Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If I go into a hotel or public place and people do not know who I am, I try desperately to avoid admitting that I am a politician. When I was a young man, politicians had great respect, and they deserved that respect. They had fought great battles for us. We had worked for nothing and we had died down the mines in horrific accidents or of the terrible 'miners-titis'. One in 31 of us, in fact, died down the mines or from what we encountered down there. The politicians in the Labor Party fought the great fight and changed all of that for us. Those men were heroes. If you read my history of Australia you will see them as great heroes—the likes of Ted Theodore and the other great Labor leaders before the Second World War. Curtin and Chifley were prominent amongst those before and, to some extent, even after the war. We praise greatly those men.

After the war, my family became members of the then Country Party, which fought great battles for us and secured statutory marketing. When Jack McEwen left this parliament, he said: 'I can stand up here and proudly say that, as I leave this place, every single rural industry is protected by marketing arrangements.' That was true even in beef. Under the beef agreements with Japan and Great Britain, we had a very highly protected situation. McEwen said: 'It delivers to our farming sector not a great wealth but a solid prosperity.' What a great statement to make. What a great man. That was why people admired, respected and looked up to politicians.

Now, today, we are pariahs. Of the top 30 professions in Australia, I think we rank second last. In those days we were in the top three or four. Why have we moved down? Does anyone care that thousands of jobs vanished overseas in the last few weeks with the announcements by Qantas and BlueScope or that a whole apple industry is being exported offshore? Does anyone care? Is anyone going to raise those issues in here? Not likely. Does anyone care that a farmer commits suicide every four days in this country? Not likely. I have not heard anyone, except me, ever refer to it in this place. And I do not want to mention it anymore because I think I have blunted the edge that a statistic such as that should have for the conscience of every person in this place.

Either Jack McEwen, the policies of the Country Party and that great man Doug Anthony, who introduced the wool scheme, stunk or the current policies of the LNP and the ALP stink. I know which side of the fence I fall on. There is no doubt about that. And the poor old apple growers got theirs last month.

The horticultural code of conduct is very interesting. Three or four elections ago the then leader of the LNP announced—and I am on record as praising him for it—that he was going to give us a mandatory code of conduct. The essence of this is twofold. Firstly, the farmer does not know what his produce is sold for. He sits up there in Mareeba or down on the Murray River or in Renmark in South Australia and has no idea. He sends his produce to market. He is out there picking the grapes, the oranges, the mangoes, the bananas or whatever; he does not have time to be sitting down in the markets every day watching what his produce, which goes to market on a daily basis, is being sold for. So he does not know what he should get paid. A lot of farmers are very nice and very trusting people—foolishly trusting people, in my opinion. They do not know what their product is sold for, so, quite frankly, an agent can tell them anything. He could sell mangoes for $40 a box and tell the farmer he sold them for $20 a box. There is no protection whatsoever.

In the real estate industry there is a trust fund. In the legal industry there is a trust fund. In the insurance industry there is a trust fund. In every industry there is a trust fund to protect the person selling. But there is no trust fund in this industry. Why?

The other issue is the supermarket giants: Woolworth and Coles. Again, we do not know what they pay for produce. There is a little game that is played here—and I speak with authority about it because I own a small mango farm, so I know. The game is as follows. Every farmer, for reasons we do not fully understand, will get a turn at being the first farmer off, so he will get spectacular prices—he will get $45 a box or whatever it is—for mangoes, which they will be pulling next month. But then, as all the other farmers start to come on, the price will tumble back down to $12 or $15 a box. The Woolworths or Coles manager has bought mangoes at $45 and thinks: 'Heavens! I'm going to lose my job here.' So he has a look at those mangoes and finds out that they are speckled and says, 'Jeez—we took these on consignment.' The truth is that he did not take them on consignment; he bought them. But there is no proof. So the trust fund is the first arm of this legislation; the second is a sales docket.

I hope the Prime Minister will not mind my quoting her here. When I was talking to her about my 20-point wish list for the Prime Minister, she said: 'Bob, you can't be serious. Are you telling me seriously that they will not give a sales docket?' She could not believe it, and I think most Australians and most people in this House who are not familiar with fruit and vegetables would also find it hard to believe. For everything you buy, from a hamburger to a banana to a motor car or a house, there is a sales docket—there is evidence of sale. The only group of people who are not allowed to have a sales docket are the farmers of Australia—and they are suffering greatly as a result, to the eternal shame of the LNP, who promised that sales docket in the election.

I do not have time to read out the quote from the then leader of the National Party, but I will say that Peter McGauran—a man of some integrity—went to the point of losing his portfolio because he thought, 'We cannot promise before an election something as important as this and then betray the farmers after the election.' So the honourable member from Toowoomba, who is not bound by such requirements, was put in charge of the legislation, and Mr McGauran risked his ministry. The end result of all this was that the promise was flagrantly broken, that the farmers were treated with absolute contempt and that the interests of the big corporations, whether they be agents or Coles and Woolworths and so on, were looked by the LNP in this place. Those are the sad facts of life. We have had three years since, and we have failed to get out of the ALP either. Why wouldn't you give the farmer evidence of sale? Every other sale that takes place in the world and in this country gets it, but all the poor old farmer gets is the rough end of the pineapple.

If you are genuine—if you are fair dinkum—then you will vote for this bill. But, if you do not, do not have the hypocrisy to go back to your electorate and tell them that you did. I am sending out a letter to every single newspaper in the electorate of every single country member in this place and saying: 'That's what we asked for; your member of parliament wouldn't even give you a sales docket—throw them out. But, if they vote for this, then you congratulate them and thank them.' So there is the choice, and it will be put in on the front page—if I get my way—of every country newspaper in Australia. (Time Expired)

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind the member for Kennedy to speak in future through the chair, not at the chair. He was in full flight, so I did not interrupt him, but I remind him now that in future I will interrupt him if he refers to the chair as 'you'.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Greatly appreciated, your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Debate adjourned.