Andrew Gee (Calare, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Today is a historic day for Australia, as I again present to the parliament our country's very first bill to protect Australia's prime agricultural land: the Protecting Australia's Prime Agricultural Land Bill 2026.

It's legislation that is crucial to the future of our country. This bill secures and safeguards not only Australia's prime agricultural land but also our nation's food security.

It's hard to believe that a country which relies so much on agriculture to sustain it has never before passed legislation to protect the land that is the source of such bounty and prosperity.

Our prime agricultural land is at serious risk.

The gross value of agricultural production has increased by 34 per cent in the past 20 years to $82.4 billion in 2023-24. It's forecast to hit $95 billion in 2025-26.

In 2024-25 the value of Australian agricultural exports surged to $77.2 billion or 15.1 per cent of Australia's total exported goods. These statistics demonstrate how important agriculture is to our country and also to the future of regional Australia.

As the population of the world continues to increase, so too does the importance of food and water resources. Their social, economic and strategic importance can't be underestimated. This being the case, why hasn't anyone made any effort to safeguard our prime agricultural land?

Other countries, like Canada, are way ahead of us in protecting their best agricultural land. And, as the Australian population grows, the footprints of our cities, towns and villages continue to grow as well.

Around our country residential developments and urban sprawl are encroaching on some of our finest agricultural land. This is the land that feeds and nourishes us, yet we're building houses and parking lots on top of it. It's wrong, and it must stop.

It's not just residential developments that pose a threat to prime agricultural land. Across Australia, foreign corporations are rolling out renewables projects, some of which are on prime agricultural land. I'm not against renewable energy, but at some point our national interest has to be the paramount consideration.

To be clear, we should not have foreign corporations or anyone else effectively deciding how our prime agricultural land is used. Our prime agricultural land should be off limits. Residential, mining and industrial developments need to go elsewhere. Our prime agricultural land should be preserved for agriculture.

I shouldn't have to spell it out, but food security is a key part of national security. A nation which can't feed itself is a very vulnerable one.

The Protecting Australia's Prime Agricultural Land Bill provides that, if a person, which includes a corporation, is in possession of prime agricultural land, the person must not use the land for a purpose other than agriculture or permit another person to use the land for a purpose other than agriculture.

It also provides that, if a person purchases prime agricultural land, the person must ensure that the land is not used for a purpose other than agriculture.

The bill also makes it a requirement that a person in possession of prime agricultural land that is being used in part for a purpose other than agriculture at the date of commencement of this act must not expand or extend that usage. The bill further requires that, if prime agricultural land is being used for a purpose other than agriculture as at the date of the commencement and such non-agricultural land use ceases, the prime agricultural land must once again be used for agriculture.

Our prime agricultural land is under threat and it can't be taken for granted. The general public listening to this debate may well be asking: 'How has this been allowed to happen? How come nobody has ever stood up to protect our prime agricultural land?'

The truth is that there has been a shocking failure of politicians at all levels of government to do their jobs—lazy local councils prepared to rubberstamp developments regardless of their impact on agriculture, lazy and derelict town and city planning and lazy state governments failing to pass planning laws to properly protect our prime agricultural land. At a federal level, the major parties have also been asleep at the wheel on this issue since the time of Federation.

Where have the so-called guardians of the bush, the National Party, been on this?

On 24 March 2025 I tabled this game-changing Protecting Australia's Prime Agricultural Land Bill in parliament. But once again the original thinkers, the plagiarists in the National Party were at work.

Fresh from copying my bill and policy to ban the foreign buying of residential property for two years in the lead-up to the last election, and also plagiarising my gas reservation policy at the same time, the National Party are now trying to copy this bill as well, coming up with their own cheap imitation and knock-off.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but you cannot make this up.

No original thinking—is it any wonder that people in the bush have lost faith in them? And the Farrer by-election awaits.

They claim to be the protectors of agriculture, but in 12 years in New South Wales government and nine years in federal government they utterly failed to live up to one of their founding tenets and very reason for existence—not one piece of legislation.

They have completely and abjectly failed to protect our vital and irreplaceable prime agricultural land. And let's not forget that it was the National Party which created renewable energy zones in New South Wales and which also passed laws to put wind farms into state forests and then abrogated its responsibility to properly regulate them.

They've created chaos, pitting neighbour against neighbour, failing to ensure that there is genuine consultation between developers and communities and failing to properly protect the rights of neighbouring landholders. The failure has been epic. It's been of epic proportions.

And there looks set to be a high political price to pay.

Because of the opposition inaction and chaos, it falls to the crossbench to do the heavy lifting for Australia, and that is what this bill is all about. Australia's farmers are the best in the world.

Our prime agricultural land is a precious gift that must be protected. It defies belief that we continue to build houses, parking lots and industrial developments on it. If we don't act now, it will continue to disappear before our eyes.

We as a country need to remember where our food comes from. It just doesn't automatically appear on supermarket shelves.

Our nation's ability to feed itself comes from the great food baskets of country Australia and its prime agricultural land. It's also where the fibre comes from that makes the clothes we wear. I urge all members of this House to stand up for agriculture, to stand up for our nation's food security. We cannot squander this precious resource.

I commend the bill to the House and cede the rest of my time to the member for Kennedy.

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