Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

You should ask me more questions. Why don't you ask me some more questions? It was very important that we recognised that we can actually have meetings, if people want them. We will be having meetings from time to time and I envisage that we will be having a meeting in the very near future to deal with, among other things, working out a national approach for fruit fly.

Agriculture in Australia is vitally important. There is no better example than what happened in January. This nation thought we were going to have a $100 million loss for the month but we ended up with a $1.4 billion surplus. The member for Hunter, who is sitting beside the member for Grayndler, will be able to tell him exactly where that came from. Predominantly it was driven by agriculture. This goes to show that agriculture puts money on the table to pay its way. How did we get that money on the table? We harvested $17.2 million worth of wheat in Western Australia—we got in excess of six million tonnes of wheat onto boats—and we had the live cattle trade, with those terrible people in the live cattle trade putting all that cattle onto boats, getting paid for it and helping our nation get back into profit. We also had all those terrible people in the live sheep trade, getting paid for putting sheep on boats and bringing money back into the country. It is great when we get these trades going again because that is how we turn a buck. When you are making a buck you do not need the Farm Household Support Bill, because you are making money. But, if you have got a drought and you are doing it tough, these are the sorts of policy settings you need. Our minds are always directed towards how we can turn a profit and how we can take the agricultural future of our nation forward. That is why I am also very encouraged by the support we are getting for the white paper.

The white paper is going to be a seminal document. It is going to increase the capacity of all those people throughout the agricultural sector to have their say in where our nation is going. It will make sure those people will be able to make their contribution on how we get a fair return back to the farm gate; how we can get a better return back to the mums and dads, back to the kitchen table, back to the people who are putting the cattle on the boats and paying their way in our nation, back to the people putting the wheat on the boats and paying their way in our nation, back to the people who are working under the belief that, even with the vagaries of the weather, they are doing the right and proper thing by creating the food and creating the fibre which feeds people and which clothes people—I cannot think of a more honourable life; that would have to be one of the best. These people deserve our support and I hope that will stem from the white paper. I think that this hope is not in vain. There will be a good sense of bipartisanship as we try to make sure that we create settings ensuring that long after I have gone, the member for Hunter has gone and other people have left there is a document that can be taken forward—

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