Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present an interim report of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee on climate change in the Australian agricultural sector.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I seek leave to move a motion to set the reporting date for the committee’s final report on this matter.

Leave granted

I move:

That the final report of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee on its inquiry into climate change in the Australian agricultural sector be presented by 4 December 2008.

Question agreed to.

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I would like to make a couple of comments on the report. Firstly, during this inquiry there have been some 42 submissions and we have had the pleasure of having two public meetings in Canberra that were very well attended. A lot of information has come forward to the committee which has all been considered, but there is still a lot of work to be done—there is no question about that. I would like to note a couple of the submissions that came to us. One that struck a chord was about perennial pastures, and was from Mr Tim Wiley, from the Western Australian agriculture department, and Mr Bob Wilson, who is vice-president of the Evergreen farming group and a farmer from Lancelin in Western Australia. Senator O’Brien and I, as a subcommittee, had the pleasure of being hosted on a day tour around the northern wheatbelt area of Northampton and some farms up there. What we saw up there certainly opened our eyes. It is an area of extreme conditions where the farmers have certainly taken the issue of climate change by the throat and are doing everything they can to address the issues they face. It was a worthwhile visit. Senator O’Brien and I took a lot away from that tour. There is to be another tour next Friday, to the western New South Wales district of Warren, where we will be checking out what is happening there.

In terms of where we go from here, there is a lot more work to do, as I said. But I would like to take this opportunity to thank the committee secretariat for their work. It is a small secretariat that is under extreme pressure because there are so many references to this committee, but they do not shirk the load. They have done a lot of work for us. We have been ably assisted by Jeanette and her team of Peter, Rosalind, Trish and Ann, and I want to note that. On behalf of my fellow committee members—my deputy chair, Senator Siewert, from Western Australia, and Senator O’Brien, Senator Heffernan, Senator Hurley, Senator Hutchins, Senator McGauran and Senator Nash—I commend this interim report to the Senate.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to note this report from Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee which, as the Chair, Senator Sterle, has just indicated, is an interim report. Senator Siewert and I first sought to refer to the committee the issue of climate change and its impact on rural and regional Australia, and on the agricultural sector in particular, quite some time ago. We actually tried to refer it twice and it was voted down until finally—and this was under the previous government—it got to the committee. That just shows you how far we have come in the last 12 months in getting people in the Senate to recognise just how serious climate change is in its impacts in rural and regional Australia. That is not to say, of course, that its impacts are not serious everywhere, but the intensification of the drought as a result of climate change is everywhere to be seen. The frustration I have is that the response to that has been far too slow and that not enough coordinated research is being done around Australia on adaptation and the mitigation strategies that are out there and possible to respond to climate change.

The committee’s interim report looks at the science of climate change and what the likely impacts are to be in Australia. It reinforces what we already know, and that is that we are going to have more extreme conditions: we are going to have more extreme drought, more extreme weather events such as floods and so on, and many more bushfire days in various parts of Australia. The problem, though, is that farmers want very regional-specific information for it to be useful to them, and the climate models to date have generally been too broad. They can give you a trend analysis for a reasonably large area, but people need it to be brought down to quite specific regional scales in order for it to be very useful. One of the very strong things in this committee report is that we need to get cracking in Australia, particularly, on refining our climate models so that they become very much more useful and relevant to people in rural areas who need to use that information. There was overwhelming support on the committee for recognising that that has to be a research priority in Australia and to use the science we have and bring it down to a scale that is meaningful to rural communities, both to the towns and to the farmers around those towns.

The second thing is that we addressed issues about drought relief. Again, this is something that has been overtaken, to some extent, by the review of drought relief that is going on on a broader scale. But the point I want to make very strongly is that it is time to stop thinking in terms of drought relief and one-in-100-year droughts and the need to just pay the drought relief because it is thought that things are going to change, that it is going to rain and that everything will be all right again. We now have an understanding in rural and regional Australia that things are not going to be all right again and that the climate is significantly changing. Therefore we have to have a discussion about how we are going to help people adapt. What we all want is for people to be able to stay on their land and change the way they do things so that it remains viable for them to stay on the land and therefore the rural communities they serve will remain viable as well. That is why I emphasise the research.

One of the things the Greens are very keen to do—and there is increasing interest in this—is to intensify soil carbon, to get much better accounting methods for soil carbon and to look at what the opportunities are in rural and regional Australia for, if you like, the development of green carbon and soil sequestration. Unfortunately, I was not able to go out to the wheat belt with my colleagues from the committee, but I will be going to Warren this week. I think there is a lot of merit in accelerating the research we are doing, particularly with things like planting perennial grasses so that you have constant ground cover and better moisture retention, and then you can plant into those perennial grasses for some of the crops. That is what we will be going to see. That is the work of Dr Christine Jones, who has made a particularly interesting submission. I think there is genuine interest across all sides of the House in the work that is going on there.

