Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that the President has received the following letter, dated 10 September 2024, from Senator McKenzie:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today I propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Albanese Labor Government to end its anti-farming agenda, which is damaging Australia's competitive advantages, driving up the cost of doing business for Australian farmers and further increasing the cost of living for all Australians."

Is consideration of the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will now set the clock in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Albanese Labor Government to end its anti-farming agenda, which is damaging Australia's competitive advantages, driving up the cost of doing business for Australian farmers and further increasing the cost of living for all Australians.

I move this motion in the Australian Senate today because it is today that the Australian farming public—and I see many people in the gallery from Western Australia and beyond—have had enough of a Labor Party that does not care about the future sustainability, prosperity or security of their present business or, indeed, their intergenerational operations.

We have had thousands of farmers from right across this great wide brown land here on the front steps of parliament. Did the Prime Minister bother to come out of this ivory tower onto the front lawns and face the accusers? No. He gave the President of the NFF a bit of a shellacking, and might have used choice words that aren't very parliamentary, but the Prime Minister refused to meet the thousands of people who gathered this morning. The Minister for Agriculture—cooee!—couldn't be found either. Nor did she bother to go over to Western Australia to actually face a state that is on the front line of this government's anti-farming agenda.

The live sheep trade out of Western Australia is a trade that is celebrated, is a key system in primary production in the west and provides culturally appropriate protein to the Middle East. Never mind that it is world leading in animal husbandry and that it underpins thousands of jobs in the west; this Labor government and this Prime Minister were prepared to trade the livelihoods of these Western Australian primary producers for a few cheap seats in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney. Dirty deals done dirt cheap, and who pays? The Australian farming family.

It wasn't just those that support the Keep the Sheep campaign. There were irrigators from the Murray-Darling Basin who have seen this government decimate their future by removing the socioeconomic test that was required before a government would remove additional water from these farmers. What's Tanya Plibersek done? She's just said: 'We're taking it anyway. We don't care about the science. We don't care about how healthy the Murray River is. We don't care about how many suicides this will cause in the Murray-Darling Basin. We're taking the water anyway'. Any farmer worth their salt, any of us nine million Australians who don't live in capital cities, knows that if you remove water you remove wealth from these communities.

The cattle industry, the NTCA, was in town. We know that it is sheep first and it is the cattle industry next, and I know my colleague and cattlewoman herself Senator Susie McDonald will have more to say on that later in this debate. This government let their mask slip when we had the Rural and Regional Women's Award in this very building a couple of weeks ago. The Prime Minister almost choked on his beautiful Australian beef! He wanted to swallow his words instead of swallowing that fabulous product when he let it slip that he is coming for the live cattle trade next. The NTCA were also out there. But it is not just our primary producers who are under attack by this government; it's our trucking industries and the whole supply chain that underpins them and our regional communities. This government doesn't care. They think we're out of sight, out of mind, and today, we made our voice heard.

I was very proud, as a National Party leader in this Senate chamber and as a rural and regional woman myself, to stand next to the National Party's candidate for the new seat of Bullwinkel in the west, Mia Davies, a woman who comes from primary production stock. She's been the Leader of the Opposition in Western Australia. She's experienced, passionate and serious about standing up for the west here in this place. It's about time Western Australians had someone in the House of Representatives that is prepared to back them in a way that Prime Minister Albanese and his government haven't.

Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a real pleasure for me to speak and to dispel the myths that the opposition have been purporting when it comes to this motion. I welcome the opportunity to oppose it today.

I was recently appointed the Assistant Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, and I have very much enjoyed the engagement I've had from industry in the month or so that I've been in that portfolio. They are very welcoming, very knowledgeable and very happy to share their thoughts and knowledge with me, which I appreciate. I acknowledge that there is a lot to learn in this space; it is such a big portfolio area, and I am very grateful for the engagement I've had with industry. My door is always open, and I am always happy to have a discussion with them.

