Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources. Will the minister update the House on how strong agricultural export figures are contributing to growth and jobs, not just in rural and regional Australia but right across the nation?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. The honourable member has won a Nuffield Scholarship, so he clearly understands how agriculture works. He is also president of the VFF. He is a person who, in his own words, grows a few sheep and has a bit of cropping—he grows a few sheep just like the Prime Minister, who is very proud of the prices that he got just recently.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Very good prices.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But of course the purpose of the question is how agriculture is increasing the job prospects and growth in our nation—of course it is, because the agricultural industry is bringing in real export dollars and is expanding. In fact, we are having record soft commodity prices. The honourable member would be interested to know that in the year ending 30 June 2014 we had a nine per cent growth in rural goods exports and in the following year it was seven per cent growth. In 2014-15, it continued to grow by around seven per cent. In the first half of 2015-16, it was 12.7 per cent. So this is extraordinary growth. This is how we are bringing the money into our nation to assist people across our nation. This is the money that filters right through not just from the seat of Mallee but right down to Collins Street, right around our nation so that we can give that encouragement and show the world that we have the prospect of assisting in their food requirements. We can see it, even in the honourable member's seat, with almonds. We had a record amount of almonds: $522 million worth of almonds. This is what ABARES predicted would be grown, and a lot of it has been grown by Select Harvests. We see that they are predicting that to go up to $600 million in the current year.

We can see that there is not only that, but we are standing behind the people of Mallee by also assisting with infrastructure. It was with great pleasure that I was down there just recently at John Argiro's, a table grape grower—we are part of the Sunraysia Modernisation Project; money for it was started by the Prime Minister when he was the water minister—and we started by connecting his farm up to $120 million worth of water infrastructure. All this is part of a program. It shows that we are the government that has the vision. We are the government that has the capabilities. We are the government that is providing the results. And this is definitely the most exciting time to be in the agriculture industry.