Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on general business notice of motion 953, which moves that the Senate notes the Labor government's abject failure to support Australia's agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries. These industries make an important contribution to Australia economic, social and environmental prosperity. They surely deserve a bit more support, along with the third of Australians who live in rural and regional Australia. The industries employ 332,000 people across our region is in full- and part-time work. There are 134,000 thousand farm businesses in Australia, with each Australian farmer producing enough food to feed 150 people locally and 450 people overseas. Our farm gate contributes three per cent to Australia's total GDP and our farmers export about 60 per cent of their produce.

It has been a big week in fishing. We have learnt a lot in the discussions and debates that have occurred in the Senate this week. I know I have. Our commercial fishing and aquaculture industry is worth $2 billion annually and the Australian fishing industry employs over 16,000 people.

Senator Thorp was mentioning the forestry industry. My own father began his business career as a logger in the early 1960s in a little town in regional Victoria called Marysville. Wood product industries are also pulling their weight, despite the Greens-Labor policies of Tasmania. Their annual turnover is $22 billion. In 2006 they did employ 120,000 Australians, but that number is much fewer now thanks to successive state Labor governments. Senator Thorp made some commentary around forestry workers and how sad she was to see them stand with John Howard in that classic meeting in Tasmania in the 2004 election. That was because the forestry workers chose jobs over the joke of the Labor government they were heading for. Watching Mr Latham's subsequent behaviour after that election bears those workers choice out.

It is hard not to agree with the business notice of motion before the Senate. The Labor government has forgotten regional Australia's key industry, and not just because of its dirty, big deal with its partners in government, the Greens. In the regions, our industries need a few things to thrive and prosper. They need water. They need a certainty to invest. They need support to continue to export our clean, green produce. And they need recognition from government that our way of life is inclusive. We consult. You do not mess with the fence unless you have had a chat with your neighbour. Let's face it: the ALP's track record on any of these key factors is failure.

Firstly, on water, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan has the ability to pull the economic and social rug out from under the community. The basin is a thriving contributor to our Australian economy. Total agriculture production within the basin is worth $15 billion, and 2.1 million people live in the basin and 900,000 are employed. The lack of confidence and certainty around the Basin Plan is affecting local investment and having a significant social impact. There needs to be more information on how water will be recovered. We on our side, along with the community—because I have been to every public consultation in my home state of Victoria—have been clear that water recovery needs to be through infrastructure or environmental works, not buybacks. For the plan to work, it needs the states to cooperate, because the states are the ones that are actually going to be operating the system and developing detailed environmental water plans. But the Gillard government's track record with the states is appalling, and so the lack of confidence continues.

The ALP must admit its approach to water recovery thus far has been a disaster. It has spent $1.9 billion on water buybacks but just $494 million on investment in infrastructure in the basin. For every one litre of water that is being saved through infrastructure, five litres has been taken out of communities through buybacks. If the government wants to recover water above the 2,750 gigs then it must commit to it coming at no additional economic cost to the community. They cannot afford it.

Remember in 2010 when the government assembled the first draft of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan without any community or stakeholder consultation? We heard communities screaming out from Victoria right through up to Griffith. A thousand people rallied in Mildura, angry over the lack of local input. When we talk about how the ALP does not even understand how we live and work in the regions, they scheduled those public consultations during harvest time in a place like Shepparton, where people are busy working in their business, trying to make a dollar and do not have the time to head off to listen to Tony Burke and Craig Knowles.

The carbon tax, another great Labor Party policy, disproportionately affects regional communities. Dairy, hort, coalmining, transport—they are all major employers out in the regions. Despite the rhetoric of agriculture not being included, it is right now battling the flow-on effects of the tax—increased power prices and input costs on fertiliser and refrigeration. The processors in the dairy sector are battling. Some of the bigger energy intensive sectors are paying the carbon tax itself. The red meat industry will find it harder. Their heavy reliance on road transport will make it easier for competitors in New Zealand, Europe and South America who are not facing the world's biggest carbon tax.

