I move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges that:

(a) Australian agriculture contributes about $100 billion to Australia's economy, feeds our nation and is fundamental to the nation's food security, regional employment and economic resilience;

(b) Australian farmers have some of the highest input costs in the world, such as:

(i) high wages;

(ii) high regulatory compliance;

(iii) high freight; and

(iv) high fertiliser costs;

(c) Australian farmers also have some of the lowest levels of government producer subsidies and support in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, unlike counterparts in the European Union, United States of America or Japan who receive extensive state backing;

(d) these conditions have made Australia highly vulnerable to agricultural imports, many of which have destroyed our Australian farms, such as the grape, apple and citrus sectors, and ultimately led to higher supermarket prices for consumers; and

(e) despite the significant environmental, social and economic impacts of international agricultural imports, the Government is currently considering import applications, or allowing imports, for bananas, peanuts, pomelos, mangosteens, garlic, and ginger; and

(2) calls on the Government to:

(a) take immediate and decisive action to protect Australia's agricultural sector by ensuring that any import application relating to fresh produce be rejected unless it is demonstrated by the applying country that there is:

(i) no biosecurity risk;

(ii) no social or economic impact on Australian farmers or their communities;

(iii) no difference in chemical and pesticide usage and overall environmental standards;

(iv) no difference in cost of production including wages and working conditions; and

(v) an overriding need and demand for the imported product; and

(b) immediately introduce legislation that prohibits imports if non-compliant with international obligations including, but not restricted to, slavery, child labour and other unfair working conditions and wages, and environmental impacts including pesticide and chemical usage.

I moved a motion in the House, some years ago, that biosecurity responsibilities be taken out of the hands of the very expensive public servants in Canberra and be given to the Kynuna CWA, since it's only a matter of saying yes to everything. I do not know of a single knockback. There probably have been some, but I'm not aware of a single knockback. Every time you apply to come into this country, they allow you in, but it doesn't matter whether you've got diseases or whether you've got people working for $5 an hour, and that's not a Third World country.

It's some time ago now, but there were $5 an hour wages for farm workers in the United States when our wages here were $18 an hour. Should people who pay their workers $5 an hour be allowed to get their product into Australia to compete against our hard workers? They were working for very little money, for $18 an hour, I can assure you. But we let them in. It pushes down our wages to their slave labour levels.

But let me go back to the disease issue. They allowed product into Australia, and it was carrying black sigatoka. We told them, again and again, if you allow the product into Australia, we will get black sigatoka. Now, 250 hectares of Australia cannot grow anything at all. There's a big six-strand barbed wire fence around it and a big sign saying, 'You can't enter here.' How much of Australia have we got to sacrifice to this stupidity?

Citrus canker came in and wiped out half the citrus industry in Australia. We said, 'Don't let the prawns in or you'll get white spot.' They let the prawns in, so we got white spot. I could go on and on and on but, at the present moment, there are no biosecurity knockbacks that I am aware of. Once again, I put forward that maybe the Kynuna CWA should take on the project, because it's just a matter of saying yes to everything.

We were an island for 40,000 years. No-one came here. We had no farming history for 40,000 years, so we don't have any of the diseases that all the other countries have because they've had people coming in and out and carrying the diseases with them. We were disease free, but, thanks to the likes of biosecurity and the moronic governments that have prevailed in Australia, saying yes to everything with their fruit-rabid free market extremism, we have disease after disease after disease coming in and wrecking what was the most disease-free country in the world. Now, we're, more and more, becoming like everyone else. I commend the proposal to the house.

Is the motion seconded?

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

I always jump at the chance to speak on a motion regarding agriculture because I like to surprise people a little bit, being a member of an outer suburban part of Australia. That's because I always like to remind people where I come from, which is where I used to work, on sheep and cattle stations around my hometown of Broken Hill, where I had a small business. I call it a small business, but, really, it was just a bike, a ute and a pack of dogs—and the will to win, which is the thing that you need most when you're working on the land.

