John Forrest (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I express my deep concern about the impact that both state and federal government decisions are having on my electorate of Mallee. There are three issues I want to address. The first is water. Over the last five years at least, elderly citizens right across the vast expanse of Mallee, which is a third of the state of Victoria, have been carting their greywater in buckets and have been restricted to one-minute showers. Horticulturalists, who are wealth creators and the centre of the economic activity in my constituency, particularly along the Murray River, have zero allocations. These people grow food. At the same time I have heard complaints about the rising cost of food, particularly vegetables and fresh fruit. The impact of this lack of water on communities like Swan Hill and Mildura is dire.

We have a government that is preoccupied with the needs of the environment, which are very serious—and I accept how serious they are, but that is more popular in big cities. The grim reality is that my constituents are watching their whole lives’ work—in effect, their superannuation—literally die before them. Vines and citrus are dying from a lack of water. It is just tragic.

Then you add to that the decision that had to be made by CSIRO in June following the federal government’s slashing of CSIRO’s budget. The Merbein research laboratory, which was principally focused on horticulture and vegetable research, has been closed. That has meant that 30 highly qualified scientists within the Sunraysia community, which Merbein is part of, are leaving the district. The proposal from CSIRO is that they will go to Adelaide.

I have to put up with the government’s defence on this. The government says that this is a decision by CSIRO, yet the May budget dramatically slashed the CSIRO budget by $60 million a year. Australians are immensely proud of that organisation. The former government progressively increased its funding because research is the means by which we will meet the challenges of the future, particularly climate change. I have to listen every day in the chamber to the Prime Minister and Labor members boasting about what they do for research, but the grim reality I have confronted is that the very tools with which we arm particularly agriculture to face the challenges of climate change are being removed.

Then, in August, we had an announcement by the Victorian state government, through the Department of Primary Industries, of the closure of the Walpeup grain research facility. Walpeup is a small community on the Mallee Highway, an hour south of Mildura. There are 25 scientists working in that facility, developing grain research that gives our growers the capacity to use varieties which can be grown with reduced rainfall outcomes—and the state government is boldly naming the federal government as the cause of the closure, because of cutbacks to research. I find this incredibly difficult to accept because research is funded by grower levies. The Grains Research and Development Corporation collects grain growers levies and invests them, and a lot of that valuable funding is directed to the Walpeup research station. The same thing happens with Merbein in horticulture. There are a whole range of commodities that contribute through levies to fund valuable research.

My constituents watch the evening news or listen to the broadcast of parliament and hear the Prime Minister boasting about his commitment to research and to primary production to cope with the challenges of climate change—and I am sorry to say it but they find themselves fairly cynical about the government’s commitment. I am not just concerned about this; I am absolutely alarmed. Those 30 scientists associated with the Merbein CSIRO facilities are valuable to the community and, in a direct sense, probably contribute around $2 million or $3 million into the local economy, but more important is the valuable research they have been providing that has given my growers the opportunity to cope with the challenges they confront. I have to say that the federal government stands condemned for its role in closing down important facilities in my constituency. (Time expired)