Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to make a short contribution to this debate on the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2012, which is before us today. The federal government is very proud of its record of assistance to the rural and regional sector of Australia. I am pleased to have with me here today in the chamber the minister responsible, Senator Joe Ludwig, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. This bill makes some amendments to the Wine Australia Corporation Act 1980. As a South Australian, anything to do with wine has much importance to me and my home state. I would like to take the opportunity a bit later in the debate to make a further contribution, but I notice that Senator Colbeck has arrived in the chamber. I will be pleased to hear from him.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In rising to make my contribution on behalf of the coalition to the debate on the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2012, which covers a number of different areas of the agriculture portfolio, I note that the coalition will be supporting the legislation. But there are a number of comments around the legislation and agriculture generally that I would like to make as part of my contribution.

This proposed legislation effectively makes some minor changes to a range of portfolio areas. As the government whip just noted, it makes some amendments to the Wine Australia Corporation Act 1980. It makes some modifications to the Fisheries Management Act 1994 to explain requirements for directions to close a fishery, particularly a specific part of a fishery, and also to correct some grammatical errors and delete some redundant text. The opposition supports those amendments.

It also makes some changes to the Primary Industries Levies and Charges Collection Act 1991 to allow the departmental secretary to consider requests made by levy payers for remission of penalties. It also makes some further technical amendments to the Fisheries Management Act, the Primary Industries and Energy Research and Development Act, the Export Control Act 1982 and the Quarantine Act. But none of the amendments make any substantial changes in substance to the law.

So, in that context, the coalition is quite happy to lend its support to the legislation, but I think it is pertinent at this stage to look at the way that the government has actually managed the agricultural portfolio. There is a long history of legitimate concern from the primary industry sector about the way that the government has managed this portfolio, and I suppose prime amongst those concerns would be the carbon tax. We are seeing right now the very negative impacts of additional cost imposed by this government on the rural sector, the farming sector and the fisheries sector right around the country. For example, in dairy, I acknowledge that there are global issues in respect of the market price and that the dollar is high, and that is having the impact, but that is being exacerbated by the additional costs imposed by this government through the carbon tax. The government has been trying to convince farmers that they are not subject to the carbon tax, but you tell that to a dairy farmer who has a quarterly power bill of $40,000 that is going to receive, and has received, a 10 per cent increase due to the carbon tax, or you tell that to the same dairy farmer, whose processor is also subject to significant extra costs. If their milk, for example, is going into milk powder, 30 per cent of the cost of producing that product is energy. The global market is not going to carry the cost; it is being sent back to the industry. We know that that is the case, because a number of organisations, including the government's own ABARES, have done some work to indicate that those costs will be pushed back to the agricultural sector. The government really has not understood that. Its line is, 'Well, agriculture's not subject to the carbon tax,' but agriculture is subject to the impacts. That needs to be remembered and understood.

Of course, if you live in Tasmania, the cost of shipping is impacted by the carbon tax. The minister came to Tasmania and was asked on Tasmanian radio about the costs of freight and the impact of the carbon tax on the costs of freight. The minister ridiculed the person who was asking the question on the radio, saying, 'You don't know what you're talking about, because freight is not subject to the carbon tax.' The minister did not even understand the impact of his own tax. I am not talking about the minister for agriculture; I am talking about Minister Albanese, the transport minister, who does not understand the impacts of the carbon tax on his own portfolio, much less the impacts that flow back to the rest of industry.

So it is important for the community to understand that this government continues to make decisions that are not in the interests of agriculture. We talk about being the food bowl for Asia and about sending our produce all across the globe, particularly into South-East Asia. Yet for seven years—two under the coalition, admittedly, but also the last five years—what has happened to the progress of the China free trade agreement? New Zealand commenced at the same time as we did and finalised theirs in three years. As of the beginning of this year, we are at a 15 per cent disadvantage for our fisheries sector into the Chinese market because this government has not progressed a free trade agreement. There is a free trade agreement with South Korea sitting there waiting to be signed. At the NFF blueprint launch a few weeks ago, the head of the NFF was asked, 'If there is one thing that the government could do for you, what would that be?' The very quick response was, 'Sign the South Korea FTA tomorrow.' Where is it? What is going on with that? How are we supposed to be providing agricultural produce from this country into those markets—markets that are growing and are demanding our product—if we are at such a significant price disadvantage compared to a country like New Zealand, which already has significant cost advantages over us for a number of other reasons, currency being one of them, but also labour cost?

We are seeing our food processing and our food manufacturing businesses go offshore because the government is not dealing with these particular issues. What it is doing is imposing additional costs. And so for an exporter to get licensed and to have export access, what has this government done? It has removed a 40 per cent rebate that assisted with markets, market development and access into those markets; it has made it more expensive to export. That is the legacy of this government; that is what it has done. It is forcing businesses to make the decision on whether they might stay registered as an exporter or not. That is what is starting to occur.

In the fishing sector, we have seen an increase in fees for access to some of the fisheries from $7,000 to $14,000 per unit for access to the fishery. And after huge swathe of industry players said, 'We can't afford that, we'll bail out; we'll surrender our licences', what happened next? The government changes the cost structure completely and makes it more affordable for these businesses to get in, but these businesses, having conceded their licenses, have no entitlement to get them back. The complete inconsistency in the decision-making of this government really does not stand up. The lack of consultation, the lack of consideration of the impacts of its decisions have been a real drag on the agricultural sector at a time when the global market and the dollar, because of the resource sector boom, have had a negative impact. And what has this government done? It has added additional costs over and above those broader economic conditions.

We have coming to us the agricultural and veterinary chemicals legislation that adds millions more to the cost of doing business for agriculture. How many more things can this government layer on top of all of the other impacts that it has had over the past four or five years? We have had a circumstance with access to markets where it just becomes slightly difficult to actually get into the markets. Lobsters into China has been a significant issue. I have to concede that the government, through the trade minister, has put into place a program to start dealing with lobsters and the supply chain project there, but that sat there for a couple of years while the industry suffered significant disadvantage. Bearing in mind that the New Zealand industry has a free trade agreement which gives it a 15 per cent advantage over the Australian fisheries sector, when you are talking about a commodity that is valued at between $65 and $95 a kilogram, then a 15 per cent disadvantage into that premium market is a significant one. That is having a major negative effect on our rock lobster sector, which is a major business for Tasmania, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia. We need to continue to work on the supply chain project, but where is the free trade agreement that is going to assist those industries getting into the country?

