Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Hearing what Senator Milne just said, the opportunity is there for the Greens today—if they have a concern for food processing, as the National Party does—to support this amendment and have food processing removed. I acknowledge your desire, Senator Milne, to represent regional issues and regional people; to look after food labelling; and to make sure that we keep Australian product on Australian tables and support the Australian processing sector. If you are authentic, that can be done so easily. All you have to do is support this amendment and you will have done those things, and you will have displayed your authenticity.

This issue is one that is a clear call about where you stand on the production of food inside Australia. Quite obviously, if the Australian food production industry is made unviable it will move overseas, and food production that is overseas uses food from overseas; therefore, we start once more to put further weight on the capacity of Australians to eat Australian product produced in Australia. You need there to be a nexus, in both geography and locality, between the production facilities and the food. If the production facilities go overseas they will quite obviously have to use food from overseas.

The challenge is that this is an amendment, regardless of people’s views on other issues, that specifically deals with keeping Australian food on Australian shelves—produced by Australian farmers and employing Australian working families in its manufacture and all the things associated with it. Therefore, I am strongly in support of it. I commend Senator Boswell. He has been pursuing this all the way through. Senator Boswell has really taken this issue on board. It is reflects his time in the Senate—as a father of the Senate—and his passion in supporting such places as Golden Circle, his passion in always going to bat for regional industries and his passion to look at the detail and how it affects things on the ground. This amendment needs to be supported if we want to have a clear statement about looking after the production of Australian food that is supplied by Australian farmers and put on the supermarket shelves for us to eat.

I am also interested in getting back information from Minister Wong about the Climate Change Action Fund and exactly where that money comes from. I also would like to know that if this amendment fails—and I hope it does not—are we then in the hands of the Productivity Commission to try and protect Australian manufacturing workers’ jobs in the food industry and to protect Australian farmers who supply that process? Is it not just a little bit nebulous to rely on the possible musings of the Productivity Commission when we can make it quite clear? This is a most important thing. The Australian people are focused on food sovereignty. They are focused on the capacity for the Australian nation to eat Australian product that is produced by Australian farmers. This amendment can do it and if this amendment succeeds we will have put that issue to bed. I think that would be an extremely decent thing to do.