Kara Cook (Bonner, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. What actions is the Albanese Labor government taking to support Australian farmers to continue producing food and fibre during the conflict in the Middle East?

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank our member for Bullwinkel. I know that the farmers and producers in her electorate, like those right across the country, are working day and night to ensure that we continue to get the fibre and the food that we need here in Australia and indeed right across the globe. As we do know, fuel and fertiliser are critical for our farmers, and the fuel is also important, of course, to keep our fishers fishing as well. As I said in here yesterday, we do know that the conflict in the Middle East is causing disruptions. We've been hearing directly from industry, from our farmers, from our producers and from our fishers on some of the challenges that they're facing right now, particularly in rural and regional Australia.

We know that fuel supplies continue to arrive in this country, but we also know that we need to continue to work to support our industry with these challenges. Following our roundtable earlier this week, both the ACCC and the Australian Institute of Petroleum are working with suppliers to address some of the bottlenecks and to make sure that our regional communities are getting the fuel they need. We just heard from the Minister for Climate Change and Energy about the additional action that he has taken to ensure more fuel for our regional economies. As the Australian Institute of Petroleum said yesterday:

Ensuring fuel supply to every part of Australia is vitally important—to every town, to every community and to every business …

The President of the National Farmers' Federation, Hamish McIntyre, said:

We're all working together now to make sure there's a fair and even distribution …

Our government has also announced that we're doubling the penalties for false and misleading conduct and cartel behaviour, and the ACCC will ramp up fuel-price monitoring even further. As we've heard, we've acted to have the National Coordination Mechanism respond even further. We have better coordination, better cooperation, more scrutiny and more surveillance.

Fertiliser Australia were also part of this week's roundtable, because, of course, we do know that fertiliser is critical. In the same way that industry is working with the ACCC to supply fuel to the regions, Minister Ayres and I are working with industry and the ACCC on similar arrangements for fertiliser supply. As I've said, while much of the fertiliser required for the upcoming season is already in the country or on the water, we continue to closely monitor this situation, and we'll keep listening and working with farmers and industry to ensure that the supply is available.

Australians expect all of us in this place, and everyone along the supply chains, to continue to act in our nation's best interests. I implore those opposite and those in the supply chains to take this seriously. The conflict in the Middle East is not a commercial opportunity nor a political one, and Australians do expect all of us to continue to act in the national interest.