Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to express disappointment in this Labor government. It is a long sad litany. If we rose all the time to give illustrations of this, we would do little else.

On this occasion I speak of an abuse of the Senate process by the government. It was almost a year ago to the day—in fact 21 June 2012—that, as the chairman of the Education, Employment and Workplace Relations References Committee, I stood in this place and presented a report and spoke to the inquiry into higher education and skills training to support agriculture and agribusiness. Perhaps I should spell the words 'agriculture' and 'agribusiness' for those on the other side, because then they might understand them.

It is the precedent in this place that the government of the day responds within three months to a committee's report and recommendations. I should say in advance of this that this particular report and its recommendations had universal support from each of the parties involved. There was no dissension. Three months would have been 23 September 2012. I waited, I said nothing, I did nothing and nothing happened. By 13 March this year, we still had no response from the government to the report and recommendations of that inquiry, and to this day, one year later, we still have no interest and no comment—nothing—on the recommendations of a committee report that had universal support throughout. It speaks volumes of the interest of this government in matters agriculture and matters agribusiness. I stand here and listen to comments about food plans and Australia’s role in providing food for the Asian world—what a load of nonsense! The response, or the lack of it, to this report speaks volumes. It has been quoted and has been the subject of tremendous study and comment in the 12 months since it was handed down.

There were four main areas in which recommendations were made, all of them relevant to this country and, one would have thought, to the government. There were 11 recommendations in all. The first two related to encouraging a greater understanding by children and teachers in metropolitan and regional centres of the importance of agriculture to our community. In fact, if only Senator Polley had listened yesterday to my comments in relation to the wind turbine debate instead of sitting here and abusing me, she would have heard me say that the gap between rural and urban Australia has never been wider. And these recommendations go exactly to narrowing that gap, but Labor has the view that it has got no votes in the bush, so why would you be concerned in the least about rural Australia? These recommendations were aimed at trying to bring faculties of education and faculties of agriculture together to try instruct young teachers going to work in rural Australia about aspects of the country in which they would be working—and the students they will be teaching—so that even if they then go back to metropolitan areas they will have a greater appreciation. That was totally ignored by the government.

The second group of recommendations related to examining options for the most cost-effective delivery of post-secondary skills and higher education in our country, including the most appropriate locations, methods of delivery, seamless movement between skills training and higher education, collaboration between institutions, and relationships between federal, state and other providers. What could be a more worthy group of recommendations than those three?

I will give credit to the government in the sense that, at the moment in my home state of Western Australia, we are attempting to again establish a higher education course in agribusiness and agricultural management at the Muresk Institute—where I taught when it was part of Curtin University—a course hopefully to be conducted by Charles Sturt University, and I acknowledge that Commonwealth supported places for that have been allocated by the minister for education. But there is a lost opportunity here to give effect to those areas whose importance we have recognised for years, such as the seamless movement of people from skills level training through to higher education in agriculture and agribusiness. I could give a 20-minute speech on the success that we have had in doing that over time. We need to try to cut down the barriers between federal, state and other providers, to improve the seamless integration and to improve the effectiveness with which education is delivered in this country. Let me remind you again, Deputy President, that nearly every agricultural college and institution in this country has either closed or is at risk of closing, at a time when we are talking about Australia's involvement in the new Asian century and we are talking about bringing students from overseas into Australia to learn about our agriculture and agribusiness. Where are they going to be trained?

The third group of recommendations addressed the decline in public investment in research and development in agricultural activity, the association with productivity in the sector and the reduced emphasis on agricultural extension by traditional providers. And what better person to have in front of me now than Senator Colbeck, who has championed this issue over time and has drawn the attention of the minister to the scurrilous reduction in funding for research and the fact that we now have flatlined when it comes to improvements in agricultural productivity in this country?

The fourth group of recommendations encouraged the establishment of a national peak industry representative body for the agricultural production and agribusiness sectors. There were a number of recommendations talking about what that peak production body could do. It could bring together all elements—producers, transporters, logistics, universities, academics, higher education, skills development, alumni of the universities and the finance sector as it relates to agriculture and agribusiness. All of them are critically important if we are to see a resurgence of agriculture and agricultural production.

Only about 10 per cent of agricultural activity in this country is on the farm itself. From the farm gate to the consumer's plate is the predominant concept. In 1976-77, at the Muresk Institute in Western Australia, we first recognised the need for professional training in that agribusiness sector by creating the agribusiness degree course, which of course burgeoned around Australia. That brings me to one of the primary reasons for conducting this inquiry, and that was the fact that, from all the institutions around Australia, we appear to be graduating about 700 graduates a year for a demand of about 3,500 to 4,000. It is little wonder that we are seeing this reduction in productivity increase. When we look at the age of those engaged in agricultural research in Australia, it is increasing, and they are not being replaced.

In the few moments that are left, we should reflect on the importance of this industry to our country. I quote from our report:

In 2009–10, the gross value of agriculture, forestry and fisheries was $43.6 billion, or three per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

… …    …

The turnover of food and beverage processing alone is in excess of $70 billion per year.

We are by no means the biggest cattle producer in the world but, because we export two-thirds of the beef that we produce, we are the second-largest beef exporter in the world. Three per cent of the Australian workforce, around 320,000 people, are directly employed in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries industries, but, as I have illustrated in the last two minutes, when you go beyond the farm gate—to warehousing, manufacturing, transport, retailing, wholesaling, food examination et cetera—you find about 1.6 million Australians are employed in jobs directly related to agricultural production or the presentation of the product to the consumer. This is a critically important industry. It is an industry that deserved better from this government. This was a bipartisan report that deserved a lot more credibility, a lot more response and a lot more respect. In the time available to this parliament, the 43rd Parliament, there still is the opportunity for the Labor government to give respect to agriculture and agribusiness and to respond to this report.