One of the first opportunities I had was to speak at the National Farmers Federation Leaders Summit in Canberra a number of weeks ago. That was something I really enjoyed and valued. I was very clear, when I outlined the agenda the government is pursuing when it comes to agriculture, fisheries and forestry, that we know we're not going to agree on every issue, but we are committed to working and finding common ground and ensuring that we can advance the industry. That's exactly what we have been doing since we came to government. We've delivered on our election promises but we've also been focused on the future, because we understand not only how important this area is to the country but also the export potential that avails itself in this portfolio.

It's interesting that Senator McKenzie didn't talk about the record of the previous government, when they were in power, and what we inherited, but that has been a big focus of this government, in terms of correcting what we saw from the previous 10 years of those opposite. What did we actually see when we came to government? We saw a $100 million black hole in the biosecurity budget. There's one thing that unites the agriculture sector: the concerns they have about biosecurity. That's something we had to go about fixing in the budget, which we have done.

We saw a decade of climate denial and no support to help the agriculture industry meet their own climate targets. This is something that industry see as an opportunity. Previously, they didn't have a government that was committed to working with them. They have that now in this current government, and we see tremendous opportunities. We know about the damage those opposite did to the APVMA and the dysfunctional mess they left it in for so many years. That has taken so much time to fix, and it is now on the right path. Also, there are the trade relationships that are so important in this sector that they neglected and eroded over 10 years of time. We've been getting on with the job of fixing these challenges, which the opposition couldn't be bothered to do or had failed to do. We are delivering for Australian farmers and producers, and we are committed to a robust, sustainable agricultural industry that continues to thrive in Australia, because we understand how important it is for so many parts of this country.

We've been strengthening Australia's biosecurity system, ensuring long-term sustainable funding with an investment of over $1 billion. We know the threats will continue; that's why it is important that we have a robust biosecurity system in place that can do what is needed to keep Australia free. We've delivered $11.1 million to uplift northern Australia's ability to detect, prepare for and respond to exotic plant, animal and aquatic pests and diseases, through funding the implementation of the Northern Australia Biosecurity Strategy.

We've boosted the agriculture workforce, securing fee-free TAFE and vocational education and training places for courses right across Australia. So far we've seen over 14,000 enrolments in agriculture courses. We've also worked with industry to adjust program settings for the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme to continue the transition period for minimum-hour settings until 1 July next year. The May budget included $1.9 million over three years to provide targeted grants for industry led projects, with benefits across the sector. We'll continue to invest in programs that support the employment and retention of our best people.

We're opening up new trade opportunities for our sector to grow and diversify overseas markets. In 2023-24, Australia exported over 70 per cent of its agriculture, fisheries and forestry production to 169 markets globally—the most diversified trade has ever been. Restoration of market access for several agriculture and forestry products contributed a record $17.4 billion in exports to China last year alone. We've delivered over $3 billion in extra funding for agriculture since taking office and over $500 million to the National Reconstruction Fund. We understand how important this sector is to the economy and to Australians. That's why we will continue to support it, despite the rhetoric of those opposite.

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

It's always good to see farmers in Canberra. Good on those farmers who travelled from around the country to exercise their right to protest and have their voices heard in this place. The Greens don't agree with everything they were here protesting on today, especially the ban on live sheep export—that's something we have supported—but we do support farmers in other areas. And, I've got to say, it's good to see the Nationals today standing with farmers. In the 13 years I've been in this place, I've watched them abandon the farming community and join forces with the coalmining industry and the resources industry. That's where their heart has been in the past decade.

What is ironic about that is that the biggest threat facing farmers in this country and indeed all around the world—the same for our supply chains in this country—is climate change. And the Nationals, more than anyone in this place, in the past decade have undermined climate action—in this building, decisions we've made on acting on climate. My state of Tasmania recently had another record flooding event—last week. My mates who have farms lost a significant number of cattle, sheep and trees, and this is happening right around the country. Extreme weather is a function of our changing climate, which is caused by rising emissions, which is caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuel and the approval of fossil fuel projects, which this government continues to do, and the previous government championed it while they were in this place. And, if we look at Australia's winter, this was the third winter in a row where we've set records—42 degrees only a couple of weeks ago, a new record, and temperatures across the heartland of over 16 degrees Celsius above their long-term averages. We're continuing to see weather records broken everywhere.

