John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to talk about the great future that we see for agriculture. The price of cattle is amazing. The people who are doing it really tough are those that have had severe drought for many years, especially in western Queensland and areas of western New South Wales. Sadly, they have had to destock and cannot benefit from the good cattle prices.

I went to the Inverell saleyards in January 2014. Prime steers were making a $1.60 a kilo, so a 400 kilo steer was about $640. They were making $2 per kilo in 2001, so that 400 kilo steer would have made $800. That is 20 per cent less than they were in 2001. Imagine if you had workers being paid $1,000 in 2001 and just $800 in 2014. How could they survive? It would be very difficult. Now those steers are making up to $3 per kilogram, and the young ones even more. Now, instead of $600, they are getting $1,200 and $1,300 a steer. It is looking very optimistic.

I would like to pay tribute to my good friend, the now Leader of the Nationals, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, Mr Barnaby Joyce, for the way he has approached his position and gone out there to deliver more money to the farm gate. More money to the farm gate means more money being spent in the country towns and businesses, and it means job security.

I was quite amazed yesterday when Senator Cameron was talking about the dairy bill. His attack on Minister Joyce was amazing. He said Minister Joyce was pork barrelling when he set up a ministerial office in Tamworth. Well, no he did not. He set up a ministerial office in Armidale. He has his electorate office in Tamworth. Senator Cameron was simply wrong. But, of course, most of Senator Cameron's speeches in this place are simply about attacking the government and fiercely attacking a minister who is doing a great job.

The $4 billion white paper that Minister Joyce achieved for agriculture is building dams, building markets and, as I said, delivering that money to the farm gate. What else has Minister Joyce done? As at 31 January, $413 million in approved concessional loans products has been provided to 778 farm businesses. The government is paying out an average of $1.35 million per week in farm household allowance for more than 5,700 farmers. It is a situation where these people are in terrible drought, and they need money to put some food on the table. It is a great package. There is a doubling of investment in the Rural Research and Development for Profit program to $200 million.

There is $15 million for pest, weed and animal control activities in drought affected communities. This is a big issue. We have too many vermin. They are too many wild dogs, which are destroying the sheep industry. They are even affecting the cattle industry in a big way. We need to get rid of these vermin—the wild dogs, wild pigs and wild goats—which have caused so much environmental damage and so damage to the industry. It is good to see that the minister and the government are putting money into those very important projects to provide some real assistance to address this issue.

Country-of-origin labelling is something I have been on about for 20 years—since I was a pig farmer and we were importing pig meat from places like Canada and Denmark—to let people know exactly what they are buying. We need to tell the people of Australia to eat their clean, green, Aussie grown food, which is now so popular around the world—that is why there is a huge demand for the food we produce here. Minister Joyce is one of the key drivers of country-of-origin labelling.

There are new foreign investment laws. I think foreign investment is essential. Where they invest in our country they should grow jobs, production and exports, and we should have a national interest test that shows that. They should not simply come in and buy our fully developed farms, take the profit out of our community and back overseas, and not employ more people. We changed those laws from $252 million down to $15 million cumulative. That was done by Minister Joyce, supported by everyone in the National Party and, thankfully, our coalition colleagues, the Liberal Party, when they had a committee chaired by Warren Truss, when in opposition. That is what led to these changes.

We have regulations on our houses. Foreigners cannot buy our houses, so why can they buy our farms willy-nilly? Foreigners can buy our houses on developments—off the plan et cetera—and we welcome investment where they are going to grow jobs. But I think the future for agriculture is looking so good with our good quality food that we need to keep our country protected from diseases. That is why AQIS and the funding for it is so important. The image we have built around the world now is that, if people buy Australian food, they know they can eat it with total confidence. The quality is magnificent. It is a big employer. It is good to see that the second largest import now, overtaking coal, is agricultural produce. It is a big industry that is worth billions to our country and it has a great future ahead of it.