I was there through a very tough time. It can be tough on the land at the best of times, but I was there at the worst of times, when we had the millennial drought in around 2000. Over the course of about 18 months or so, I think we had about 180 points of rain, which is just under two inches, on the old scale. We saw, unfortunately, thousands of sheep die and hundreds of cattle die. It was a lesson to me in many ways that you couldn't get a bunch of people that are more resilient, more ready to take that sort of self-responsibility. And it was a lesson for me that, had the government not stepped in and looked after those farmers, then all of those farmers would have been out of business and off the land that they'd looked after for generations. All of that stock would have died. And so government has an essential role in agriculture.

The other reason I speak to this is that I take any opportunity I have to listen to the member for Kennedy as well, who brings such a lifetime of experience. I'm always amazed to think that I'm speaking in the same parliament as a person who sat during the Bjelke-Petersen government, with which history shows there are, I think, many good things involved. The Bjelke-Petersen government, despite all of its criticisms, was an active government when it came to protecting Australian industry and protecting Australian farmers. And so there are many lessons that I learned from that.

It is a chance not just to remind people about my own personal history but also to reinforce how important agriculture is to the Australian economy generally. You might actually find it hard to believe, but the Australian AgriBusiness Institute is a college which has only just opened up right next door to my electoral office in Beenleigh, and it is going to have 900 places for students to learn about agriculture as we move into the 21st century—900 places. It is going to bring tens of millions of dollars to the local economy just through that sector alone, let alone training the agricultural experts in the future.

I would like to take this opportunity for a big shout-out to my now good friend Bernard Malik, who has worked tirelessly to get this up off the ground. It is something that is going to contribute, as I said, tens of millions of dollars to the local economy and, over time, hundreds of millions of dollars to the Australian economy. It is, I think, important for all members to realise that this $100 billion-a-year industry, agriculture, is something which is not only so important to those in the back blocks of western New South Wales, where I come from, or the inside country, as we call it, along the coast, but also something essential to the Australian economy generally and, I might just say, to the Australian psyche as well, psychologically. We are very much a country where we might have huddled close to the coast but our history and our values come from the bush.

The last thing I'd say is this: I also like to remind people that I worked in farming as a prelude to say that I was also an electorate officer, a political staffer, when I worked for Murray Watt, who was the agriculture minister when we came into government. I saw Murray go from being an opposition shadow minister to being the agriculture minister responsible for handling the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Indonesia. I'd say that that one example really exemplifies the Albanese government's attitude to these sorts of concerns—that, when there is a crisis, we will throw everything we can at it and, where there is a chance to prevent it, we will do everything that we can to prevent it. So I saw Murray work his guts out and stop FMD coming into Australia. Of course the media never focused—there's never a moment where you go 'mission complete,' but you know that when you've solved the issue is when it when it starts dropping off the headlines in the papers. There are many things in this motion to be commended by the member for Kennedy. They'll be voting against it. Always happy to listen. (Time expired)

Right now, the Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry is considering applications for the importation of pineapples and bananas in particular—fresh goods that, if approved, could have devastating effects on Australia's farm sustainability and would be a massive biosecurity risk. You must ask yourself: Why are we even entertaining this? Who does it benefit? It certainly doesn't benefit the farmer. It certainly doesn't benefit the regional communities that grow these crops, particularly with respect to jobs.

As always, it doesn't benefit the consumer, either.

And it doesn't benefit the end buyer, as the member for Kennedy just said. It can only benefit the supermarkets and the ability for them to increase their margins. It's not that they particularly sell the goods cheaper when they're imported; they're just increasing their margins.

Let's look at pineapples. For the pineapple industry, there is a federal proposal by the department to allow fresh, decrowned pineapples imported from India and Indonesia. Australian pineapple growers face high compliance, environmental and labour expenses, because pineapples take 20 months to grow and are largely harvested by hand. How could our growers possibly compete with Indonesia and India on a product that has such a high labour input?