The other issue, from my point of view, is that I am a bit disappointed that the renewable energy community has not taken the opportunity with this inquiry to come and talk about the huge opportunities there are in rural and regional Australia for partnership arrangements to farm renewable energy as an additional crop. Quite clearly a lot of the very large properties that are really suffering because of the drought have tremendous solar radiation or, in some cases, wind resources. What we need to do is to work out ways in which we can pre-permit large areas. It is the role of the Commonwealth, in my view, and the state governments to go and talk to communities and get agreement about having a large renewable energy park, if you like, across private land. That would have to be agreed in the community, of course. We have to do that; otherwise there will be fighting in rural communities, as some farmers will want to go with renewable energy and the people next door may not like it. There will be conflict and so on. That is why going out and talking to people and getting some agreement about the area enables the renewable energy companies to come in and sign up partnership agreements or reach joint venture or leasehold arrangements—whatever you want to do—and be able to put in large-scale, utility scale, solar, thermal, and wind facilities in rural and regional Australia so, effectively, the farmers can stay on their land and get an income from generating renewable energy. That would also require the government to give additional support through the permit money coming through the ETS system to extend the transmission lines out to those areas to make it viable. Then you would get, in conjunction with a feed-in tariff, a huge investment and a real adaptation strategy in terms of building economic resilience.

Ecosystem resilience is the other thing. There is huge recognition now that, as an adaptation strategy to climate change, we have to build resilience in ecosystems. The best way of doing that is to protect existing native vegetation in those areas because of the water flow-on impacts, and that will require paying people to restore native vegetation and assist in the fight against weeds and feral animals. We should never forget that rural and regional Australia is losing millions of dollars in productivity every year because of alien invasive species, feral animals and weeds. So, instead of drought relief, we need to think about ways to pay farmers an income for ecosystem restoration and management of alien invasive species and so on. There are all sorts of ideas that we hope will come forward in the rest of this inquiry, which will now report in December. The final part of this inquiry is looking into where the best ideas are in addressing mitigation and adaptation strategies.

I conclude by saying that we have a global issue with food security. I do not think that people have really started to engage the fact that, because of climate change, peak oil and perverse incentives for biofuels in some parts of the world, we have lost large areas of productive farmland, and we are going to have increasing pressure on production of food. We have to make sure that we maintain the potential that is in Australia for agricultural productivity and not lose that with, again, perverse incentives for carbon sink forests.

My final point is that we want to see plantations used for wood production, and native forests and native vegetation ecosystems used as carbon stores. The worst thing that could happen is that land in rural Australia is driven up in price because of plantation forests for so-called carbon sinks and that you drive the logging industry further into the native forests. That would be an appalling outcome for Australia. We need to make sure, in any discussion of what might constitute a carbon sink forest, that it does not go on the best agricultural land, that it does not lead to companies being able to buy up all the water rights and take the land out of food production and that it does lead to plantings of mixed species and plantings in areas that are marginal, where it will improve issues such as salinity and lead to an increase and intensification of carbon.

There are a lot of issues still to come before this committee. I hope that we are going to get an ongoing response from the community as to their ideas about how we can support rural and regional Australia in a sustainable way. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present an interim report of the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport on meat marketing.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I seek leave to move a motion to set the reporting date for the committee’s final report on this matter.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the final report of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee on its inquiry on meat marketing be presented by 30 June 2009.

Question agreed to.

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

As I said earlier, there are a number of current references to the rural and regional affairs and transport committee, but this reference certainly is very interesting and very wide ranging.

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You got your teeth into that one, didn’t you!

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As Senator O’Brien said, we certainly got our teeth into this one. This reference is in relation to meat marketing, with particular reference to the need for effective supervision of national standards and controls and the national harmonisation of regulations applying to the branding and marketing of meat.

While the committee’s terms of reference relate to meat marketing generally, the committee decided to focus the inquiry in the first instance on issues relating to lamb marketing, particularly in light of concerns that some processors are substituting hogget and young sheep for lamb. Organisations and individuals who provided submissions were advised of the committee’s decision in this regard. The committee notes that the submissions to the inquiry have raised a range of similar issues in relation to the marketing of other meat products. The committee intends to extend its inquiry to consider those issues.

Although misdescription and truth in labelling allegations are very, very hard to prove, there were a lot of accusations flying in the two public hearings held in Canberra. One thing that stuck in my mind was that there were references to sheep sales in New South Wales being flooded with buyers from Victoria, who were shooting over the river, and all of a sudden there seemed to be a lot more lamb on the market than what might have left New South Wales.

Although we had an enormous number of submissions, it was very disappointing that PrimeSafe in Victoria did not front the inquiry. Phone calls were made to PrimeSafe in Victoria and on each occasion they refused to come and visit the committee, which grieves me. If someone or some state is being accused of misdescription or not having truth in labelling, you would think that they would be tearing down the borders to get to the inquiry to put their case forward. But PrimeSafe did not, which was quite disappointing.