The relationship that we have with Indonesia has been so badly damaged by the decision to ban the live cattle export trade without notice. They heard about this on the radio after being told via our foreign minister the day before: 'Everything's okay. We'll continue to work with you. We'll sort something out here.' Then the next day a decision was made and the Indonesians found out about it on the radio. It is an absolute disgrace that we put countries and our trading partners through these things. How long is it going to take to repair the damage that has been done by that decision? Indonesia now says: 'Australia is a risk to our protein supply. We need to mitigate that risk.' And so from the situation where we were sending over more than 600,000 tonnes of product to them, we are now down to around 200,000 tonnes a year—and we will potentially receive further cuts. The relationship with China also needs to be managed. China is a huge opportunity for agriculture in Australia. In fact, it is one of the few really growing markets. If you go back to 2005-06, we were sending something in the order of $630 million worth of food to China. If you go forward to 2011-12, that is $2.1 billion. The growth in food sales from Australia to China was over threefold in that period of time. We hear complaints about the food imports from China which have grown by about $300 million in that same time frame, with imports less than doubling from China. How we manage our relationship with the Chinese has to be done in a way that continues to provide for that opportunity.

I think that some of the scaremongering that goes on in this country around the relationship with China quite frankly needs to be reconsidered very carefully because, at the same time as there has been that threefold growth in our market to China, countries like the UK and the US, for example, have actually halved the amount of food produce that they are taking from Australia. So who should we be working with and who should we be maintaining a positive relationship with? Should we be going to China and in their language telling them how to run their own country? Is that the sort of thing that we ought to be doing?

Look at the circumstances that occurred around the management of the incursion of Asian bees where the critical scientist was not invited to the critical meeting to make decisions around whether or not to declare them endemic and if we cannot actually deal with them. Why didn't he get invited? Because we lost his email address. This is the most eminent scientist on bees in the country. He did not get invited to the key meeting to make a decision as to whether or not we think we can combat or eradicate the Asian bee incursion in and around Cairns. There are just completely absurd decisions. Something like 65 per cent of our agriculture relies on wild bees for its pollination. An incursion of Asian bees with varroa mite could wipe out our native bee population in two or three years. What is the potential impact on agriculture from that? Australia is the last continent on the planet that does not have varroa mite. We need to ensure that our borders are secure in respect of that and yet here we are at the critical point in time not inviting the guy who has the most knowledge about the issue to the meeting. It is just absolutely absurd.

In respect of something that is pretty close to my heart, the way that the government has dealt with the forestry industry in Tasmania is nothing short of a disgrace. The deal that they have on the table right now is being debated in the Tasmanian upper house. It basically spells the end of the native forestry industry in Tasmania by 2030. That is the effect of the deal. It is simple to work out. All you need to do is to look at the wood supply projections. The wood supply projections say that if you lock up half a million hectares that the government is proposing to lock up and harvest 137,000 cubic metres of category 1 sawlogs from now on, the industry will be gone by 2030. There will be between 25,000 and 40,000 cubic metres of category 1 sawlogs left by 2030. Industry will look at that and the decline will start straight away. Who is going to invest in an industry where the resource has a 17-year life? Who will make that decision? Yet that is what this government is doing to my home state of Tasmania. While the industry might continue to 2030, the death of the industry has already been determined if the Tasmanian upper house passes this sham legislation that is in front of it right now.

The government claims that a deal was negotiated between the environmental movement and the industry, and that is correct; it was. But the industry was negotiating for itself, not for the rest of Tasmania. And this piece of legislation deals with more than just the forest industry; it deals with the mining sector, the tourism sector and the agriculture sector. The absurdity is that this government is looking to move the forest industry out of the forest and into a plantation industry, which puts it onto our farmland. The proposal says that 20 per cent of Tasmania's agricultural land is to go under plantations—130,000 hectares. How is Tasmania supposed to be the food bowl of Australia—which is what is being claimed by some people in Tasmania—if we are going to put 20 per cent of our agricultural land into plantation? Why are we spending $400 million in Tasmania on irrigation development to irrigate trees? The complete lack of logic from this government—albeit Greens driven, because of their partnership with the Greens in this place and in Tasmania—is absolutely absurd. But here they are, proposing to take out one of the pillars of the Tasmanian economy. What was a $1.4 billion industry is now down to about $700 million but by 2030 will be zero. The native forest industry will be dead, because there is no viability in an industry where the supply volumes are between 25,000 and 40,000 cubic metres. It just does not exist.

That is what this government is doing to the forest sector, but it also applies to agriculture. And when you look at what they have done to the fishing industry through their management of significant fisheries issues over the last 12 months, taking political decisions rather than science based decisions, you get the picture. So, in respect of the marine planning process, they are doing deals with people in this place—a little piece here for a vote over there—and taking the side of the environmental groups over industry. If people in agriculture do not think they are next, they are kidding themselves, because once the environmental groups are finished with the forestry sector, the mining sector and the fishing sector they will come after them on the land. You only have to look at what they are doing in New Zealand.

This government's record in respect of the agricultural, fisheries and forestry sector is completely and utterly dismal—remember, they did not even have a policy at the last election. Having said that, the coalition will be supporting this piece of legislation.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2012. This bill makes some useful technical changes to a range of acts under the agriculture, fisheries and forestry portfolio, including the changes to wine labelling, which will implement changes that the industry has been calling for. As you know, the Greens are very committed to truth in labelling, whether it can be seen in wine standards or in the accurate labelling of ingredients such as genetically modified organisms and palm oil. I suspect that the next biggest issue relating to accuracy and truth in labelling to confront the agriculture industry will in fact be genetically modified crops. Recently we have begun to receive reports that Monsanto's genetically modified corn has begun to fail in the USA. There is growing consensus that GMOs are not the silver bullet that it was originally thought they would be and that in the meantime our farmers are beginning to command premium prices for non-GMO crops.

GMOs are and will continue to be a big issue for our farmers. At the very minimum, we need the robust engagement with industry and the willingness to listen to alternative voices from industry that are raising concerns about the impact of GMOs and the effect on their ability to command premium prices and to protect themselves from contamination. We believe it is essential that we introduce legislative protections for these farmers and for consumers the way we are introducing these protections for wine producers in Australia. Consumers have a right to know what they are consuming. Farmers also have the right to be able to label their products as GMO-free. You will recall that the Greens' and Senator Xenophon's private senators' bill on palm oil labelling successfully passed the Senate chamber last year only to become entangled in the House of Representatives in free trade issues and lobbying from the Malaysian government. So I have concerns that, despite the promising signs we see before us with this bill, there is no appetite to take on the other big issues that need to be taken on in labelling. My colleagues and I remain committed to truth in labelling. We welcome the work that has gone into resolving this issue and hope that the momentum will continue with other labelling issues, such as support for the country of origin labelling bill of my colleague and Leader of the Greens, Christine Milne, which is currently in the inquiry stage.

