Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Will the minister update the House on how the government is helping farmers prepare for climate change?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Corangamite for his question, and I acknowledge his strong engagement with the primary producers in his own electorate, particularly the dairy farmers in Colac whom he has previously taken me out to meet. Yesterday the coalition scare campaign about responding to climate change got underway again. The opposition spent the last day denying that their climate change policy had changed and they spent the last decade denying that the climate itself had changed. Their approach very much was on the basis that if they can pretend that nothing is happening then maybe nothing will be happening. It is like a child in the playground who covers their eyes and thinks that all the bad things will go away. They ignored the fact that the cost of inaction is so much greater than the cost of action. They had the view that if you do not mention climate change, if you do not talk about it, if you pretend it is not happening, then it will all go away. They became so arrogant as to believe that the climate was actually waiting for the mandate of the previous government before it would feel it had permission to vary in any way.

But what actually is disturbing is the work that ABARE did at the end of last year looking at what is likely to happen to a series of key commodities if we do nothing. Over a series of key agricultural products there is an estimate of nine to 10 per cent reduction in total production by 2030, or around $4.2 billion in today’s terms, and 13 to 19 per cent reduction in production by 2050. In exports the ABARE data was even more disturbing. Australian agricultural exports of key commodities are projected to decline by between 11 per cent and 63 per cent by 2030, and by up to 79 per cent by 2050. The research went through commodity by commodity what will happen if we do nothing. Wheat takes a hit of 9.2 per cent by 2030 and 13 per cent by 2050. Dairy is down by 9½ per cent by 2030 and 18 per cent by 2050. It goes through sugar, beef and sheep meat.

The good news on all these projections is that all the modelling is based on something that, when ABARE started doing this work, was a reasonable assumption and that was that the Australian government would do nothing. That was a reasonable presumption 12 months ago. The good news is that it is not a reasonable presumption any more.

The NFF themselves have stated that climate change is possibly the biggest risk facing Australian farmers in the coming century. Against that now we have a series of long-term plans from this government to help our farmers prepare for a future with climate change. Australia’s Farming Future provides $130 million over four years and involves long-term planning, long-term changes to help people adapt to the challenges ahead, research and productivity programs looking at issues like soil carbon and emissions reduction and making sure that with the global issues our farmers are facing we have a government squarely focused not on a fear campaign—the opposition’s approach—but on making the hard decisions in order to provide a secure farming future.