Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor is supporting the Farm Household Support Amendment (Temporary Measures) Bill 2018 and the government amendment to its own bill. The bill will allow eligible farm household allowance recipients to receive a supplement payment of up to $12,000 and will increase the farm asset limit from $2.6 million to $5 million. These are temporary measures, because the government has finally decided to review the farm household allowance, something that Labor believes should have been done a long time ago.

The Senate should also note that Labor is disappointed that the Turnbull government rejected in the other chamber proposed Labor amendments to this bill which would have given struggling farmers the opportunity to receive the farm household allowance supplement payment as a $12,000 lump sum. To be clear: this amendment was put by Labor in the other chamber but rejected by the government. The reality is that many farmers won't have access to cash payments for up to 10 weeks. During this time, daily living expenses and debt will continue to accumulate. Farmers should be given the option of receiving the supplement payment as a lump sum. They need this money and they need it now.

The current drought has been severe in many parts of the country, and there are farming families who desperately need assistance with putting food on the table, paying school fees and other important daily living expenses. There's no logic or rationale behind this system of split payments on 1 September 2018 and 1 March 2019 that the government has constructed. Contrary to Mr Turnbull's comments to David Koch on Sunrisethat 'March is not that far away'—Labor is fully aware that farmers need cash assistance as soon as possible. Labor supported all the drought measures that the government has put forward and is not seeking to politicise assistance to our farmers; however, Labor remains concerned that the current government is more interested in looking after itself than in assisting our farmers.

Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One Nation will be supporting this bill, but I'd like to make a few comments. The purpose of the bill is to increase the number of farmers entitled to temporary fortnightly income support payments as well as provide assistance for their farm business. As the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, Minister Littleproud, said:

… the bill proposes to pay a supplement to all eligible farm household allowance recipients that is in addition to their fortnightly income support payments.

In his speech he went on to say:

Australian agriculture is a story of success, resilience and prosperity.

Am I missing something? Or maybe a lot of Australians are? There is success in some sectors, but over the years we've seen the destruction of many farming families who have actually been destroyed by drought and a lack of assistance by governments, not only this one but previous Labor governments as well—and I will add to that the government's reluctance to have a banking royal commission. Now we are in the process of that commission, we are finding the problems the farming sector has also had in its dealings with the banks—loss of properties, devastation, suicides and everything else that has happened.

And what about the permanent changes being made by foreign ownership? The problem is foreign ownership of key agricultural assets. Asian countries are not satisfied buying food from Australia; they want to own the means of production and turn our farmers into subcontractors. Since the 1990s overseas companies have been buying up food-production assets in the form of dairy cooperatives, egg farms, meat processing works, fish canneries, sugar mills and grain businesses with the result that much of our produce is being exported. There is no legislation to prevent shortages of Australian primary produce, for example, shortages of baby formula are common, and Coles has a limit of two cans of baby formula per customer. In 2016 Chinese interests bought 17,000 hectares of dairy production in Tasmania. They now lease two Qantas flights a week to take fresh milk directly to China. Foreign purchase of dairy farms in Australia has changed the industry. We now have significant foreign ownership of our dairy production, and the remaining smaller family-owned dairy farms are struggling and leaving the industry because of the low farm gate price being paid to processors.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the ACCC, has found that supermarkets selling Homebrand milk for $1 a litre are not to blame for the low prices paid to dairy farmers, and the ACCC has called for a code of conduct to strengthen farmers' bargaining power and improve their share of profits. The ACCC has recommended a code of conduct be legislated for dairy farmers. I remember when I was in this parliament, in the other place, back in the late 1900s—1997 and 1998—the deregulation of the dairy industry had brought it to its knees. Farmers were suiciding. Both sides—both the coalition and the Labor Party—have been charged with holding the reins and have done nothing about it. That's why we see the demise. We're down to under 300 dairy farmers in Queensland, and we're importing about a million litres of milk from Victoria. We are going to be importing milk from New Zealand if we don't protect our farming sector.

We've seen the demise of the pork industry; we've seen the demise of the orange growers. This is because governments in this place have not done enough to look after them. At the last minute when our farmers are on their knees you actually want to throw them a pittance. That's all it is. It's an absolute pittance. Too much of what I see in this chamber is people getting up and talking about what is happening in other countries around the world. Here we have our farming sector which provides food for our tables and you are not doing anything about it, and then you stand up and criticise because the other side hasn't done enough. You both have to take responsibility for this, because both sides have not done enough to actually protect the farming sector.