This bill also takes steps to correct a drafting error that was introduced two years ago when this government sought to introduce the legislative powers that would give substantive decision-making powers over the fisheries management at AFMA to fisheries users under a scheme of fisheries co-management. I want to take this time to reflect on the current state of fisheries management in Australia and the challenges that co-management faces. We need to look at what is good co-management. AFMA reports that a primary benefit of legislative powers to enable co-management comes from more cost-effectively administrating the fisheries. Admirable though it is to desire to ensure that there is efficiency in our public administration, we do not believe that efficiency alone is sufficient grounds for shifting responsibility in administration away from government. It is critical that the benefits we do achieve from co-management are not in fact short-term budgetary cycle gains at the expense of our ocean but actually lead to better management of our oceans.

As the Centre for Policy Development reported last year, our oceans are worth billions of dollars annually in tourism, recreation, carbon capture as well as commercial fisheries. Just yesterday in this place we had the release of Marine Nation 2025, which again clearly articulated the value of our oceans and particularly highlighted the potential value of what they call blue carbon. It is also important to note here the impact of climate change we are going to be seeing on our oceans. In fact, we have just seen that off the coast in my home state of Western Australia where we have had a marine heat wave, which has, as the name implies, increased the temperature of the water and has already resulted in impacts on commercial fisheries in terms of abalone deaths, impacts on the rock lobster industry and impacts on recreational fishers who for the first time are catching subtropical fish off the coast of Perth. While that may seem a bonus in the short term for those fishers, it has very serious ecological consequences. They also think that might be one of the reasons for sharks being closer to shore. That issue has had very substantial media coverage. It also has very important implications for fisheries management.

What did the minister for fisheries in Western Australia, Mr Moore, say? 'Hopefully, it is an aberration.' Well, it is not going to be an aberration. He was minister for fisheries at that time. Hoping it is just an aberration is not good enough. We actually need firm policy changes in order to look at how we manage our fisheries in a changing climate. The initial research on that incident has indicated that we need to be investing a lot more in research to look at what impacts this is going to have on our marine environment and then we need to be researching what adaptive management changes we need to be making. Above all else, leadership and community engagement are essential for these co-management changes. We need to confront a worrying trend where strong leadership and consultation are abandoned in favour of pitting the interests of industry against the other stakeholders, be they recreational users or environmentalists. How many times in this place have I listened to a beat-up, particularly from the other side of the chamber and the coalition, about the damage that changes to ensure sustainable, well-managed fisheries will have on that particular fishery, sometimes in the short term, and not taking the long-term consequences of business as usual into consideration? This does not constitute leadership, nor does it facilitate the kinds of meaningful engagement that fishers and fisheries managers need to have in order to pursue and ensure better management. It does not engender a good environment for co-management.

In 2006 the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation formed a working group to report on co-management in Australian fisheries. The working group report reflected the increasing recognition among fishers and fisheries managers alike of the need for a cultural change away from an untrusting, often conflicted 'them versus us' approach to one of partnership based on joint responsibility for decision-making and implementation in fisheries management. That is what they were saying needs to be done. The report talks about the transitional nature of the development from a centralised model to a delegated model. It is a staged process of development and not something that can be implemented immediately. It involves building relationships and trust so that a stage is reached where negotiated outcomes have been decided and functions and powers may be delegated to relevant stakeholders who then take on the responsibility of seeing that these functions are implemented within the terms of the formal agreement. The report describes a natural progression from a centralised model to a consultative model, which matures into a collaborative model and then, finally, results in a delegated model, where the people using the fishery are the ones operating the fishery and making the rules for it. I do believe this is a desirable outcome, particularly in having the users take a much more active role and greater responsibility for ensuring that their behaviours adapt to changing circumstances in that fishery. Business as usual should not be the opening assumption, particularly in these days of changing climate and overfishing in fisheries around the world.

However, before this greater control can happen, there needs to be cultural change, not just so that fishers see themselves as the managers of a fishery but also so that fisheries managers, whether they are fishers, policy makers, bureaucrats—and I mean that in a nice, loving way—scientists or whoever is involved, see the bigger picture. There needs to be a bioregional approach. Fisheries management has to stop being about individual targeted species, bycatch issues and how many tonnes you can take out before you start to undermine the capacity to restock—it has to start being about how actions within a fishery change that ecosystem and how that fishery is adjusting to ecosystem changes that are beyond our control such as, as I said, climate change and a warming ocean. Bioregional planning is not a new concept for this place, although by the reaction of some people in this place you would think it is. Both this government and the previous Liberal government—yes, under John Howard—have been working away for well over a decade and a half to comprehensively survey our marine environment and set up a world-class network of marine reserves based on the concept of bioregional planning. As you are aware, the process of bioregional planning is almost at the stage of being implemented around the country. Although the government did not go as far as some of us would have liked in terms of the areas that are protected by marine reserves, I am pleased to see that we now have a nearly national network of marine reserves that will help protect our marine life into the future. Marine reserves are the basis of good fisheries management—the basis of an ecosystemic approach.

But bioregional planning is not just about marine parks. It is an important tool for ensuring that we are making the best decisions for our ecosystem, based on more than just the value of fish stocks that are targeted in particular fisheries. We believe it is essential for good fisheries management. The bioregional approach to fisheries management has been painted as antithetical to the interests and goals of fishers. But an interest in fisheries management that is focused on ensuring a flourishing stock for future exploitation is a completely different mindset to that of a marine scientist, who can take a broader view about the intrinsic value of our marine system and see it not simply as a resource to be exploited but as an important piece of a bigger system that sustains a complex web of marine life. That is where we need to be changing our mindsets in order to be able to progressively go through the process of establishing co-management.

The 2010 amendment that introduced co-management powers also brought in changes to enable AFMA to rationalise the number of management advisory committees from 12 to six. This was promised to provide a more cost-effective and efficient consultative structure that would deliver better decisions and simpler administration and to enable the implementation of a dual advisory model. This will separate the provision of advice to AFMA: MACs will provide advice to AFMA on community interest issues, and advice on fishing operations will be provided by peak industry bodies.