And we talk about concerns over water in the Murray-Darling Basin. We talk about biosecurity risks being presented to Tasmanian farmers and to farmers all around this country. And it's climate change. So, how ironic that Senator McKenzie comes in here today to put up a motion talking about how this government is somehow making life worse for farmers and has an agenda to put them out of business, when what is actually putting them out of business are droughts and famine and pestilence and everything that goes with what we know is climate change.

I just wanted to make it really clear today that if you're an Australian farmer you need to be rightly concerned about the government not acting fast enough. And I'm pleased that there are thousands of farmers around this country who have joined Farmers for Climate Action and are calling, in a bipartisan and tripartisan way, for more action on the climate from politicians in this place. That's what I think I would like to hear farmers calling for. That's what we need.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to commend Senator McKenzie for bringing this matter of public importance before the Senate today for us to consider—the need for the Albanese government to end its anti-farming agenda, which is damaging Australia's competitive advantages, driving up the cost of doing business for Australian farmers and further increasing the cost of living for all Australians.

I was very proud today to stand out the front of this building with farmers who have come from all over the country—indeed, quite a number of them from Western Australia, who have made an enormous effort to be here. Some of them drove their trucks over and spent the number of days it takes to drive across the continent, which is something to be commended and supported. But, unfortunately, we did not see any of those opposite—certainly not the Prime Minister—front up at that rally, which is a real shame.

As a Western Australian, I am seeing firsthand the impact that the closing down of this important trade is having on the livelihoods of generations of families who have been farming in Western Australia, who have seen this trade occur, which has provided a livelihood for them and their families, and it's being decimated. We are already seeing the impact of this. Even though the ban doesn't come into place for several years, we are already seeing the impact on the flock in Western Australia. It is absolutely shameful that this government is just pandering to the interests of those in the inner-city areas. We saw that, to get preference votes in the by-election in Dunkley, they traded off votes with the Animal Justice Party or whatever party it was—those activists—for a cynical result. It was a cynical transaction that ultimately has cost the livelihoods of farmers in Western Australia. It is absolutely shameful.

Do you know what else is shameful? During question time, we had interjections from the former minister for agriculture somehow belittling the size of the crowd out there. It doesn't matter whether there were just two people, several hundred people or thousands of people out the front; what matters is that people came here today to have their voices heard. There was a very large crowd. I couldn't count the number that were there. I wasn't there long enough to do a full headcount, but there were—I don't know—maybe a thousand or more. Those who were there longer would know and would have done that count. But the fact that it was raised in this place—even by Senator McCarthy, who raised it and said, 'Oh, there were only 400 people,' as if that were something to be snickered at—just shows the attitude of those opposite and their disdain towards this industry and the producers in this country that have a proud tradition.

These farmers care more about their animals than anyone else—more than any activist that might want to front up to their farms would ever do. They care deeply about them. I've been to the feedlot; I've been on the ship, and I've seen the quality of the efforts that have been taken by these producers and exporters. I've witnessed firsthand their care and the attention that is paid. They have done everything that the regulator and the government have called on them to do, and more. To now have in their face this decision by this government and by this parliament, who have turned their backs on Western Australia, is an absolute shame.

Before the last election, there were placards and billboards put up in polling booths and at schools across the country on election day saying, 'Put WA first; vote Labor.' What a mockery those signs are. What a mockery the government are even to their own words, because they are not standing up for WA. They are not being true to their convictions in Western Australia. They are pandering to those over here on the east coast who are not considering the livelihoods, the proud tradition and the care that has been taken on these properties and farms. It is absolutely shameful.

