Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport, Roads and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Main Committee for the opportunity to speak on this report entitled Skills: rural Australia’s need. It is a very fine report. On behalf of the Standing Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, I express my appreciation to the secretariat. They have done a huge amount of work in pooling together all the evidence and the associated material received by the committee over an extended period.

In addressing the report, I think it is fair to say that a quintessential image of Australia used to be the sight of a burly man in a bluey, sweating it out on the floor of a shearing shed, clippers in one hand, the other hand firmly keeping the sheep between his legs. It used to be a common sight in rural Australia but, as severe skills shortages grip rural communities, the role of the shearer, along with so many traditional agricultural and forestry jobs, is fast becoming a thing of the past. This report is about challenging Australia and addressing some of these issues.

Nationally, I think it is also about time we accepted the importance of the rural sector. In that context, Australia historically has had a great wool industry. But it needs about 640 new shearers trained every year in order to keep up with the needs of wool growers and to maintain the 5,000-strong workforce. Yet, far from keeping pace with this demand, the rural skills sector is fast falling behind. Farmhands are now listed as an endangered species and experienced rouseabouts are a rare commodity. Drive into any rural town and the locals will tell you the all too familiar story: increasingly, young people are leaving rural communities for the cities and the mining areas, where they can earn double or more what they can earn on the land and in local regional communities. Those who stay behind are part of a diminishing yet ageing group who are faced with increasing stress and workloads in an increasingly challenging industry. Their life is not easy. Recent years have not been kind to rural areas, which not only face a severe skills crisis but have battled the worst drought in 100 years as well as bushfires and progressively more-competitive global market forces.

As this report rightfully points out, agriculture and farming jobs are no longer fashionable. Unfortunately, they are defined by negative perceptions of a less than dynamic industry with little to offer ambitious young job seekers. It is seen as the sector you turn to if all other options have failed. These, I believe, are very damaging perceptions which I hope this report will assist in turning around. They have effectively contributed to reducing agriculture to merely farming and the forest industry to merely logging. Many of the recommendations in this report are practical. They seek to reverse this oversimplification of two of our most important national industries and, importantly, two key industries for rural, remote and regional Australia.

In that context, I point out that agriculture contributes around three per cent of our GDP, while forestry is responsible for about two per cent of our GDP. Combined, the two industries employ over 410,000 Australians and not surprisingly are the lifeblood of many rural and regional communities. The value of these industries to those communities is well appreciated locally, yet this understanding of the importance they play dramatically declines as you head into regional and city centres. Here we need to work on educating the communities as to the pivotal role agriculture and forestry play in our society and the diverse career prospects open to those people who are prepared to seek them out. That is what this report highlights. I say that because agriculture is more than just farming. It involves scientific research, sustainability, an application of science, farm management, succession planning, human resources and a whole host of fascinating career paths—an opportunity for anyone who wants a challenge in life.

I believe, as a result of this report, that state and territory governments, in association with the private sector and the Australian government, have to work together to develop a coherent approach to the provision of rural skills training and education. The committee, through its report, recommends the development of a national strategy on rural skills training. Let us stop sweeping it under the carpet and face up to our collective responsibilities in partnership with the private sector.

We all appreciate that the national strategy is well overdue and that it should encompass primary and secondary schools—vocational education and training are a must for Australia to go forward—as well as higher education institutions. The current system of education and training provision is inadequate; it is not meeting the needs of industry, as the report clearly spells out. Some within the agriculture and forestry industries have criticised the current system for being inflexible, unresponsive and unable to recognise the often informal nature of rural expertise. I tend to identify with those criticisms, which were brought out in the report.

Obviously there will always be financial and resource constraints governing a sector overall. That is why a national strategy needs to focus on targeted ways forward that provide enough flexibility to accommodate Australia’s vastly varying rural communities yet address the issues that are common throughout rural Australia. The recommendations in the report provide a framework for action—a framework to achieve a national strategy—and they should be seriously considered as a matter of urgency by all sides of politics at state, territory and national levels.

The report also correctly highlights the need for closer cohesion between the research undertaken and its application in the field. We all appreciate that, historically, Australia is well known for its first-class research, which has led to many breakthroughs worldwide. The agriculture and forestry sectors are not exempt from this, yet there is industry concern that much of the research being undertaken is not reaching those farmers who need it most. Once again, the report contains many recommendations that not only go a long way towards bridging the gap between the science lab and the farm gate but also encourage industry to consider the implications for the quality of research being undertaken with short-term funding mechanisms and an ageing research population. In essence, that is the case with agriculture generally, not just the farming community.

At the heart of the report is the fact that rural industries are not being given the recognition that they should be given by us. We only to have cast our minds back to earlier this month and the government’s failure to provide the necessary assurance on managed investment schemes. After heavy pressure, the Prime Minister finally caved in and allowed the continuation of the scheme for the forestry sector but called for a review of the scheme in all other non-forestry areas. Almost overnight, this decision wiped more than $300 million off the value of agribusiness companies. Managed investment schemes have injected over $2 billion into rural communities for plantation expansion alone. With the industry on the verge of realising another $4.5 billion in investment in value-added processing capacity, it has the potential to deliver another 4,600 jobs to rural Australia, which are required as a matter of urgency.

This is the avenue of growth available to the Howard government if it should decide to invest properly in rural Australia instead of considering changes to investment laws that would lead to the loss of up to 10,000 jobs directly and indirectly in rural communities over the long term. Incorrect decisions made in 1997 and changes in the investment regime in the plantation industry have had a huge impact. The industry is entitled to some certainty. We should at least make sure that these issues are put to bed once and for all.

In conclusion, we as a nation need to get serious about rural Australia not just because, historically, Australia has been built on the sheep’s back but because rural Australia is a sector with enormous potential and with a key role to play in our future. The report is about all of us saying: ‘Good work is being done through the committee structure of this House. We now have some practical recommendations for taking the sector forward, provided it is given a hand-up by state and territory governments, in association with the Commonwealth.’ This is not a handout; it is the assistance industry requires to solve the problems that it confronts on a day-to-day basis. I commend the report to the House and I thank the secretariat for the wonderful assistance given to the committee.

See this speech in context