Andrew Gee (Calare, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following from occurring immediately:

the Member for Calare presenting a Bill for an Act to protect Australia's prime agricultural land, and for related purposes;

debate on the second reading of the bill proceeding immediately for a period of no longer than one hour; and

any questions required to complete passage of the bill then being put without delay.

Today is a historic day for Australia. Today I bring to this House our country's first bill to protect Australia's prime agricultural land. It is legislation that is crucial to the future of our country. This bill will secure and safeguard not only Australia's prime agricultural land but also our nation's food security. It's hard to believe that a country which relies so much on agriculture to sustain it has never before passed legislation to protect the land that is the source of such bounty and prosperity. The member for Kennedy and I are committed to bringing this legislation before the parliament because this matter is urgent. Our prime agricultural land is at serious risk.

The gross value of agricultural production has increased by 34 per cent in the past 20 years to $82.4 billion in 2023-24. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences has forecast that the gross value of agricultural production will be $95 billion in 2025-26. Agricultural exports were valued at $71.5 billion in 2023-24 and accounted for more than 10 per cent of all goods and service exports. In 2024-25 the value of Australian agricultural exports surged to $77.2 billion, or 15.1 per cent of Australia's total exported goods. These statistics demonstrate how important agriculture is to our country and also to the future of regional Australia.

As the population of the world continues to increase, so too does the importance of food and water resources. Their social, economic and strategic importance can't be underestimated. This being the case, why hasn't anyone made any effort to safeguard our prime agricultural land? Other countries, like Canada, are way ahead of us. British Colombia, for example, has been protecting its best agricultural land for many years. As the Australian population grows, the footprints of our cities, towns and villages continue to grow as well. Around our country, including regional Australia, residential developments and urban sprawl are encroaching onto some of our finest agricultural land. This is the land that feeds and nourishes us, yet we're building houses on it. It's wrong, and it must stop.

It's not just residential development that poses a threat to prime agricultural land. Across regional Australia, foreign corporations are rolling out renewables projects, some of which are on prime agricultural land. I'm not against renewable energy, but at some point our national interest has to be the paramount consideration. To be clear, we should not have foreign corporations or anyone else effectively deciding how our prime agricultural land is used. Our prime agricultural land should be off limits. Residential and industrial developments need to go elsewhere. Our prime agricultural land should be preserved for agriculture. I should haven't to spell it out, but food security is a key part of national security. A nation which can't feed itself is a vulnerable one. It would be a national tragedy if we continued to squander this extraordinary resource by building residential and industrial development on top of it.

The Protecting Australia's Prime Agricultural Land Bill provides that, if a person, which includes a corporation, is in possession of prime agricultural land, the person must not use the land for a purpose other than agriculture or permit another person to use the land for a purpose other than agriculture. It also provides that, if a person purchases prime agricultural land, the person must ensure that the land is not used for a purpose other than agriculture. The bill also makes it a requirement that a person in possession of prime agricultural land that is being used in part for a purpose other than agriculture at the date of commencement of this proposed act must not expand or extend such usage. The bill further requires that, if prime agricultural land is being used for a purpose other than agriculture as at the date of commencement and such non-agricultural use ceases, the prime agricultural land must once again be used for agriculture.

The House needs to urgently consider this bill because our prime agricultural land is under threat and it can't be taken for granted. The general public listening to this debate may well be asking: 'How has this been allowed to happen? How come nobody has stood up to protect our prime agricultural land?' The truth is that there has been a shocking failure of politicians at all levels of government to do their jobs—lazy local councils prepared to rubberstamp developments regardless of their impact on agriculture, lazy and derelict town and city planning and lazy state governments failing to pass planning laws to properly protect our prime agricultural land. At a federal level, the major parties have also been asleep at the wheel on this issue since the time of Federation.

Where have the so-called guardians of the bush, the National Party, been on this? They claim to be the protectors of agriculture, but in 12 years in New South Wales government and nine years in federal government they utterly failed to live up to one of their founding tenets and very reason for existence—not one piece of legislation. They have completely and abjectly failed to protect our vital and irreplaceable prime agricultural land. And let's not forget that it was the National Party that created renewable energy zones in New South Wales and which also passed laws to put wind farms into state forests and then abrogated its responsibility to properly regulate them. They've created chaos, pitting neighbour against neighbour, failing to ensure that there is genuine consultation between developers and communities and failing to properly protect the rights of neighbouring landholders. The failure has been epic. It's been of epic proportions.