The success of co-management should not be judged on the dollars that it saves our government and the extent to which it can pass on administrative overheads to the fisheries users, because this can encourage an increasing spiral of cost-cutting, rationalisation and emphasis on the margins, rather than inspiring collective effort, good long-term decision making and harmonisation between different models. The efforts to make a living today and to act as good stewards to the fishery, to maintain the health of the fishery and to see the fishery within the broader prospects of the bioregion, which is already under threat from multiple directions, need to be at the forefront of people's thinking.

I expect that finally giving the proper effect to this 2010 amendment, correcting the drafting error at a time when the bioregional planning process is moving from the research stage to the implementation stage, will mean that co-management is a very effective tool for shifting thinking about our fisheries away from just stocks and towards a more ecosystem based management plan. That is why we support co-management, but we believe that it needs to be done within the framework of understanding that there needs to be an ecosystem based approach.

The bill also repeals the States Grants (War Service Land Settlement Land) Act 1952. The War Service Land Settlement Scheme commenced in 1945 to assist returned soldiers into farming after World War II. Many areas in Western Australia, particularly on the south coast, were released under that scheme. Unfortunately, some of those areas of land should not have been released, despite the fact that the community was keen to help the returned soldiers. The truth is some marginal country was released and we are now paying for the consequences of that in excessive land degradation, loss of native species and loss of biodiversity. That is why we need to keep investing in natural resource management programs such as Caring for our Country and, in the past, the national Landcare program. I had the good fortune quite a significant time ago to work on the south coast in agriculture and on Landcare and salinity management, so I know firsthand the impact that clearing of some of the native vegetation had on that fragile land. We need to remember that decisions taken with a lack of information can have long-term consequences. I am extremely concerned that we are making decisions now that will have long-term consequences—or, should I say, not making decisions now that will have long-term consequences. On the front page of the West Australian last Thursday there was a story about farmers in my home state of Western Australia who are struggling with drought. The south-west of Western Australia is being hit the hardest by climate change. We have had dramatic drops in rainfall and high temperatures. We have had season after season when farmers are in drought or in rainfall deficiency. We are now faced with many farmers potentially having to walk off their land in the next season or considering not being able to put a crop in because they cannot get the finance. This is partly a consequence of the fact that we do not have adequate systems for agriculture in a changing climate because we have not invested in the research needed to enable our agriculture industry to adapt to a changing climate.

Ross Kingston, an economist who was working for the Department of Agriculture and Food in Western Australia, pointed out a number of years ago that our farmers in Western Australia are some of the most adaptive in the world. They have adapted to a changing climate, but they reached a point a number of years ago where they were unable to continue to adapt without a significant investment in research. That research is coming far too late, if at all. The Western Australian government invested only half of the money that they had allocated in their budget for research and climate change issues.

It is essential that we develop an agriculture system that can better adapt to the changing climate. I am deeply concerned about the future of agriculture, and Senator Colbeck was addressing the issue of the future of agriculture. Well, the future of agriculture is at risk through climate change in Western Australia—dire risk—because we have failed to take the necessary steps to invest in research and to understand what impact climate change will have on our agriculture. Various governments in Western Australia and in Australia buried their heads in the sand about the impact that climate change would have on agriculture. I do not want to see farmers walk off the land as a result of drought in Western Australia caused by climate change and our failure to adapt. We need to be taking action now before it is too late.

Sean Edwards (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2012. The coalition welcomes this bill as it attempts to simplify and remove some of the red tape associated with a number of agriculture related acts. It gives me great pleasure to join with Senator Colbeck in his comments and with Senator Siewert in her comments. I applaud the fact that the Greens recognise that we must remove costs, and I applaud the Greens' acknowledgement that farmers are struggling in Western Australia and in my home state of South Australia through what have been the vagaries of agriculture since we settled this land in 1788.

I think it is also an opportune time to talk about the fact that soil in this country has probably about 50 per cent less carbon stored in it than it did when we settled this country. That is an issue that we should be looking to address with our research and development, and trying to provide farmers in this country with tools of a scientific basis with which to improve their carbon. As we all know the Direct Action Plan of the coalition would seek to restore carbon levels in this country back to the levels of the time when we came here and to make it more productive.

This Labor government has certainly not been a friend of agriculture in this country so far. Those opposite may talk about Australia as being the food bowl of Asia but they certainly are not doing much to make it happen. Part of the problem is the actual representation on the other side of the chamber. Working for a city based trade union or spending time as a Labor staffer before getting the nod for a position on a Labor Senate ticket does not give a person much exposure to rural industries. Doing the numbers to eliminate factional rivals is a long way removed from meticulous circumstances with fishing, farming and fibre family businesses.

We on this side, however, have a strong rural and regional representation. Senator Colbeck himself comes from regional Tasmania, I from the Clare Valley in South Australia, Senator McKenzie from Bendigo in Victoria, Senator Williams from the bush in New South Wales, Senator Heffernan from Junee in New South Wales and my South Australian colleague Senator Anne Ruston from the Riverland in South Australia. All my colleagues, in some way or another, have a firsthand knowledge and understanding of agricultural issues and are able to successfully handle and negotiate those industry concerns.

This is clearly demonstrated by Labor's breakdown in Australia's free trade agreement talks with Korea. Senator Colbeck spoke so eloquently about the ramifications of having a trade barrier of 15 per cent on everything that is going into South Korea. How can agricultural industries grow and compete internationally when Labor's decision to ban live cattle exports and its about-face on the Abel Tasman fishing vessel are causing the international community to distrust the Australian government and remove opportunities for strengthening relationships and negotiation processes? With Australia's $1 billion-a-year beef export market to Korea, the coalition recognises the importance of signing an all-inclusive free trade agreement. The longer Australia delays finalising a free trade agreement deal with South Korea, the harder it gets for our beef exporters to stop the US trade push, which is outmanoeuvring this Gillard government.

Never mind the mess that Labor has made in Tasmania and the timber industry, also labelled a disgrace by Senator Colbeck earlier today, or the complete shambles in which its state counterparts in my home state of South Australia have mismanaged the forestry industry. The ongoing impact of the Forestry South Australia sale has led to job losses and small businesses downsizing or, worse, closing down. At all levels, Labor just cannot manage our productive industries in this country. It does not understand business. It is a 'tax and spend', not a 'support and grow', government.

Despite Labor's incompetence in agricultural industries, agriculture still contributes more than $5 billion annually in production to the South Australian economy, and more than double this in value-adding to Australia's small and medium-sized enterprises. On 13,475 farms, 31,400 people are employed in agricultural production jobs, with 146,000 in the food sector alone. Agriculture is very important to my home state of South Australia and it is one of our major export industries, so we need to make sure we have the right policy settings to allow it to continue to prosper.

