Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a very exciting and rewarding time in my electorate of Nicholls in the Goulburn Valley, in the food bowl of Australia, the food bowl of South East Asia, because it's harvest time. Now, the harvest sort of kicks off in December period with the cherries and then the apricots. As we get into January, we move into the peaches, both the canning varieties and the fresh varieties. At the moment we're right in the middle of the pear harvest, and I would like to just put on the record for those who don't know that the Goulburn Valley grows over 90 per cent of Australia's pears. Soon in March we'll move into the apples—the Fujis, the Pink Ladies, the Royal Galas.

People from the Goulburn Valley are very, very proud of the fruit that they grow. A lot of it goes to the fresh market. Some of it still goes to that iconic company called SPC, which has been processing fruit for over 100 years and sending it all around the world so that people can experience the delights of sun-kissed Australian fruit in cans, in snack packs right around the world.

There two main things that the fruit of the Goulburn Valley needs to grow. One is the climate, the beautiful sunlight that we get. But the other thing is water. We don't get the rainfall to be able to grow that fruit where it is. The ingenious pioneers of the Goulburn-Murray irrigation system put together a scheme whereby we can put water all around the fertile plains of the Goulburn Valley to provide water for the fruit farms and the dairy farms. At the moment, we have a reduced allocation and that means, because there's a bit less water in the catchments, Hume and Eildon, the farmers don't have access to 100 per cent of their water right. Therefore, what they need to do, is go and buy temporary water from other farmers who might sell it to them. It's a good system.

The problem is when that pool of water—what we call the consumptive pool—gets reduced because irresponsible governments come in and buy it and put it in environmental accounts that don't get used, there is less water in the pool and the price goes up. Now, right now, in the middle of a heatwave, those orchardists are paying over $450 a megalitre per year for that water. That input cost has gone up, which is making it very difficult to run those businesses. It's just another example that the Albanese government doesn't get agriculture and doesn't get business.