Since being in opposition, instead of getting on with the job of formulating legislation like this, the National Party have spent their time fighting each other and their coalition partners. Who could forget the attempted forced retirement of the members for New England and Riverina. Well, the member for New England has taken the hint, and they may well live to regret it. I don't think he's going to go quietly into the night. Then they split from the Liberals over what they said was a matter of extremely high principle, only to call it off two days later when they realised they would lose staffing positions, take a pay cut and have Liberals running in their seats. In the spirit and tradition of the English cricket team, they still claim to be the victors in the seat of Calare, despite that not being reflected on the score board. Things are so bad that they are going to be out of power for years, and yet the country is crying out for effective opposition. The public is sick of the petty political power plays and the back-stabbing.

Because of the chaos, the grandstanding, the veritable bonfire of the vanities on the opposition benches as they scrap over the spoils of defeat, it falls to the crossbench to do the heavy lifting for Australia, and that is what this bill is all about. Australia's farmers are the best in the world. Our prime agricultural land is a precious gift that must be protected. It defies belief that we continue to build houses, parking lots and industrial developments on it. If we don't act now, it will continue to disappear before our eyes. I urge members of the House to come into this chamber and support this bill right now. To the National Party: don't just say you support agriculture. Come in and vote for it. This bill is the Independents doing your jobs for you. To those Liberal and Labor Party members and, indeed, to all members, I say to you: remember where your food comes from. It doesn't just magically appear on supermarket shelves. To all members of this House: I remind you that our nation's ability to feed itself comes from the great food baskets of country Australia and its prime agricultural land. It's also where the fibre comes from that makes the clothes we wear. To all members of this House: this is your moment to stand up for agriculture, to stand up for our nation's food security. Come into this chamber and support the Protecting Australia's Prime Agricultural Land Bill.

I commend the bill to the House and I seek leave to table a copy of the bill and the explanatory memorandum.

Leave granted.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there a seconder for the motion?

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion because it is imperative and it is urgent that we debate this bill today. The reason why is that God's not making any more land but in Australia we act like he is. We continue to concrete over our best farmland in our nation. We don't value our farmland. We think that there will just be more of it, and there won't. It is a finite resource that belongs to all Australians.

Look at South Australia, my state. Only 11 per cent of our land is considered arable, only nine per cent is under production and only four per cent of the total land area of South Australia is considered highly arable farmland, where you have 500 millimetres of rainfall a year on average. And yet it is that four per cent that is under the most threat in my state, and it's under threat from the expansion of housing—the continual urban sprawl. We are going to get to a point in our nation where we have nowhere to farm, nowhere that has quality land, because it's all going to be housing. What are we going to eat?

These decisions that we make in this place today affect generations to come. The decisions that we make in this place today are decisions about which in 100 years time fellow Australian are going to say: 'What on earth were you doing? Why did you not protect our most important resource?' That is why we must debate this today.

I commend the member for Calare. I second this motion and commend him for this bill, for his foresight and for his insight, because right across Australia our local and state governments, through greed and through laziness, are continuing to carve up every decent bit of farmland, turn it into 300-square-metre blocks and stick a house on them. We're going to have nowhere to grow food. And what does that mean? Where do we get our food from? We're still going to need to eat as a nation. Do we import all of our food? Does our milk come from overseas? Does all of our food—everything you buy in the supermarket? It's bad enough now how difficult it is to find Australian food on our supermarket shelves. In generations to come, that will become worse. We must support this bill and we must debate this bill today, because in my electorate, whether it's down at Sellicks; at Mount Barker, outside of my electorate; out to Roseworthy; or further out, we are just carving up more and more of the nation's best farmland.

In fact, in South Australia back in 1991, the South Australian government's natural resources management standing committee did a report on the alienation of rural farmlands. They said that, if rural lands continue to be alienated at the rate and in the manner permitted in the past, the state will be faced with a serious conflict between commercial farmers and other land users and, ultimately, significant losses in primary production are likely.

That was 34 years ago, and I can tell you that, in my state, since that time, we have gone further and further. The urban sprawl just continues to go further and further. I look at where we used to grow wheat. I look at where we had cattle, where we had strawberry farms, where we had mushroom farms—just beyond. And now it's all housing, and it's going to get worse and worse. We should be making decisions in this place that protect that farmland.

As the member for Calare said, over in Canada—if anyone here travels to Europe, they will see that they value their farmland. They value their food security. But, here, we just think God's going to make more of it. Well, he's not. We know that, with climate change, we're going to get drier and drier as a continent. We know that where that line is—we have Goyder's Line in South Australia. They say that it's going to become lower and lower and that the arable land will get smaller and smaller.

In South Australia, just four per cent of our farmland is highly arable farmland. That should be protected for that purpose. It should be farmland. We need to have national leadership, and that is why this is being called on in this parliament. I would urge the parliament to act on this today for future generations tomorrow that deserve our doing something today, while we still can, to fix and address this.

Andrew Charlton (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the debate be adjourned.