This bill is a step, albeit small, in the right direction. It amends eight portfolio acts, including wine legislation amendments. There are a large number of small to large wine businesses in the regions, employing a large number of people, from grape growing through to tourism. The industry provides much-needed economic activity—specifically in my hometown federal electorate of Wakefield, where unemployment is approximately 9.4 per cent, nearly twice the national average. Outrageously, unemployment is up 50 per cent in the last 12 months across the entire northern suburbs of Adelaide.

This bill will make two amendments to the Wine Australia Corporation Act 1980. The first of these amendments relates to the Label Integrity Program, which seeks to ensure the accuracy of label claims on vintage, variety and geographical indication of wine manufactured in Australia. These changes will reduce the record-keeping requirements of people who supply or receive wine goods that are packaged for sale to a consumer. These are positive changes which will be welcomed by retailers, wholesalers and wine industry representative bodies.

The second amendment alters the definition of 'vintage'. It is up to a producer to choose whether they include the vintage on the wine label. However, if they do, they must follow the rules relating to vintage labelling. Currently a vintage year on a label is considered to be the period 1 July to 30 June the following year, and it appears on the label as the second of the two calendar years.

The majority of harvest occurs from late summer and finishing before 30 June; however, sometimes winemakers leave their grapes on the vines for a longer period in order to cultivate different flavours and create a higher sugar content—you might know that, Senator Williams, as botrytis. To allow for more accurate labelling of these late harvest wines, this amendment will change the definition of vintage year to be the period of 1 September to 31 August.

Moves to simplify wine labelling are welcomed; however, there are moves to further complicate wine labelling and force winemakers to mandate unproven labelling requirements. For example, the Blewett review contained a series of recommendations that would significantly impact the wine sector. These included pregnancy warnings; mandating energy content; warnings as a part of broader health campaigns; minimum font size; contrast levels and boldness for warning messages and allergens et cetera; and clear 'Made in Australia' terminology and existing label compliance.

These and other spurious claims made by extremists made under the guise of health claims will only add regulation and bureaucratic red tape. How soon before the health zealots, emboldened by their success over the tobacco industry, start demanding similar so-called health warnings on the labels of wine containers? Make no mistake: well-meaning but poorly guided health groups will be pushing to get their way with their messages on labels. Backed by sympathetic academics wheeled out to speak for narrow-interest pressure groups, they will want wine and any other forms of alcohol to get the same treatment as cigarettes in terms of nonpromotion in an oversimplification of the debate which, if the wine industry does not respond to these insidious representations, it may face a campaign of misinformation and dumbing down of the facts.

Going back to the bill, it also contains some useful amendments to fisheries and levies legislation and some technical amendments. This bill will also repeal the now redundant States Grants (War Service and Land Settlement) Act 1952. Just as a point of interest, some 755,000 acres of land were acquired under the scheme in South Australia.

While this Bill may reduce some much needed red tape, there is so much more that this government could and should be doing in the agriculture portfolio. Of particular concern is educating our future work force—where are our trained and skilled agriculturalists going to come from? Only 800 agronomists are being trained in Australia each year when the demand is for around 5,000. What support is being given to agricultural industries to promote the increase of resources and opportunity for future sustainable practices?

There is an apparent disconnect between the need for more secondary school students to undertake science based courses, particularly those that have relevance to primary production and the information being provided to them when they are choosing courses for not only their late secondary years but also tertiary.

I have concerns that many school career advisers either do not mention courses with an agricultural component as a potential career or are consciously discouraging students from studying them. We need to increase the proportion but we need to be strategic about how we resource that increase to ensure that there are no gaps. Rural industries have concerns about their potential workforce in the future. Filling the increasing void between the number of jobs and the dwindling number of trained candidates is a worrying trend.

This issue needs to be viewed in light of Labor's crackdown on the 457 visa scheme and the concern amongst business leaders as to the damage this does to confidence, investment and ultimately economic growth, job creation and incomes. Increasingly, businesses are looking to bring in workers from overseas to fill the vacancies and, while I have no problem with bringing in skilled and unskilled labour, it is an issue when you have areas like Wakefield with 9.4 per cent unemployment and 42 per cent youth unemployment in its northern suburbs.

Thousands of people are in a position and want the opportunity to be working but they just do not have the right skills. Of equal concern, education and the support of careers in the agriculture sector are not given enough attention when developing industry growth mechanisms. It is important that a balance be struck in building agricultural industries in Australia. A holistic approach must be taken when considering developing local education, training initiatives and foreign labour opportunities.

Furthermore, of paramount importance with this approach, it is crucial that we continue to promote agriculture in this country. Agriculture is one of our great strengths. It is one of our areas of true competitive advantage. Our farmers successfully compete against other countries without the same kinds of subsidies or government assistance. This is why we must continue to reduce the red and green tape for our farmers, something which this bill thankfully does.

But it does not go far enough and that is why the coalition is committed to taking over $1 billion of red bureaucratic tape out of our economy, helping our producers and businesses to be more productive and internationally competitive. That is why the coalition in our plan of real solutions for all Australians has agriculture as one of core pillars in our plan for the economy. We will build on our comparative strength in food production and better manage our precious water resources to help our agriculture sector truly become the food bowl of Asia with food security in a world demanding more of our food resources. We will support our fishing industry and review the declaration of the marine protected areas. Unlike Labor, we will establish genuine consultation with the fishing industry on research and strengthen the connection between science and sound fishing policy. Most importantly, the coalition will provide policy stability and certainty to our agricultural and production exports, particularly live exports, unlike Labor, who so flippantly shut down the trade overnight that day in June 2011.

Labor continued to add insult to injury when Mr Kelvin Thomson, Labor member for Wills, was appointed as the Parliamentary Secretary for Trade. Mr Thomson told the ABC's PM program on 18 September 2012: 'We would be much better off if we transitioned out of live animal export altogether and moved towards domestic processing.' This is not the kind of talk live cattle producers want to hear from their Parliamentary Secretary for Trade. It doesn't provide the kind of certainty producers need and the coalition will provide. It does not provide the certainty that the bankers of cattle producers across northern Australia want to hear. It does not provide the security that the Indonesian government, looking to feed hundreds of millions of people, would like to hear.

