David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Minister for Water Resources, Drought, Rural Finance, Natural Disaster and Emergency Management) Share this | Hansard source

I will. Sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker. As you'd know, I'd never pass that upon you, but the member for Hunter obviously has a long and proud record of doing nothing. So, let me say: we do have a proud record of putting the environment—and the drought has been one of the biggest challenges we've faced, yet he turned his back on it. The member for Hunter did nothing and in fact tried to stop us, and there was not one question, in question time, since I was ag minister, for the 16 months I was there—not one question from him. But let me say that we've also done a lot of reform over the last 16 months that I was ag minister to help take this industry to over $60 billion.

Let me go back to one of the sectors the member for Hunter quite proudly talked about, around dairy, and the cruel hoax he put on dairy farmers during the election campaign—to politicise their misery by telling them they were going to get a floor price. But he wasn't going to give them that. He was going to give them a review by the ACCC to look into it. Well, let me tell you—and how you can save the taxpayer a couple of million bucks—we got a report from the ACCC on 30 April the previous year. It said to put a dairy code of conduct, not a floor price. It was reckless—a reckless, cruel hoax that he was promising and touting to dairy farmers around this country. It was a disgraceful act preying on their misery.

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