Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] Yesterday was a great day for agriculture in Australia. It was a great day for broadacre farmers, dairy farmers and growers of fresh produce in horticulture and agriculture. It was a great day because the Liberal-National government delivered a history-making agriculture visa. The Nationals have been advocating for an agriculture visa for years. We've listened to our primary producers from Darwin to Robinvale to Burnie and have now delivered what they called for.

This visa is about providing a long-term, reliable workforce for our critical industries while solving one of the greatest challenges facing food and fibre production in regional Australia. It's about structural change, which will give primary producers the confidence to grow into the future. The new visa will be in place by 30 September this year, with full implementation within three years. The visa will be demand driven. In other words, there will be no limitation on the number of workers brought in. Australia will welcome as many workers as are needed. Importantly, it will be available to skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers from a range of countries. The ag visa will provide workers for the meat processing, fisheries and forestry sectors, and it will undergird and secure the growth of our primary industries in agriculture.

Since being elected to this parliament, I have worked closely with my primary producers in the electorate of Mallee. It became quickly apparent that a sustainable solution for workforce challenges was urgently needed. Throughout my stakeholder engagement, I have spoken with producers in citrus, table grapes, stone fruit, almonds, dried fruits, carrots, meat processing and broadacre crops—all in Mallee. These industries are unique, and the challenges they face are varied. Citrus and stone fruit producers need a great number of workers to harvest the fruit off the tree, whereas broadacre farmers need skilled workers to operate complex machinery. The ag visa is solutions focused and can be tailored to solve differing challenges. I spoke with local producers yesterday, and they are over the moon about the announcement. Rocky Mammone said it was a great win for horticulture in Sunraysia. Jeff Scott, the CEO of the Australian Table Grapes Association, said it had been a long time coming and it was very welcome news. The government will be collaborating with industry to inform the details of the management and implementation of the visa.

I'm excited about the ag visa announcement because it reflects the culmination of a body of work undertaken by the Nationals for several years. The implementation of an agriculture visa was a key recommendation of the inquiry into growing Australian agriculture to $100 billion by 2030, which was completed by the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Water Resources, of which I'm a member. It was also a recommendation of my own seasonal workforce policy that I developed after significant collaboration with local industries in my electorate. The new visa will complement the existing Pacific islander programs, which have gone from strength to strength in recent years. The current review of the Pacific islander programs will lead to improvements for these initiatives and will help to inform the design of the new visa. Australia will continue to support our Pacific island partners by doubling the number of workers coming into the country under these schemes. This visa will help not only growers but also workers. It will reduce exploitation in ag industries because it creates a legal avenue through which farmers can more easily access the workers they desperately need. The visa will also have the right protections in place to ensure that exploitation does not occur under the new program. The Commonwealth is working with our state and territory partners on options for national labour hire licensing to stamp out illegal behaviour.

The workforce shortages in our agriculture sector are real and they are urgent. Unfortunately, the current constraints on overseas workers to fulfil workforce shortages are state and territory quarantine measures. At the beginning of the pandemic, the national cabinet agreed that the state governments would manage the quarantine of international arrivals, and it is imperative that states and territories do much more to support the agriculture sectors by developing quarantine solutions in time for the implementation of the new visa.