Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Hansard source

This Labor government has not always been best of friends with, or supportive of, Australia's agricultural interests or our regional interests. Indeed, we've seen cuts to regional infrastructure. We've had very little progress on allowing seasonal workers to assist our horticulture industries in getting fruits picked and to market. We've seen the butchering of the distribution priority area classification system to get overseas trained doctors into our regions, where they are needed so desperately. And, time and time again, we've been about to see the introduction of Murray-Darling Basin legislation that could absolutely rip out the economic viability of our regions. So, it is good to finally see a piece of legislation come before us that will actually benefit our regions, and that is what we are seeing with this legislation.

Living in southern New South Wales, as I do, I know how important agriculture is. Agriculture makes up over 70 per cent of our export industries. I know the critical importance of getting access to and servicing our overseas markets for our agricultural industries: our cereal crops, our red meat industries and, importantly, rice—our wonderful, water-efficient rice industry, which feeds around 50 million people a year. The original Export Control Act 2020 provides the regulatory framework for the export of goods, including a range of agricultural commodities, some of which I've just spoken about. This amendment will enable more effective communications and administrative processes.

We on this side of the chamber will always support reducing red tape. It is suggested that this bill will help cut red tape markedly. Of course we support that. One area of great importance to the elusive red-tape-cutting goal is the collection and sharing of information. Rapid approval might be critical because we have a grain shipment on a foreign market wharf awaiting quarantine clearance or we have other perishable products that need clearance. We often need to share this information on international markets, and sometimes it is the difference between winning a market and having a market closed to us. It's often a case of 'who dares wins': who gets there first and who has the right information when they get there becomes the preferred customer. Australia hast high-quality produce, high-quality products, and we want to be the preferred customer.

Currently all information obtained or generated by people performing their duty or exercising their powers under this act are classified as protected, regardless of whether the information is commercially sensitive or not. This means that when information needs to be shared it has to go through a very slow and complex approval process. I'm advised that the provisions included in this bill will make that approval process more timely, more responsive and therefore more efficient, delivering less red tape. Also, importantly, there are offence provisions in this bill that would be applied if protected information is disclosed in an unauthorised way. Red tape reduction is often promised, but often there is a failure to deliver. I hope that in this instance the shortcuts, the smarter approval processes and the work, mean that business is given a faster road map to the markets.

In speaking on this bill I think it is very important to remember the valuable work the previous coalition government delivered in this area. The Liberals and Nationals, in government and now in opposition, know and respect the important place that agriculture plays in our economy, and that includes valuable industries like coal, gas and timber—all evil in the eyes of my colleagues on the Greens benches, the green dreamers who would appear to have no understanding of where the strength of the Australian economy lies or from where and from what industries our prosperous Australian lifestyle comes.

When in government, the Liberals and Nationals saw the importance of helping Australia's agricultural sector to strive for its ambitious goal of a $100 billion farm gate output by 2030. We provided $328 million to get export products to market faster, and this bill will add to that work. Our agribusiness expansion initiative provided grants for market expansion. We had an increased presence in target markets. We worked hard to improve technical market access. And we assisted more than 2,000 agrifood exporters each year. Importantly, we also facilitated finding new markets for our commodities that were horribly impacted by China's trade barriers. We invested $72.7 million to help Australian farming, forestry and fisheries exporters to expand and diversify their export markets in 2021 as part of our agribusiness expansion initiative. We matched grants for government and industry associations to work together on growing markets, and we provided additional technical expertise to open and expand markets. We produced dairy products for export that are renowned for quality. Our cereals are highly sought after, and our meat is second to none. Even when China put tariffs on barley we were able to find other markets, because our product is so widely respected.

We know, unlike so many of those on the other side of this place and some on the crossbenches, that Australia produces the best food and fibre in the world, and we grow enough food to feed more than 75 million people every year—across staples, niche products, and value-add and high-value products, like almonds; we produce it across the board. We know—and the Nationals remember—that every piece of legislation we debate in this place we consider with that lens: is it good for our industries? Is it good for our people? Is it good for our regions? Labor, on the other hand, showed its respect for agriculture by slashing the Regional Accelerator Program in their first budget. It was a program that was designed to help small and medium-sized exporters in rural Australia promote their goods in new markets. It was another—