Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens support discharging the Agriculture (Biosecurity Protection) Levies Bill 2024 from the Notice Paper. I can understand why the Nationals want to have a bit of debate at one minute to midnight, near the end of the 47th Parliament, to show they're doing something for farmers, when most of their focus in this parliament has been on approving new coal projects and gas projects, fighting culture wars and undermining the path to recognition for our First Nations people. But here you are, having a little bit of a debate and raising points in the Senate to show that you're supporting farmers.

I've got a couple of things to say very briefly about this bill. The Greens made it clear to Labor that we didn't support this bill in its current form. We did listen to the concerns raised with us by numerous stakeholders. But I want to be really clear. The funding in this country for biosecurity, which arguably is one of the biggest threats facing our agriculture sector, is through levies that are paid for agriculture producers and goes to a stance or a framework around reacting to biosecurity outbreaks. That funding is there, and, if we get a biosecurity outbreak, it's there to be spent to try and get on top of a biosecurity outbreak. There isn't any funding to try to prevent biosecurity outbreaks. That comes out of general revenue. This bill was designed to add an extra funding stream to help us better futureproof our agricultural sector against enormous biosecurity risks, and I do believe it is something we still need to work on.

I wanted to get this on record today. I spoke to the National Farmers Federation and other stakeholders, and they made it very clear with me that they were prepared to sit down with the government and find a way forward on this and find a new funding stream and a structure that works for them. In good faith, the Greens said to the government that we wouldn't support this, but we do have an expectation the agricultural sector will work with the government of the day to find a way forward so we can get more funding to prevent biosecurity risks. We've recently seen it with the avian flu. There are so many risks facing our country. We've got to do better. I wanted to get that on record today.

We're supporting the discharge of this bill, but we have an expectation that, in good faith, the agricultural sector will work with the government to find a solution to this problem.