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

The question goes to two issues: firstly, the northern task force and the prospects for increased agriculture in the north of the country and, secondly, an application for exceptional circumstances in the gulf area of Queensland, in particular in the member’s seat. If I could deal with the northern task force issues first. I am reminded very much of a conversation I had in the north of Australia but on the other side of the country at Kilto Station, where I remarked to a farmer that I had been advised that one of the problems with agriculture in the north is that there are a hundred things you can grow but a thousand things that will eat it all—that is, in terms of the biosecurity challenges. He quipped straightaway with, ‘But one of those things is people.’ It is true that we need to look very seriously at opportunities for improved agriculture in the north of Australia. We were reminded of this at community cabinet in Townsville where we met with a delegation with particular proposals for the Gilbert River—proposals the farmers involved made clear are very much ready to go.

There are some conclusions which have been drawn out of the commentary that has followed from the report of the northern task force to which the government do not subscribe. Some of the commentary has claimed that the government would never contemplate dams and weirs, or that some line is drawn where they would never be considered. This is not true. Where they are appropriate and where they are sustainable, the federal government does not in any way rule those things out. However, some expectations for that report were probably built higher than they should have been. The concept that all of the agriculture in the Murray-Darling Basin was going to be transplanted to the north was never going to happen, but it is true that there are significant new opportunities in the north and a lot more can be done there than is currently being done.

I refer to the mosaic form of agriculture and in particular what can be done for the beef industry in the north. At the moment, one of the reasons we are reliant exclusively on the live export industry is that we are not able to get cattle to finishing. There are significant opportunities to get cattle to finishing in terms of limited irrigation in the mosaic way. Those sorts of opportunities are contemplated in the northern task force report and supported strongly by the producers involved, including Terry Underwood, whose property I visited in the Northern Territory. Those opportunities are real, and as the government works through that report we have a very clear view that a lot more is possible in the north than we have been doing in the past. That is something that the member for Kennedy has long advocated.

He has also advocated that not only should we be very mindful of the fires which happened in the south of our nation last year but also we should be mindful of the massive flood which occurred in the north of our country last year. In that context, an application was made for exceptional circumstances. Members would be aware that exceptional circumstances in the ordinary case deal with drought, and the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements deal with the immediate impact of flood. When I visited those floodwaters with the member for Kennedy—and, from memory, we went to Cloncurry and Normanton—it was made clear at the time that this was not a usual flood. Normally after a flood the pastures kick back and kick back pretty strongly. On this occasion, the water had remained over these pastures for more than eight weeks and that meant that the pasture underneath died completely.

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