Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Williams for his question and recognise Senator 'Wacka' Williams's longstanding interest in seeing the growth of Australian agriculture. I can say that the federal government fully support the NFF's vision to grow Australian agriculture to an industry of more than $100 billion, and we are taking action to help them achieve that too. Our agricultural industry is already one of the finest in the world. It produces more than $60 billion a year of value for our country. Of course, most of that—about 70 per cent of that—is exported overseas. The key to growing our agricultural industry further is to grow those overseas markets, to grow those customers and to give more opportunities for Australian farmers to do so.

That is why we as a government have concluded five trade agreements: three with China, Korea and Japan; the TPP, recently concluded; and a recently concluded agreement with Peru. All of these agreements are giving Australian farmers more opportunity to grow more food, to sell more products and to employ more Australians on their farms. This is already paying off. Just to give one example in regard to the Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement, since that was signed a few years ago, lamb exports to Korea are up 89 per cent, cheese exports to Korea are up 39 per cent, orange exports to Korea are up 57 per cent and beef exports to Korea—admittedly off a larger base—are up 17 per cent. This is why Fiona Simson, the president of the NFF, has said that the government's commitment to pursuing preferential trade agreements could largely be credited for the positive position agriculture find itself in today. We will continue to back Australian farmers. We will continue to work hard for their interests here and overseas so that we can continue to see the strong growth in our farming sector that gives great benefits to farmers and the communities in which they live.