Agriculture and farming communities deserve to be given a fair go and the coalition is committed to deliver opportunity so that industries can grow and successfully compete on equal playing fields both domestically and internationally. I will support the passage of this bill but lay at the feet of the Labor Party that it could have been more extensive reform. But it seems they are still burdened with the yoke of the Greens and their socialistic ways.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill, the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Legislation Amendment bill (No.1) 2012, makes a number of changes to the acts that relate to agriculture, fisheries and forestry legislation, including the Wine Australia Corporation Act on which we have heard from Senator Edwards some very detailed deliberation; and the Fisheries Management Act, with a direction to close a fishery under statutory fishing concessions. I should note that Australia is overwhelmingly now an importer of fish. I think about 72 per cent of our fish is now imported, which is a disgrace. It is absurd that we have countries outside our zone collecting vastly more fish than we do. Basically we are creating a mechanism to feed Taiwanese and Papua New Guineans and whoever else wishes to turn up with their fishing vessels. We should have a greater capacity to manage our own fishery and to provide for the Australian people more of their own fish. We have heard even lately the huge concerns out there about the use of excessive antibiotics in farmed fish, especially coming out of Vietnam. This causes real health concerns in Australia. The Australian people should be aware that if you want to create a mechanism for the consumption of a superbug you are going about it the right way if you are consuming fish that come from an area where there has been an excessive use of antibiotics, so that you basically create an environment where the only form of bacteria that will survive will be the one that is resistant to antibiotics and you have served it up with peas and carrots at your dinner table. I do not think that is a very clever way to do business. What I would be doing is consuming fish caught from the wild in Australia which has all the natural forms of challenge and response affecting its life as opposed to what you are getting when you are buying a product that is imported. It might look like the domestic product but I can assure you it is totally and utterly different. So we have a role in the future to start informing the Australian people about the fact that we have a better product, that there is the capacity for a better utilisation of our fishery resource and to make sure we using more of that to feed the Australian people with a product they wish to purchase.

The legislation also deals with the Fisheries Administration Act and the Primary Industries Levies and Charges Collection Act, which is basically going to enable the secretary to remit all or part of a penalty imposed for the late payment of the levy or charge. It also deals with the Farm Household Support Act to remove specific references to departments and secretaries. The coalition supports these changes because they streamline administration and reduce costs for the industry in some instances. But it is unfortunate that this bill is not reflective of the government's broader approach to our primary industries. Australia's agricultural exports still account for more than 20 per cent of our exports.

We have to realise that we should never get confused between the GDP argument and where the money in reality actually turns up. In the chamber here at the moment there are seven senators, eight with you in the chair, Mr Acting Deputy President. If we have a case where someone brings in $10 and spins it around to every senator in this chamber, they say, 'Whoopee, the GDP of this chamber is now $80.' That sounds great. They will say, 'That is $80 and around 88 per cent of it came from all those people inside the chamber, who are the service sector. Therefore the service sector is incredibly important.' But the reality is that if the gentleman in the chair had not put his $10 forward first then no-one in the chamber would have any money, because it is that money that has been spun around. So the actual delivery of money into the economy, the actual delivery of funds in a primary source, is vitally important for the economic sustenance of this nation, and 20 per cent of that comes from the agricultural sector. Then you have mining, obviously Australia's biggest export. It is for our own survival as a nation that we must be cognisant of where primary industry is going and we must make sure it is sustained. I know the farming sector has always been the harbinger of people who have generally got a gripe. I grew up in that sector and I am still part of that sector. But now there really is a problem. We are losing farmers. They are going out the back door. I went to Western Australia and spoke to farmers there. I went there as a politician and I came away feeling like a psychologist. It is quite disturbing how much under the pump they are. In the wheat industry they have been frosted and they are dealing with the corruption of global world prices by reason of a manipulated global currency. In Western Australia they had the live sheep trade, but of course those in the radical environmental movement want to shut down the live sheep trade. We are just making people destitute. We are making them poor. We are destroying their quality of life—and, in so doing, we are doing it to ourselves.

There are 134,000 farm businesses in Australia and there are 307,000 people employed in Australian agriculture. That is vastly more than is employed in the mining industry—vastly more. People are always thinking that the farm sector does not pull its weight, but from 1974-75 to 2003-04 it grew just shy of three per cent per annum. It was consistently outperforming other sectors. So, when you are looking for productivity increases, the farming sector—when it has the right government policy surrounding it—will actually deliver it. When I started in the cotton industry, we used to budget on 2.7 bales to the acre. There are 2.471 acres to the hectare, but we were still working on acres. So it was about 2.7 bales to the acre, and with that it was thought that you were doing the job well. Now it is four bales to the acre. Imagine if we could do that in other sectors of our economy. The economy would boom. We have been doing that in agriculture.

I remember when there was a discussion about GPS. They were going to GPS for the delivery of the chemical requirements of the land, because we needed to save money. If you look at the scope and structure and carcass size in the abattoirs, you see that it has gone up immensely. The marbling content has gone up immensely. The quality of the product has gone up immensely. There have been real productivity increases, but we cannot be constricted by certain regulations which are more emotive than realistic. The inclusion of buffel grass into the pasture in red soils has given us an incredible increase in the capacity for the delivery of protein per acre off country which otherwise is not able to deliver an outcome. There have been watering issues. In my own family hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent on piping and boring groundwater to save that resource. That is why we get so hot under the collar when we hear about coal seam gas and other people utilising the resource without the same sanctity with which we hold that water resource. These are the things that agriculture has been delivering.

This has been one of our strengths for so long but we are now losing farming families. There are 100,000 fewer farming families now then there were 30 years ago. Even the size of our agricultural area is reducing. In 1980 we had about 496 million hectares of farming land. In 2010 there was just shy of 400 million hectares. We have lost about 100 million hectares of farming country. If we look anecdotally at one of the industries that was at one stage the key of the providence of this nation we see that in 1980 we had 136 million sheep and in 2010 we had 68 million sheep—and it is going down even more.

This is a sign that our policy structure is not correct. There is an epiphany we have got to have as we go stammering and tripping along to an election, who knows when. If we want to have a real debate—something that the Australian people will be engaged with—another area that we should be looking at is farm policy. We need to look at how we make sure that we keep these people on the land, how we make sure that we give a fair return to people on the land and how we make sure that we are part of a process that actually deals with issues. Anybody can have empathy. Empathy is easy. Just stick on a pair of elastic-sided boots, put on an akubra and talk out the side of your mouth and you have got empathy all worked out. But that just does not cut it.

