Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

On so many occasions since its election, the Rudd government has made it absolutely clear that it is not willing to support our farmers into the future. Whilst I welcome the government’s decision to continue with drought support for this financial year, I am at a loss as to the decision for it to cease in 2010. This year’s budget papers clearly show that all drought support, including all exceptional circumstance programs, will cease by mid-2010. Page 60 of the Portfolio Budget Statement 2009-10 in the Agricultural, Fisheries and Forestry portfolio unequivocally states:

The reduction in expenses between 2009-10 and 2010-11 is due to the cessation of drought programs.

I have raised this with the minister in the Main Committee when given the opportunity and the minister has given me a commitment that should our farmers still be in drought at that time—and I can pretty much guarantee my farmers will be—then they most certainly will look at funding. I am very concerned as to where the funding will come from in a very economically restricted budget, particularly the budget of next year when we are going to see higher unemployment and the repayment of debt having to take place. The Productivity Commission’s inquiry into government drought support report confirmed the information in the budget that the government has chosen to abandon support for our drought-stricken farmers.

Recommendations made by the Productivity Commission include: terminating the Drought Exceptional Circumstances (EC) Interest Rate Subsidies and Income Support by 2010 irrespective of seasonal conditions and terminating the EC declaration process—with no new areas, full or interim to be declared—and with current declarations ceasing by 30 June 2010. The Productivity Commission also slams support to small business in drought EC regions, stating that it too should be terminated.

Many of the statements and assertions made in the report have shocked me greatly. For example, it is simply unbelievable to read, on page 25 of the overview:

… during 2007-08, nearly half of Australia’s dairy and broadacre farms in drought-declared areas did manage without EC assistance. Over the six years to 2007-08, on average nearly 70 per cent of these farms managed without EC assistance

What an absurd statement! The commissioner’s choice of language is disgusting and disgraceful. It offends me enormously. The fact is that these farms did not manage without assistance—they simply were not eligible. Many of them were on their hands and knees trying to make ends meet, calling out for some assistance and to be included. They were altering their farming and business practices in so many ways just so they could get groceries on the table. In my electorate, Rotary clubs, Lions clubs and many other clubs came into my electorate with pantry packs. We would take bags out to the halls and they would be distributed to proud families who were reduced to accepting food packs.

We call these farmers ‘managing’? I find that extraordinary and the inference that these farmers did not need assistance could not be any further from the truth, because they needed assistance but they just simply did not get it. They have been battling for so long. I might add—because I have to be fair about this—that was under the rules of the past government as well. It could always have been changed. It could have been changed in the last two years. When the rules were put in place nobody would have expected that this unrelenting drought could go on for so long for these people.

I feel that if we had a sympathetic government, I know we would have changed those rules—recognising those amazing challenges that these people were confronting. I cannot understand how the Productivity Commission did not find evidence that farmers’ access to capital differed from other businesses during periods of drought. I do not understand why there is no acknowledgement or recognition out there of how many farmers are simply on the breadline, how many farmers are just surviving on a day-to-day basis and how many of them cannot get access to further finance from the banks and are now being told that they really should consider leaving their properties.

Most definitely, I was even told that by companies who were underpinning finances for my grain growers. They said that they were going to come through my electorate and advise farmers that they would not be affording the company’s facilities to them anymore and that they had to make the decision to get off the land. That is a tragic case for people who, under normal circumstances, are easily able not only to make a living for themselves and their communities but also to contribute to the GDP of this nation and to provide food for the world and Australia.

It is just an incredible experience to have been in this position for so long. We see farmers who have adopted best practice management over the years, who have implemented climate change initiatives and who have provided variability practices getting absolutely no recognition for the movement and the advances that they have made. In my irrigation areas they have modernised their systems and not once does the minister, Penny Wong, recognise all of the hard yards, work and gains that have been made. It is always ground zero—as if we have raped and pillaged the land, flood irrigated forever and never put in an infrastructure improvement. That is so not true. That is unfair for the people to be judged in that manner. The farmers that we represent are leading the world in their research and development. They are adopting advances in agriculture faster than most other farmers in the developed world. And yet they feel constantly as though they are being victimised by a government that is now beginning to look as though it does not value the importance of food security and farmers.

I say that quite confidently now because I am everyday becoming more and more offended in question time and when ministerial statements are being made and there are smart points to be made against the Nationals by referring to us as ‘cockies corner’. The people whom I represent are offended by this because they believe it is an absolutely demeaning remark for all of those farmers and producers across this nation who work their hands to the bone in order to produce. They get relegated to being represented by us Nationals here in cockies corner. How demeaning. And I am surprised that even people of the calibre that make the ministerial front bench, including the Prime Minister today, refer to cockies corner. I think it is an absolute insult to each and every one of us here and to each of the people that I represent in my rural and regional area.

That is what is being inferred here—the member for Parkes summed it up really well: that our growers are somehow, in some way, so inferior, so idiotic and so stupid that they have to be taught how to put in place things that they lead the world in. It is an embarrassment and an absolute indictment. That is why I have now come to realise exactly how those people whom I represent are viewed by the government. Increasingly there is the walk to the dispatch box, calling this ‘cockies corner’, and knowing it is intended to insult us and every person that we represent in the farming fraternity. I object to that. Thankfully, there are so many things that one could talk about here in this House. The food and fibre producers are the only sector that experienced four quarters of positive growth last year. That seems to dispel the fact that they are all so stupid and idiotic.