Despite that, the hearings were interesting. The committee held public hearings in Canberra on 10 June and 9 July 2008. We heard evidence from a number of witnesses, including representatives of the Sheepmeat Council of Australia, the Australian Meat Industry Council, Meat and Livestock Australia Ltd, AUS-MEAT, a number of New South Wales meat processors and three state authorities—the New South Wales Food Authority, Safe Food Queensland and the Western Australian Meat Industry Authority. Mr Acting Deputy President Bishop, as you and I are both loyal and patriotic Western Australians, may I say that the Western Australian model—

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Neither of you were born there!

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are proud Western Australians and our children were born in Western Australia! I must say that the Western Australians certainly have their act together in truth in labelling. In fact, every state that came to see us held the Western Australian model in very high regard. I think that is because the last time that a rogue was caught substituting hogget for lamb there he did about two years in jail. We also had submissions and heard evidence from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service, who provided evidence at the 10 June hearing; and an officer from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission appeared at the 9 July hearing.

The committee found that substitution, while not widespread throughout Australia, is a legitimate cause of concern to the industry. The industry is currently attempting to address that concern. Claims of a higher incidence of substitution emanating from buyers or processors based in Victoria were noted, as I said earlier. The committee also noted that, as AUS-MEAT accreditation is voluntary for domestic-only abattoirs, it is difficult to ensure AUS-MEAT language standards are applied consistently to all sheepmeat destined for the domestic market.

I will take the time to put to the Senate the recommendations of the committee’s interim report, which were negotiated in good faith by all parties on the committee. We are all hand in hand on these recommendations, we stand by them and, if the Senate indulges me, I would like to quote them.

Recommendation 1 is:

The committee recommends that the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, through the forum of the Primary Industries Ministerial Council, seek the support of state and territory primary industries ministers to harmonise national standards for all domestic meat slaughtering and processing establishments. The committee further recommends that, regardless of the model adopted, the harmonised national standard must include maintenance of dentition as the standard for classifying an animal as lamb and must require that 100 per cent of animals classified as lamb are mouthed at slaughter.

Another recommendation:

The committee recommends that the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, through the forum of the Primary Industries Ministerial Council, consider the costs and benefits of applying the West Australian standard as the model for national harmonisation including examination of compliance and enforcement issues.

Finally:

The committee recommends that the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the Minister for Competition Policy and Consumer Affairs consider, when available, the findings of the Sheepmeat Council of Australia and the Australian Meat Industry Council’s review of Lamb Brand Control and Verification. The committee recommends that, where appropriate and feasible, the relevant Commonwealth agencies assist the sheepmeat industry to implement recommendations arising from the review.

Quite clearly, Australians deserve to know what they are buying. It is quite simple. There is no argument about that.

I would like to take the opportunity once again to thank my fellow senators on the committee: the chair, Senator Siewert; government senators Senator O’Brien, Senator Hutchins and Senator Hurley; and opposition senators Senator Nash, Senator McGauran and Senator Heffernan. There was a lot of work put in. Once again, I cannot stress enough the gratefulness of the committee to our secretariat, who do a sterling job. They do a fantastic job. They have just today cleared up two reports and all of a sudden we will be doing another one, on horse disease, which I certainly am looking forward to. On that, I commend the report to the Senate.

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will not hold up the Senate. This is a really good example of the Senate working and a committee working. I do not think the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee has ever had a dissenting report. This is a reference that I took to the committee on behalf of the lamb industry, and I thank the Senate, the government and the committee for taking up this inquiry with enthusiasm. It is patently obvious that we need to harmonise lamb standards right across Australia. It is patently obvious that the industry has amongst it a lot of likeable rogues who if they can get away with things they will. The best way to fix all that is to look in every mouth before slaughter, because once the head comes off a sheep—as we all know—we do not know how old it is.

I would like to thank the committee for its cooperation and put up this inquiry as a really good example and a signal to the meat industry that we mean business. It is about time they got their act into gear. They were grateful for the trigger that we provided for debate within the industry. We had some diverse views. We had some exporters who took the view that anything that looked like a reasonably conforming sheep should not have to be described as a sheep—that is, if you can get rid of it as lamb at a profit, good luck. I seriously oppose that proposition. The quality and the skill of providing a lamb before it has cut its first two teeth need to be recognised as premium in the market. If the industry does not adopt the recommendations of this committee, it will destroy the lamb industry—and I think Sam Kekovich ought to come along and punch their lights out!

Russell Trood (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Heffernan, do you wish to continue your remarks?

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don’t think so. Does anyone else want to have a crack?

The Acting Deputy President:

Do you wish to keep the report on the Notice Paper?

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you think that is a fair thing, that is what I will do.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.