Let's think about the diseases and exotic pests. The draft assessment identifies eight quarantine pests linked to imports from Indonesia and India—specific threats such as trilobite scale and six mealybug species such as the papaya and grey pineapple mealybug and cotton thrips. There are also chemical limitations because growers note that Australia lacks registered chemicals to combat many of these foreign pests if they spread locally.

Then, of course, there's market displacement. The Australian pineapple growers association warned that cheaper imports could displace domestic fruit and threaten rural jobs. There are 35 million pineapples grown across Queensland at a value of around $80 million, so protecting this industry is crucial.

If we look at bananas, as the member for Kennedy mentioned, that too has got a proposal in front of it, and that would be to import bananas. That would be potentially devastating for our nation—not just for Queenslanders who grow the crop but for the rest of us that enjoy eating bananas. Exotic diseases from regions like the Philippines could introduce devastating illnesses to our crops such as moko disease and black sigatoka.

We know that there is no zero risk. Industry groups like the Australian Banana Growers' Council maintain that quarantine and inspection protocols can never reduce import risk completely to zero. Bananas are a huge industry for us—$1.3 billion annually, 540 growers and 18,000 jobs across Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. So why are we doing this?

The member for Kennedy raised the prawn industry and white spot. You might say, 'Why is the member for Mayo talking about this?' Well, I care about agriculture in my community, and I can tell you that in South Australia we have seen the impacts of when there have been imports—often cheap imports—and the devastating impact on our farms.

Citrus—

If we look at citrus in South Australia, we had cheap imports in the 90s and early 2000s of juice concentrate that came from Brazil. That had a massive, devastating impact, and it made juicing of our own product largely uneconomical. Then, of course, there are the biosecurity threats, as the member for Kennedy raised, with respect to citrus canker and citrus greening disease. We need to look after Australian farmers. We need to put Australian farmers first. Now, even entertaining the idea with respect to pineapples and bananas is not doing that.

I would also just mention, away from horticulture, pork. Right now, try and find Australian bacon on our supermarket shelves. Around 75 per cent is imported. We have cheap importation of our pork. If it doesn't have a bone in it, it's largely imported. Why do we do that? I don't know, because it's no good for our pork industry, and it's no good for our farmers. They are on their knees. Australia must think about what happened during COVID-19. We rely on Australian farmers. We must support them better.

Agriculture, as we all agree, is the backbone of regional Australia and is the heartbeat of our national economy. The Albanese Labor government is steadfastly committed to ensuring our agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries actively thrive. Recent forecasts show Australia's farmgate production value is on track to exceed $100 billion. Despite seasonal headwinds and volatile global pressures, Australian agricultural production remains near record levels. That is a direct testament to the grit, adaptability and world-class innovation of Australian primary producers.

Our farmers know how to innovate. They adapt to changing consumer demand, embrace new technology and manage variable climate conditions better than anyone else in the world, but they cannot do that in isolation. That is why our government is backing them with real practical support: investing in farm resilience, expanding export pathways and developing and delivering the strongest biosecurity protections that this nation has ever seen.

Our food security is simply too important for cheap slogans or fear campaigns. Australia is and remains one of the most food-secure nations on earth. We produce far more food than we consume domestically, yet a responsible government does not take that strength for granted. Even nations with robust food systems must prepare for supply chain shocks, extreme weather events and shifting geopolitics. And that is why we're developing Feeding Australia: A National Food Security Strategy. This is not a top-down thought exercise. Feeding Australia is a whole-of-system plan shaped by more than 400 organisations, supported by the National Food Council and forged through co-design sessions right across the country. It unites growers, food processors, supply chain logistics specialists and health experts to guarantee that our food supply chain is resilient, productive and secure for decades to come.