I am proud as a Western Australian to have stood today on that stage in front of that audience of those who made the effort to be here and make their voices heard. Your voices have been heard today, but unfortunately those on the other side are not listening, and the only way to remedy this is to see a coalition government returned so that we can reverse this shameful legislation.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Rallies are good things. I know; I've organised a few of them in my time. They are good things. It's a good thing in our democracy to have people assemble. We have freedom of assembly in this country. On our side of the chamber, it's freedom of assembly for everyone. On that side of the chamber, it's freedom of assembly when it suits them. They don't like freedom of assembly if workers get together. They send them threatening letters. They are made angry by the idea of ordinary people getting together, but, in this case, they are for it. Maybe it'll be a learning experience for them.

As I said, I've organised a few rallies in my time, and I do understand that there are sharp differences of views about the government's decision in relation to live sheep exports. I absolutely respect the right of Australians who are affected directly by this or have a view about this to put a view to government. That's why, indeed, the government has played its part here. There have been dozens of meetings with Western Australian farmers about these questions. There has been a compensation package that has been developed by the government. There is an ambition there to work with the agriculture sector in Western Australia to develop onshore processing options at scale.

The truth is that nobody could do more damage to the live sheep export trade than was done by the previous coalition government. There were billions of dollars worth of lost trade as that industry fell off a cliff on their watch. Now they're there in the rally, but they did more damage to Western Australian agriculture than is contemplated in what is an orderly phase-out of this sector that has been brought to not one election but two elections.

This is a government that does what it says it is going to do. What I do object to are the dishonest claims that are made by the coalition about agricultural policy. The first thing they should do in terms of agricultural policy is apologise for a decade of neglect. If they were fair dinkum about it, they would apologise for a decade of neglect. Their slogan, developed in their focus groups, is interesting. 'Keep the sheep' is the slogan. At no point does it say, 'Save the live export trade'; it says, 'Keep the sheep,' as if we're going to take them into people's backyards and pat them on their heads. It is the most dishonest campaign slogan.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's their campaign. It's the farmers' campaign.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was developed by your team. That's what's going on.

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why don't you talk to them? They're up in the gallery—

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Now, let me come to these questions. Senator O'Sullivan is very upset about claims that are made about the size of the rally. There's nothing wrong with a rally of a few hundred people out the front of Parliament House. There's nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is the Liberal and National parties making inflated claims of thousands of people out the front, which is the immediate default. And I know—as I say, I've organised a few rallies in my time—you always make claims tripling the number of people who are there because it suits your purposes. But the problem is that it's not right, and those claims are being made by this crowd, even though they know they're not right. No wonder they've got such trouble in terms of fiscal policy; they can't count!

It is a good thing that people flew or drove here from Western Australia. It is a long flight—5½ hours—which I do have to say is longer than Senator McKenzie's divestiture policy on the airline industry lasted. It lasted 5½ hours; that's the truth. This show is such a rabble. There are dishonest claims about agriculture. There are red-hot opinion pieces in the Australian Financial Review which last less time than a flight from Sydney to Perth. This is another rabble making dishonest claims, leading the farming community up a cul-de-sac with claims that can't be sustained.

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

How would One Nation restore Australian farming—explained in the 60 seconds the Nationals have allocated me? It's easy: end the net zero madness. Net zero is a policy of the Liberals, the Nationals, the Labor Party, the Greens and the teals, each committed to destroying farming through a death of a thousand regulatory cuts, strangling farmers with restrictions on water use, on-farm chemicals and fertilisers and even their soil. This is strangling the life out of rural Australia in the name of reducing carbon dioxide, which fertilises the very food these net zero ideologues eat.

Net zero really means net zero food, net zero clothes, net zero freedom and net zero travel. We've been told by the UN and the World Economic Forum that food will be produced in near-urban intensive food-manufacturing facilities producing cultured laboratory meat, forced greens with no cell structure and bug protein. Allow Australian farmers to once again feed and clothe the world. It's time to end government by ideology.

