Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, another thought bubble from the government! They promised this three years ago and of course have done nothing about it. Now we hear that it might be in place by Christmas. But how do you get workers here when the borders are closed because the government has done nothing about quarantine and has completely bungled the vaccine rollout? How are we going to get workers from overseas into this country when that is the issue? You absolutely cannot do that. These workers are not going to turn up for years; that's the bottom line. So what is the government doing in the meantime in terms of workforce on farms to help out our farmers in regional Australia?

We also know that this government has not been doing enough about biosecurity, which I talked about in the biosecurity bill debate yesterday, and we know they're not doing enough in relation to the mouse plague. There's been absolutely nothing from this government to respond to the mouse plague, which is affecting four Australian states. It is estimated that it will inflict a billion dollars of damage, and yet they still do nothing over there—

See this speech in context