Crucial to that security is our international standing. Trade and market access works both ways. Australia exports approximately 80 per cent of what our farmers produce. Our ag sector relies on open, stable overseas markets. When we came to office, we inherited a decade of neglect. The previous government had spent years damaging relationships with key global trading partners, and it was our regional producers who paid the price. Under the Albanese Labor government, we have done the hard, methodical, diplomatic work—work to rebuild the trust and get those relationships back on track.

Between July 2022 and March 2026, this government recorded 286 significant market access achievements. We opened 50 brand new markets for Australian agricultural goods, delivered 141 improvements to slash red tape and reduce export costs, achieved 86 outcomes to safeguard access where trade was under threat and restored access across 19 critical pathways where it had previously been lost. As a respected rules based trading nation, international frameworks require us to consider market access requests from our partners, just as we insist that they accept ours. However, considering an import request does not mean imports are imminent, nor does it mean our standards will ever be compromised. Assessments for commodities such as Philippine bananas or decrowned pineapples are detailed, rigorous technical reviews that take years to complete. There is no predetermined outcome, and Australian growers are consulted every step of the way, ensuring that real-world, on-the-ground expertise informs the technical work.

On this side of the House, biosecurity comes first—always. We will never cut corners or play politics with our ag integrity. Under the Australian Labor government, Australia's biosecurity system has been reinforced by more than $2 billion in additional funding. Import pathways are decided by independent technical experts using science. Our focus is clear. (Time expired)

Food security is national security, yet Australian farmland is being bought to generate carbon credits while Australian farmers face tough rules on how they farm, what they can produce and how they manage their land—and then they have to compete with imports produced under lower standards. That is not a level playing field, so I thank the member for Kennedy for bringing this important motion before the House, and I support it wholeheartedly.

I speak on this issue not only as the member for Dawson but as someone who has worked the land myself. I was a tomato farmer before coming to this place. I know what it means to put a crop in the ground, nurture it and harvest it, and then watch as the major supermarkets dictate what you will be paid for it. Australian farmers are some of the hardest-working people in the country. Farmers get up before dawn, work through the heat, rain and drought, carry the risk of weather, pests and diseases, and then deal with the market forces—yet they're expected to compete in a global market on unequal terms.

Australian agriculture contributes around $100 billion to our economy. Farmers feed our families, employ Australians and keep regional communities alive and thriving. Food security is national security, yet Labor is making it harder for Australian farmers to produce Australian food. Our farmers face some of the highest input costs in the world, including high wages, exorbitant freight costs, astronomical fertiliser prices and an ever-growing burden of regulation and compliance. Our farmers are not asking for special treatment or government handouts; they are asking for the government to get out of the road, stop adding unnecessary regulation, stop putting barriers between farmers and their land and stop making it harder and more expensive to produce food that this country depends on. Let the farmers farm. Give them a fair chance to produce, invest and grow.

Labor is making it harder and more expensive for Australian farmers to produce, and asking the farmers to compete with imported food grown under conditions that are completely different from ours. This is where this issue becomes more than agriculture; it becomes about Australian fairness. When Australian farmers are forced out of production, we don't simply lose a farm; we lose local jobs, regional businesses and agricultural expertise. Ultimately, we become more dependent on food from somewhere else. This government should not be creating policies that make productive farmland more valuable as a carbon asset than as a food-producing asset. We've seen taxpayer backed investment being used to acquire Australian agricultural land for carbon projects. That should concern every single Australian. A family farming should not have to compete with an investment fund backed by taxpayer money to buy the land needed to grow food. We should be growing food on our best agricultural land and supporting the farmers who produce it.

Before this government allows any imported produce into Australia, it should be asking some very basic questions. Does it pose a biosecurity risk? Does it undermine Australian farmers and regional communities? Was it produced with the same environmental standards? Was it treated with registered and approved chemicals? Were the workers paid fairly and protected from exploitation? If imported food is produced using child labour, slavery, unsafe working conditions or environmental practices that would not be permitted in Australia, Australian farmers should not be forced to compete with it. When Australians walk into a supermarket, they should have confidence in knowing that that food on the shelf is safe, is free from harmful chemicals that are banned in Australia and is fairly produced with no slave labour, and it should always be Australian first where possible.