What people are looking for now is policy that is going to address the needs and requirements of the industry to bring a future back into agriculture. The only way that you will get a future in agriculture is if you are determined to bring about a fairer outcome at the farm gate. There are a range of things that have been working against us at the farm gate. First and foremost we have the dollar. We have the United States which is in a period of quantitative easing; we have the Chinese who have basically manipulated their currency and tied it to the Americans who are printing their own dollars; we have the Europeans who are in a period of quantitative easing and subsidies; and we have England quantitatively easing.

We have to starting asking the question: are we going to be pure in debt? Are we going to be the people who never broke a rule but we all went broke? The return at the farm gate is getting smashed by the global corruption in the currency market. What is the government's policy for this? How are they going to deal with this? Coming up with a constructive outcome in that area would be vastly beneficial. You can do that in a Giorgio Armani suit with Jimmy Choo shoes on, and that is going to be a vastly better outcome than wearing an akubra hat and elastic-sided books and not having anything really to say.

There is also the exploitation of the farmer by an overcentralised retail market. In the past it was like: 'Oh, we can't talk about that.' Well, we have got to talk about that. It is just unnatural. We are the only place in the world that has the form of centralisation that we have got—except North Korea. It has probably got more centralisation than us. But, apart from that, we are it. There is nothing wrong with a company being powerful—good luck to Coles, good luck to Woolworths; well done—but there is a problem if they use that market power for the exploitation of the farmer. We have a Competition and Consumer Act that talks about the competitive stresses between two competitors in a market, but it does not properly address the exploitation between the supplier and the retailer. It does not properly deal with that relationship. We should have a policy discussion—the coalition has a root-and-branch review, but that is a policy discussion that the government should also be engaged in. How do we go about bringing a fairer term back to people?

The obvious example out there is $1-per-litre milk. You cannot produce milk for a $1 a litre—not on the farm. By the time the processer has had a chop at it and the retailer has had a chop at it, it is corrupting the marketplace. The retailers say, 'We're not affecting the farm price,' and they are right, because they buy it off the processer. The processor says, 'We can't do anything about it because we're supplying the retailer.' And the farmer just suffers. We have to go into the space and say that we want Coles and Woolworths to survive, prosper and thrive, but we cannot do it at the cost of exploitation of people on the land. We cannot have people turning up with the unilateral variation of contracts. If we did it to a wage and salary earner there would be an outcry. Imagine turning up to a wage and salary earner and saying: 'You know how I was paying you $800 a week last week? This week I've decided I am going to pay you only $300 a week, and I know you have nowhere to go.' If we did that to individuals people would be disgusted, but that is happening to farmers and we are all sitting back and saying: 'Oh, that's shocking, but we can't say anything about it. We can't interfere in the market.'

When there is exploitation it means that the market principles are not at work. The situation is devoid of the market principles, and when it is devoid of market principles then you have a role for bringing about fairness. If there were ease of entry, ease of exit, transparency in negotiations, multiplicity of players—with those sorts of terms you could say, 'I'll walk,' but farmers cannot do that, especially in the horticultural sector. Tomatoes, peas, carrots, onions—those farmers get held over a barrel. They are terrified to talk about it because they know that if they talk about it and the major retailer finds out about it then they will get cut out and go broke. We found out that the average price a dairy farmer is working for is $7 an hour. Who in this building would work for $7 an hour? Who in Australia these days would work for $7 an hour? If you want to look after working families then where is the policy that deals with that?

We need new infrastructure and we need to open up new areas of irrigation. We need to have a future. There is a great capacity, especially in the north of this nation and with the utilisation of genetic modification in some areas, for the advancement of agriculture in these areas. You cannot say: 'I'm a friend to the farmer but I don't want any new farming areas. I'm a friend to the farmer but I don't believe in the live cattle trade. I'm a friend to the farmer but I want to make life even tougher for the people of south-west Western Australia who are dealing with the live sheep trade. I'm a friend to the farmer, but I believe it is morally justifiable that some Australians today, in the year of our Lord 2013, are getting paid $7 an hour.' That is not being a friend to anybody. If we are going to be fair dinkum about this we have to have an holistic view and say, 'Right, we're going to walk into this space and before this election we will make sure we are not talking about who said what to whom, and having some peripheral personality discussion in the election, but that we will be having a discussion about concrete policy issues that involves the Australian people and that brings us to a conclusion that is a betterment to the agricultural sector, because the Australian people need the agricultural sector.' We really do need it.

We have to look at the ethos of it. In my own small way I am trying to be part of the dams task force to build dams and create another mechanism of investment in agriculture, and I think that is positive. We have to touch base with the marketing department in trade. We are having real problems. It is no good going over to Beijing, Taipei, Tokyo or Seoul and coming back with photos full of happy, smiling people drinking cups of tea, but with no contract. You have to come home with something hard, something that shows you have opened up the market, something that shows a new form of advantage. We cannot develop new agricultural areas if we cannot move the product. We have to be able to follow that through, and that is something that needs a succinct group of people who work as closely with the Prime Minister as possible, who have the capacity and the runs on the board to deliver trade outcomes. We have to get them to work.

Minister Craig Emerson is supposed to be the trade minister, but what has he ever brought back? What has he ever delivered as a trade outcome? What is a deal that he has structured for us? If he were good at his job then farmers would be doing it better, but they are not—he has failed. Whenever I think of Dr Craig Emerson I have a picture of a man doing a dance in our courtyard. I cannot get it out of my head. I cannot see how he could be the trade minister. Now we have Minister Kelvin Thomson assisting him. The last thing I remember about Minister Kelvin Thomson is that he wanted to shut down the live cattle trade. In fact, he was playing his banjo at the Midwinter Ball and shutting down the live cattle trade. This is not much use to us. This is not much of a help. To give him his due, in the past Minister Simon Crean was not a bad agricultural minister, but we do not have him now. And Minister Burke has enough problems of his own at the moment.

We have to engage in this discussion about how a farm sector that is truly under the pump can be picked up and moved forward. All Australian people look to the farm sector as representative of how competent we are. They empathise with people on the land because they know they do it tough—and they do. They recognise that every farmer is also an agronomist, a veterinarian and a diesel fitter, and they do it for nothing. People recognise that they have done what the nation has asked of them: they went out west and scratched a living out of the dirt to provide a providence for this nation. We owe it to that farm sector to go back to that space right now and start coming up with a farm policy to bring forward at the election so that we can deliver a better horizon for them right now.

