Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

It's great that on Thursday, the last day of the sitting week, we finally have a question from the Nats. In particular I very much welcome a question from the Nationals about fire ant funding. Let me tell you about fire ant funding under the Albanese Labor government compared to what we saw under the government of which the Nationals were a part. When we came to government we found the biosecurity budget in general had been cut savagely by the Nats when they held this portfolio—it was cut by about $100 million per year. We had to fix that in this year's budget. It was not a coalition government and not a Nationals government but a Labor Party government delivering biosecurity. We also found that funding for fire ant eradication under the Nationals had been cut to about $16 million per year. It was nowhere near enough to deliver on the real threat we face from fire ants. What have we done, in contrast? We've invested an extra $268.2 million over the next four years and taken the average funding for fire ant eradication from the measly $16 million we saw under the Nationals to around $70 million over the next four years.

In fact, I'm particularly grateful for you asking this question, Senator Cadell, because I wasn't able to get it up as a dixer this week because there were too many other things to cover. I was intrigued to see Mr Littleproud, the Leader of the National Party, on Sky News yesterday, telling our government that we shouldn't be providing any more funding for fire ant eradication in Queensland. So you want to cut the funding that we've now installed and leave fire ants running rampant. What a disgraceful position for the National Party!