Ralph Babet (Victoria, United Australia Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand with our farmers. Farmers are the backbone of our nation. If farmers don't farm, citizens don't eat. That's why the war being waged on farmers by our government must end. Enough of ordering them to reduce emissions, enough of telling them what they can and cannot export and how, and enough of covering prime agricultural land with panels, poles, wires and turbines. It's madness. If you want to eat bugs, then keep going, like Klaus Schwab from the World Economic Forum wants you to do. If you like real food, though, and if you value a healthy life, support the farmers. Who would you rather trust: a hardworking farming family who are farming the land and producing food for our dinner plates or inner-city, soy-latte-sipping, woke activists who worry that cow farts are causing sea levels to rise as they preen their man buns?

Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's hard to beat that that final line! I want to thank Senator McKenzie for bringing on this matter of urgency so that we can have a debate about farming even in this short time in the Senate. This goes to far more than what happens at parliament and what happens in Canberra. This is about the men and women right across Australia who have incredible challenges, and the part that really worries me about Labor is how few of them understand how hard it is to farm. They don't understand that you are battling international commodity prices, a duopoly of supermarket buyers, variable seasons, skyrocketing costs of production, a shortage of workforce and, at the same time, your own government, which is putting more and more restrictions on how you operate. Farmers are spending more time in the office and less time on the farm because they grow food. I'm not sure if you're aware that 99 per cent of the population—most of us—rely on one per cent of the population to grow our food and fibre, and that one per cent of our population is saying, 'We have had enough.' Their children are saying, 'This is not a career that I want to choose anymore because of what Labor is doing.'

I have got a long list of issues relating to what Labor have done just in the last 2½ years. You really can't believe it when you look at it. There is the introduction of the Climate Change Authority and their out-of-control direction that is not being pulled into line by Labor, who say, 'Oh, it's an independent agency.' There is the Global Methane Pledge. There are water buybacks. They removed all of the funding for northern Australian water projects, took that money and bought water out of the Murray-Darling, resulting in less food opportunity in the north and less food opportunity in the south. They're bringing in scope 3 emissions reporting from 1 January next year. Superannuation changes are forcing farmers to pay for unrealised gains on their properties in super funds. They've removed gillnet fishing in Far North Queensland. They're refusing to settle the live export dispute. These very same cabinet ministers who shut down the cattle live export industry are now at the table shutting down live sheep exports out of Western Australia—and this includes cattle, by the way. Nobody talks about that part, but cattle are also affected by that. The salmon-farming industry in Tasmania is bowing under pressure and is about to break.

We should care that our farmers are labouring under the costs of Labor. We should care that their ability to grow food and fibre is being restricted. We should care that policies are being run by the Greens in inner-city places with this fanciful idea that we can have greenhouses and that manufactured food will feed billions of people around the world. We should care about that and say, 'Enough!' I say that because what the NFF has done is led a group of farmers from across Australia who have said: 'Please let us do what we do best. Let us manage our land. Let us farm. Let us grow food for you. Let us not be restricted by the EU's restrictions on deforestation—policies that do not apply in the Australian context. Please stop the World Heritage listings of our important food manufacturing places. Please let us make our own decisions and not be driven by overseas government and regulations.' These are the sorts of things that farmers talk to me about when they are complaining about how hard it is to be compliant and to grow food and fibre—all of the things that we don't have to consider. In fact, our biggest problem is eating too much food. We never ever stop to think about how hard it is to grow it. This government urgently needs to stop and understand the cumulative effects of so many separate and disparate decisions that are breaking the will of farmers and ensuring that young people are saying it is too hard.

I want to finish on this point. The thing that keeps the people in my part of the world, northern Australia, awake is when they see a dirty deal done with the Greens, in a Victorian by-election, to shut down their industry. They know that a Labor minority government with the Greens will shut down the cattle live export industry in northern Australia in a heartbeat. They won't even pause to examine the dead bodies.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the urgency motion moved by Senator McKenzie be agreed to.