When a young Australian wants to become a farmer, they should know that there is a future worth farming for, because once we lose the capacity to feed ourselves, we lose something far more valuable: we lose a part of our national resilience. I support this motion because Australian agriculture is not simply another industry; it is about our food, our jobs and our future. The farming industry deserves to be protected. Without farmers, we starve.

A bottle of Hunter Valley shiraz sitting on a table in Shanghai tells a bigger story than most people realise. Behind that bottle is a grape grower getting up before sunrise, a worker tending the vines, a family running a cellar door, a truck driver moving that product and a regional community relying on every one of those jobs. For years, Hunter winemakers watched the important export market virtually disappear. When China removed its duties on Australian bottled wine in March 2024, the value of the Australian wine exports to that market climbed from just $13 million to more than $1 billion over the following 12 months. That didn't fix every challenge facing the industry, but it reopened the door for premium wine regions like mine in the Hunter Valley. It showed what fair access to overseas markets can mean for real people in regional communities. That's why this debate matters.

There's plenty in this motion that every member should agree with. Australian farmers work bloody hard. They face high import and freight costs, natural disasters, changing markets and global pressures that would pretty much make plenty of people throw in the towel. Across the Hunter, dry conditions have recently forced cattle producers to make difficult decisions about feed and livestock. Our farmers know conditions can turn quickly. They need practical support, strong biosecurity and governments that understand what's at stake. They also deserve an honest debate, and that's where this motion falls short. The member for Kennedy wants every fresh produce import application rejected unless the other country can prove there is no biosecurity risk, no economic or social impact, no difference in environmental standards or production costs and an overriding need for the product. It might sound simple, but it isn't a serious or workable policy.

There is no such thing as zero biosecurity risk. Australians simply reduce the risk to a very low level, though, through rigorous science-based assessments and strong import conditions. Demanding proof of absolutely no risk would effectively shut down trade, including with countries that buy Australian beef, grain, wine, dairy and horticultural products. The motion also says imports should be rejected where overseas wages, working conditions or production costs differ from ours. If every country applied that test, Australian farmers would quickly find markets closed to them. The Hunter wine experience shows exactly why this matters. When major markets close, it isn't a politician in Canberra who carries the burden. It's the growers, the workers, the small businesses and the owners back at home.

Australia exports far more agricultural produce than it imports. Our farmers depend on a fair, rules-based trading system. We shouldn't undermine it with policy that invites retaliation against them. That doesn't mean turning a blind eye to poor labour or environmental practices. It must be addressed through enforceable labour standards, environmental laws, trade agreements and international obligations, not a blanket test that can't be applied consistently.

Our first responsibility is protecting Australia's biosecurity. One outbreak can wipe out years of hard work and devastate entire communities. That's why the Albanese Labor government has committed more than $2 billion to strengthen the system protecting our borders, farms and environments. Import applications aren't waived through because a lobbyist asks nicely. They are assessed by qualified biosecurity experts and scientific evidence. If the risk can't be managed to Australia's strict standards, it's simple: the product doesn't come in. That's how the system should work.

Since July 2022, the government has also secured hundreds of market access outcomes for Australian agriculture. That means more opportunities for Hunter wine, beef, dairy and other products and more regional jobs. The value of Australian agricultural production reached an estimated $101 billion in 2025. That represents family businesses, regional employment and income that keeps local shops open and sporting clubs going.

Food security requires long-term planning. That's why the government is developing Feeding Australia, our national food security strategy. More than 400 organisations and individuals have contributed to the work. We will strengthen supply chains, lift resilience and help ensure Australia continues to have access to safe, affordable and high-quality food.

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.