Australia's produce reputation is a great one. We are very proud of our clean, green record. That is how we want to keep it. But how has this government been supporting industry? Let's have a think. Whether it is apples, nursery products or the potato industry, the government's support in Biosecurity and Customs has been to ignore growers' concerns, increase costs and increase regulation. A future decision favouring New Zealand potato imports carries with it serious threats to Australia's $10 billion horticultural industry, an industry that employs over 60,000 people. New Zealand has been ravaged by the zebra chip disease, a bacterium that is spread by a psyllid insect and has caused an estimated loss of $200 million for their producers. Under a Labor government, growers can be uncertain of their biosecurity future.

Turning to science, I have a science degree, so I feel I can speak on this. Science must be a guiding factor when it comes to any decision of this magnitude being made. A decision based on anything else is not acceptable when we are dealing with the economic, social and environmental impacts of getting it wrong. It is not the first time the Gillard government has decided to ignore growers. Last year the government gave the green light to import New Zealand apples. I notice Senator Heffernan has entered the chamber—a fantastic advocate for our horticultural industry. The only problem is that fire blight has existed in New Zealand for almost 90 years, and during that time Australia has managed to keep free of this damaging disease. Almost 90 per cent of the pear industry is concentrated in my home state of Victoria, in the Goulburn Valley. The industry is worth $200 million per annum and employs approximately 2,000 people. But Labor did not listen to growers. We now have New Zealand apples in Australia.

The list continues. Regional development funds of the government should focus on supporting local communities to achieve local outcomes, but Minister Crean has frozen the regional development fund. Where does that leave those communities who had hoped to use the funds to revitalise their towns? The Australian newspaper confirmed the government would halt the $2 billion worth of grants. This is after slashing $400 million from the program over the past two years. So it is not just the current effort to deal with the current economic mismanagement that we are dealing with but a sustained program of de-investment over time.

Not that regional Australia under this government is defined in a way that accurately reflects what we on this side understand a region to be. When this Labor government under the regional development program gives 80 per cent of the money to cities, we have a problem, Houston—and so does Mitiamo.

One of the issues with this Labor government is that they are so desperate to be liked. They are also so desperate to be green. They are so desperate to be like the Greens. It means email campaigns and public pressure from the left, from inner urban elites, can cause catastrophic flip-flops in ministerial decision making. There is no greater example of this than the live cattle export debacle. The cattlemen and their families are still dealing with the fallout in an industry that may never recover—because Joe folded, because Julia could not take the heat. Even this week we saw the ship of fools throw science overboard, the science underpinning how our fisheries are managed. When ministers can overturn the livelihoods of a minority because of an email campaign, something is seriously wrong with the democracy. Ministerial insecurity complexes have been a direct result of Labor's dance till the death with the Greens.

Forming the alliance with the Australian Greens was always going to be bad news for regional Australia, and we know that. We tell the nation every time we get to vote. That is why the Greens vote in Mallee is just a little over seven per cent and why the Greens vote in Murray, right across northern Victoria, was six per cent. Every day that this government remains wedded to the Greens is another day that regional Australia continues to wonder if those in power can hear, because they are hypocrites.

When Christine Milne acknowledges that rural Australia 'faces complex agricultural, environmental and social challenges', she is right. They are challenges that her own policies have created. Their policy on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan says otherwise. They would like to see 4,000 gigs go. That will have a catastrophic economic and social cost on communities right throughout the basin. The Greens' food production policies say otherwise. Their economic management credentials say otherwise. They are all hope and no hard work. Out there in the regions that is something we understand all too well—it is hard work.

In closing, while this government supports a carbon tax it cannot support the dairy industry. When this government does not support science, it cannot support our fishing industry. And while this government supports locking up the forests it cannot support our forest industry. So when we look at the motion we are debating today—that the Senate notes the Labor government's abject failure to support Australia's agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries—the evidence is clear. This government cannot support agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries because it is supported by the Greens.