The current drought is like no other we have ever experienced. The majority of my electorate of Riverina has now been drought declared for seven years running. It is not a one in 25-year drought; it is now a one in 100-year drought. Not even the best farmers could have prepared for this. I am extremely worried about the farmers that I represent but also about the communities that are reliant on agriculture. Apart from the city of Wagga Wagga, which is underpinned by the RAAF base, Kapooka Army base and Charles Sturt University, every single community that I represent, even that great metropolitan and cosmopolitan community of Griffith, is reliant on agriculture. Every single farm, every single producer and every single business that is providing employment into every other town except for Wagga Wagga is reliant on agriculture.

The Riverina has historically been home to a diverse range of agricultural products and they have been enjoyed right across Australia and exported throughout the world with the most amazing success. The sheer diversity of the Riverina has allowed for a wide range of agricultural pursuits. Today is a typical example of the resilience of these communities. Today heralds the one-year anniversary of the demolition of the single desk for the wheat growers that I represent across my region. Today we had around 60 of our growers come here outside Parliament House to decry the demolition of the single desk. They came into this parliament today to try to understand how they can make themselves relevant again—relevant into the future.

The people who made up the majority of the farming families who came in here today were young. There were little children in strollers and prams, and young mums. They were not the 80- or 90-year-old broken down old cockies that we seem to get referred to as. They were young aspirational farmers who have had their dreams and aspirations damaged beyond repair because they are grain growers. They have had a shocking season under the new rules.

Under the rules, these growers have been totally demolished. They have had port delays. They have had 16-hour delays with their trucks. Traders do not pay for those 16-hour delays. I can table articles that will attest to what I am saying here about the trials that my growers from the Riverina have been facing. I raise these issues time and time again in this House and in every other place that I can in defence of the growers and how these rules will impact on them in such an extraordinary and most disproportionate way. The growers here today told of their losses as a result of there being no pool, no storage, inadequate arrangements for a functioning port system, transport costs and the long waiting times at the port. As I have said, in many cases they are waiting for over 16 hours, and it is all at their cost.

The minister has said that they can store their grain on-farm. They can store their grain until somebody magically comes along and offers them a price after all of the tenders are full. I ask: what are they supposed to live on in the meantime? Also, they will have to try and work out how they are going to store the grain, because we do not have grain storage facilities. Further, the minister must be aware by now of all the problems associated with fungal and insect damage to grain in storage circumstances. I stood in this House saying, ‘There is not enough storage on this land to provide a convincing way for growers to get out of the situation that they have been left in’—and that is the demolition of the single desk and no pooling. I would not be holding my breath while I store my grain and wait for some trader to come along and give me a price that I am entitled to. No. My growers will be trod on and screwed into the ground as a result of this sheer act of bastardry against them. I feel very, very strongly about this.

Today, I heard the member for Moreton calling across the chamber, alluding to the fact that we are not a united team, that we are all over the place and that some of my colleagues had crossed the floor on a bill while others had abstained. I ask Labor members: ‘Where are you on issues that affect your electorates?’ You will never see a Labor member cross over and be a part of the issues or vote against issues that affect the people that they represent because, if they did, they know that they would be disendorsed. They have not the courage to do it. I am saying this because I find it a cowardly attack by the member to continually call across the chamber when some of us have had the courage to stand up and have gone through the gut-wrenching experience of being counted on issues for the people that we represent.

Where are the Labor members on the job losses with the CPRS? I note that the member for Flynn is in the chamber. Where is the modelling? Where is the member for Flynn on the question of job losses or the modelling for the scheme? Does he even ask, ‘Can we have modelling to see how this scheme will impact on the people who make up the electorate of Flynn?’ You never hear a word. But you do hear the catcalling all the time coming from across the chamber about how the Nationals are in such disarray and how we cannot get our act together. Do you know what? Our act is together. My act is together. My act is about standing here and taking responsibility, whether I am in a government seat or in an opposition seat. It is about making choices and taking the pathway that represents the people that I am supposed to represent in here. So do not play those sanctimonious games across the chamber with me anymore. Hang your heads in shame. I am tired of this catcalling across this chamber about the way in which the Nationals represent their constituencies. I am proud to be a National and proud to represent the issues that come before this place whether I am in government or in opposition.

I also want to speak about the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. The fact is that there are issues about the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme that concern many members of the opposition. I just cannot understand why we are not hearing about them in the public domain. We most certainly hear about them in the private domain. But I cannot understand why we are not hearing about them from government members who know that their electorates will be affected by the scheme and who know that they are going to lose jobs because of it. Why are they not screaming: ‘How are we going to ameliorate and prevent this? What action can we take to ensure that people living in rural and regional Australia are not disproportionately affected by the CPRS that the Labor Party currently have before the House?’ Indeed, there is an issue for each and every one of us to confront, and I am very pleased that the government has actually moved to delay this scheme for 15 months, because maybe that will give people some time to get up some courage to ask the tough questions and to represent their constituents on the tough issues.

Moving back to the issue at hand, the NRAC, I am hopeful that when we see the changes made in the make-up of NRAC we will also see some thought, concern and care about the wellbeing of people who choose to live and work in rural and regional Australia. Mr Deputy Speaker, there is no-one more worthy of support from the parliament than the people in these areas because of the enormous benefits that they provide with their produce to the people of Australia. I could go on for a significant amount of time raising—(Time expired)

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