Trish Cook (Bullwinkel, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. How is the Albanese Labor government helping our farmers, fishers and producers to manage the impacts of the conflict in the Middle East and to keep our food production strong? Further, what have been the responses to these measures?

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

I want to thank our terrific member for Bullwinkel. It was terrific to be with her in WA's Wheatbelt talking to farmers on the ground about how they're actually dealing with what is a global conflict and how it's impacting them on the ground, particularly in relation to fuel and fertiliser availability. Price, of course, was concerning to them in the conversations that we had.

We do know that the impacts of this war are being felt globally, and right here in Australia as well, which is why I've been holding weekly roundtables with the agriculture industry and why we have been working as a government day and night, as you've heard from the Prime Minister and the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, to help Australians, but particularly our farmers, manage these impacts and keep Australia moving.

We recognise the critical role our farmers, our fishers and our producers play in supporting our food security, our economy and our regional communities. We've been focused on easing the immediate pressures and securing more fuel and fertiliser to provide farmers with confidence for the future. We've amended fuel and diesel standards. We've released 20 per cent of our strategic fuel stockpile to help get more fuel into our regions and to our farmers and our fishers.

We have passed the legislation to underwrite additional shipments of fuel and fertiliser, with over 450 million litres of additional diesel secured to date. We've worked with industry and with the Indonesian government to help secure an additional 250,000 tonnes of urea supply from Indonesia, with the President of Incitec Pivot Fertilisers, Scott Bowman, saying:

… this additional volume will go a long way to shoring up critical supplies to Australian farmers.

We're streamlining, but we're not compromising on, our biosecurity processes to help get fertiliser and feed inputs to our farmers faster. We're also deferring the implementation of changes to agricultural export services for an additional year. Of course, we've made our announcement in relation to tonight's budget, which will include an Australian fuel security and resilience package. This includes $7½ billion for the establishment of a fuel and fertiliser security facility to increase supply and storage of fuel and fertiliser right here in Australia, as we've heard, and over $3 billion to establish a government owned Australian fuel security reserve of around a billion litres.

This is about doing more in our own backyard. It's about minimising the impacts of global disruptions, and it's about keeping our food production system strong. These are critical investments that have been welcomed right across the agriculture industry, including by the President of the National Farmers' Federation, Hamish McIntyre, who said last week that it is 'a welcome step toward building the sovereign capability we need to protect our food system'. While those opposite are focused on whether or not they should do a deal with One Nation, we're focused on deals for the nation.