Northern Australia Agenda. Northern Australia is often regarded as having the greatest potential for development and prosperity in the country. Agriculture is one of the main economic activities in the north, and it does have enormous scope for expansion and development. The Northern Territory, in particular its agriculture sector, continues to prosper under the policies of a coalition government. But agriculture in the Northern Territory, along with many other industries, is struggling at the moment—in fact it's going backwards in some cases—due to workforce issues and labour shortages. Farms are struggling to get workers and properties are struggling. There are no pickers for our seasonal mango and melon crops. This is something that's echoed across many industries in the Northern Territory. In fact tourism and hospitality are booming and doing so well at the moment, but they've got no staff. Some hotels in Darwin and Alice Springs are operating at 25 per cent capacity, not because they don't have the rooms but simply because they don't have the staff to work in the industry. They are in fact turning people away. The Northern Territory is turning away the economy that they could have because of this massive labour shortage.

Yesterday the Minister for Agriculture, Drought and Emergency Management, the Hon. David Littleproud, confirmed that there will be an agriculture visa as part of the give and take of negotiations with the UK over the free trade agreement. UK backpackers will no longer be required to fulfil the requirement to work in the agriculture industry to extend their visa. While to some this may seem like a decision that will adversely impact the agriculture sector, the changes negotiated by Minister Littleproud on behalf of the sector he represents will also have positive flow-on effects for other industries like tourism and hospitality. Hospitality NT chief executive Alex Bruce believed the Territory's tourism and hospitality industry might not have gotten access to UK backpackers whose first preference was to work in the sector but who were not keen on spending the 88 days required in agriculture first. If that's the case—and time will tell—then this will be a double win on the back of changes by the federal government in lifting restrictions on the hours international students can work. The new agriculture visa is a massive, massive win for the Territory in securing the labour force that's needed. We will no longer have the UK backpackers but, to be honest, not many of them worked in the Northern Territory anyway. They were often unsuited to the harsh climatic conditions associated with picking melons and mangoes in the Northern Territory.

The new agriculture visa has been a long time in the planning. It has been a Country Liberal Party policy for many years and it is something that I have been working on in this place with various ministers for the two years that I have been here. It has been supported by my National Party colleagues, who have also called for an agriculture visa. It is going to be an incredible win for tourism, for agriculture and for many industries in the Northern Territory. UK backpackers will be freed up to go and work in cafes or bars, or in work that they're used to doing and that they're good at, and we can extend visa arrangements to our ASEAN neighbours to our north, to people that are used to working in the agriculture industry, to people who are already used to picking mangoes. People that have worked on farms and have run farms can now come to northern Australia, to the Northern Territory, and fill this massive shortage that we have.

Last season we saw $15 million worth of mangoes out of a $50 million industry rot on the ground simply because there weren't the workers to pick those mangoes. This will revolutionise our agriculture industries.