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

My question is addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade. Would the Deputy Prime Minister advise the House of trade distortions facing Riverina farmers and farmers across Australia on the world market? How is the government working towards a level playing field for Australian agriculture?

Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Riverina for her question. The member for Riverina is well aware of many of the distortions in terms of global trade that our farmers face. In light of recent debate, it is important to remember that they face an unlevel playing field internationally. For decades and decades, Australian governments have been pursuing a better and fairer set of trading circumstances across the world. Australian farmers are amongst the best in the world, Mr Speaker, as you would be well aware. We are leading exporters of wheat, beef, wine, wool and sugar—and also of rice from the electorate of the member for Riverina. But they all face enormously unfair competition, once they venture out in the global marketplace.

It is a well-known fact that governments around the world spend about $US280 billion per year subsidising their farmers, making it unfair or creating unfair competition against ours. Farmers in the European Union receive about 33 per cent of their income from government, while the US figure is about 18 per cent. So 18 per cent of farm-gate income in the United States comes from the government; 33 per cent in the European Union. It is interesting, again in the context of the current debate, that the top four executives of the US Wheat Associates received almost $2.5 million in subsidies. They are subsidies that Australian farmers—Australian wheat growers and Australian rice growers—do not have access to and have to compete against in markets across the world. That protectionism depresses prices and leads to lower returns.

Our farmers also—this will be of interest to the member for Riverina—face incredibly high tariff barriers in terms of getting access to some markets. The member for Riverina would know of the 700 per cent tariff that our rice is confronted with going into Japan. Recently we have been criticised as a country and as a government by farm groups, like US Wheat Associates, for some of our domestic policies like the single desk. Given the figures that I have just mentioned, getting that sort of lecture from them is a little like taking anger management advice from Mark Latham.

As Chair of the Cairns Group, we have worked for many decades to remove the unfairness of export subsidies. In Hong Kong, at the end of last year, we finally got agreement from the European Union to eliminate export subsidies by 2013. We aim to continue to fight to improve global trading circumstances so that our farmers, our exporters—particularly our wheat exporters—do not face the distortions that they currently do.