We have the land. We don't have the water. What has either side done about allowing more dams to be built—the Bradfield water scheme, which will bring water down from the Ord River to water inland Australia? That will actually give people hope that we are not going to continue to go through drought year after year. When they're on their knees, you throw millions of dollars out there, but that money could be put into building more dams and pipelines to give us the water to grow the food that we need. But then again, if we do that, you'll probably just sell the water into foreign ownership anyway, so we won't own the water. That's exactly what you've done.

I'll talk about food security. We've allowed foreign ownership of too much of our farming land. Now they are actually sending most of the product to their own countries—not only the farming products but also the gas. We've lost to foreign ownership in gas, electricity, dairy products, milk powder and hay for fodder. We're going through a hard time here and we will not have enough feed for our own farmers, but we've got 1.2 million tonnes of feed in storehouses or already on its way to China, Japan and Korea. Are you worried about feeding their stock? The government should step in and say, 'We're not going to see that feed leave our country.' And that goes for all other products. If we have so much foreign ownership of farming land, which produces our food, we can do nothing to intervene and stop them exporting that food to their own people. We cannot stop it. We've allowed this to happen, and that's why Australians are so angry with both the major political parties—they're not dealing with the real issues that concern them. Australians do not want foreign ownership of our land. I'm sick of hearing about your excuses that they can't take it away. The fact is it's going from paddock to plate—paddock to plate. That means they own everything. They own the land, they own the trucks, they own the ports—as they do with Darwin Port—and they're moving in more and more to take up the assets that should be in the hands of the Australian people.

I want to offer congratulations to the Australian people, the hundreds of thousands of people, who have rallied around to donate to the farming sector. I'd like to congratulate those farmers who have given their feed—their crops, their hay—to help their counterparts in other states. They themselves have gone through extremely hard times and they know what it's like. That's why they're actually giving—not selling but giving—their hay to those struggling farmers. I take my hat off to them. That's what the Aussie spirit is all about. They are doing the job that the governments in this place should have done. It's been too little, too late.

I will support this bill. I do support the farming sector getting the helping hand that they need. But I'm warning this parliament and the government: start looking after our food producers, the farmers out there, because we're losing them. They're walking off the land, they're willing to sell it into foreign ownership, and you're allowing it to happen because you're not giving them any hope or any vision for the future. You've sold them out, and it's a shame on you.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill demonstrates the government's responsiveness to the needs of farming communities in rural and regional Australia. The farm household allowance program provides additional support for farmers and their partners facing hardship, including drought. The government knows that some farmers are doing it tough and that's why, from 1 August 2018, we will increase the farm household allowance from three to four cumulative years. This bill proposes two temporary changes to the FHA program. We're increasing the net farm asset threshold to $5 million and we're providing a lump sum payment to all farmers and their partners on FHA. This is in addition to their fortnightly payments. The bill also pays a supplement, paid in two instalments, of up to $12,000 to a couple, where both recipients are on the farm household allowance, and up to $7,200 for single recipients.

The allowance is not about paying for feed and fodder; it's about putting food on the tables of our farming families and affording them the dignity to buy other essentials in life. In turn, this spending injects cash into local businesses, who are also doing it tough. When farmers stop spending, everybody feels it.

The government understands many farmers are experiencing tough times due to ongoing poor climatic conditions and it's not easy to ask for help. But FHA is more than just a social security payment. It provides an additional $1,500 to help develop a farm financial assessment; access to activity supplements of up to $4,000 for professional support, advice and training; access to a dedicated case officer; and assessment for allowances such as a healthcare card, pharmaceutical allowance, rent assistance, telephone allowance, an energy supplement and remote area allowance. The temporary measures provided for this in bill are designed to help our farmers in the short term while we undertake an independent review of FHA. The review will be completed in the first half of 2019 and it will provide further guidance on the design of FHA into the future.

This bill demonstrates the government's continued responsiveness to the needs of farm communities and rural communities and is part of our $1.8 billion package of assistance to our farmers who are currently suffering hardship. I thank the members for their contribution and I commend this bill to the house.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.