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

I also rise to speak on the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2012. I would like to congratulate the government and the department on a bill that aspires to do such fantastic things, some of these things we really support not only throughout the agriculture, fisheries and forestry legislation but right throughout the government's work. It reduces red tape, creates clearer Commonwealth laws and improves the effectiveness and efficiency of regulation. I would encourage the government, having taken this very small step, to take some giant strides using this same underpinning principle right across its portfolios. It shows that the department has been listening to industry with the future in mind. The coalition obviously will be supporting measures by the government to reduce regulation and make things simpler for those who live outside capital cities and work in agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries.

The bill before us will make minor amendments to eight portfolio acts to improve the operation of the existing legislation and make some technical amendments. As I have mentioned, the bill will reduce red tape. This is fantastic considering that the current regulatory ratio for this government is 200 to one: 200 new regulations in, one out—quite a poor performance. So we are absolutely going to be supporting some streamlining efforts here today. It is going to reduce complexity and unnecessary regulation, and I welcome that. I particularly mention a group within the agricultural sector: the chemical suppliers. Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment Bill 2012 is another bill we have been debating lately. The inquiry that we have been having in the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport committeehas shown that the government's changes under that particular group of new regulations is going to be quite significant to industry.

The regulatory impact statement of that legislation called for 'better regulation of agriculture and veterinary chemicals'—better for whom? The Deloitte Access Economics report showed there had been increasing costs of $8 million per year to product registrations. How does that actually help farmers compete globally and become the food bowl for Asia? There is no clear cost-benefit analysis done, but then again this government has form. Maybe it almost has an aversion to cost benefit analysis. When we think of the NBN, if only it had done one it might tell a different story today. Chemical registration has increased by nearly a third, increasing not just the cost but also the time. This is the time that it takes people working in the sector to do the audit. As it is reviewed every five years, they are going to have to redo this.

One of the acts that will be amended is the wine legislation amendments. Schedules 1 and 2 of the bill make two amendments to the Wine Australia Corporation Act 1980. The first amendment relates to the label integrity program. We know how important having integrity and truth in labelling laws is, particularly to the agricultural sector. Research shows that Australians want to buy Australian products. They need to know that it is an Australian product. There needs to be no deception about what proportion or percentage of the product before them on their supermarket shelves is home-grown, homemade and owned by Australians. We need to be supporting labelling laws that give truth in labelling.

It is useful to know that these changes to the wine legislation amendments are supported and agreed to by the retailer, wholesaler and wine industry representative bodies. As Senator Joyce mentioned, it would be great to get all of those players around the supply chain on the same page when it comes to dealing with issues, particularly around supermarkets. There are significant issues in our community right throughout the supply chain in how suppliers and processors are dealt with all in the name of chasing a cheap product for the end consumer. I am sure that, if consumers were made aware of what was occurring further back in the supply chain, they would be more than happy to adjust their spending habits.

The second area that is going to be amended under this bill is the fisheries legislation amendment. Schedule 3 of the bill before us will amend theFisheries Management Act 1991to explain requirements for directions to close a fishery or a particular part of a fishery to fishing. The government has form in that area too. Whilst tightening regulation and reducing red and green tape is commendable in this bill, there are issues around fisheries legislation with this government that need putting on the record. We have argued this time and time again in this place over recent times.

We have the best managed fisheries in the world. We use science to manage those fisheries. It has been quite interesting how this government has chosen to be a subscriber of scientific method and scientific outcomes when it suits them. The Abel Tasman decision was a triumph of politics over science and one that increased our sovereign risk as a nation. If you go out into the community and talk to our fishers right around the country about this government's track record in supporting them, you will find a very different story.

The third area that will be addressed in the bill before us is the levies legislation amendment. Schedule 5 of the bill will amend the Primary Industries Levies and Charges Collection Act 1991 to allow the departmental secretary to consider all requests made by levy payers for the remission of penalties. It actually is providing recourse for those who are paying levies and for the variety of levies as we have moved to a user pays system across various aspects of our agriculture, forestry and fishery industries. At the moment, the provision applies only if the levy is over $5,000. This change will actually allow anyone who is paying a levy to make a request to the departmental secretary for the remission of that penalty. That is a good decision, because whilst $5,000 might not seem a lot of money to some people, for small businesses that are working within these industries and paying these levies that amount can be quite significant in terms of their operating costs.

Schedule 6 of the bill makes technical amendments to the Fisheries Management Act 1991, the Primary Industries and Energy Research and Development Act 1989, the Export Control Act 1982 and the Quarantine Act 1908. We support this bill and we welcome the changes the government has made, but when we talk about research into agriculture, yes, we can fiddle around and make technical amendments, as we are doing in this bill, but this government has not supported agricultural research. We have seen cuts to CSIRO funding and cuts to agricultural R&D over time and all the time. If we are going to develop and drive further innovation in our already highly efficient and effective agricultural sector then R&D funding is essential. Senator Edwards, in his contribution, made reference to the lack of undergraduate students in our agricultural education degrees, and that is a huge concern for those of us who have a passion for agriculture and sustainability of our local communities in regional Australia. We need to get more young people interested in and studying agriculture. If they are not going through at the undergrad level, we are not producing any great researchers at the postgrad level. I notice Senator Siewert nodding, as a proud holder of an agricultural science degree. We need to be producing a high proportion of undergrad ag scientists so that we can have the skills and expertise that are specific to our nation, to our farming methods and to our land and that will allow the research and development required to drive innovation for our agricultural industries. This government has poor form in that area—a lot of talk but no action.

The bill also contains amendments to modernise the language in two acts. Talking about modernising language reminds me of something I have been thinking about which does have a regional perspective. In looking at legislation around education—which I have been doing this week—I note that the government wants all schools to teach one of four Asian languages to all students in our nation. It can be Hindi, Mandarin, Japanese or Indonesian. My issue is that we are not graduating enough teachers from university who are specialised in these languages as it is now—let alone enough to be putting them right across the country. I am thinking of places like Wycheproof and Echuca, and right throughout regional areas. If we cannot fill our LOTE requirement in our capital cities, I am really struggling to understand how we are going to do it out in the regions.

The bill will also be amending the Export Control Act. That brings me to another Labor failure in the agriculture portfolio, and that would be the live cattle exports. I am sure that others have made worthy mention of this government's poor track record in dealing with that issue, such as the damaged relationships with our Indonesian neighbours and the crisis that is occurring on farm, even today, as farmers deal with the fallout of decisions made for political reasons, as a reaction to public pressure rather than in a leadership-focused manner.

The Quarantine Act 1908 will also be amended by the bill. When I think about the Quarantine Act and agriculture, I think about the New Zealand apples issue from last year. In my own home state the Goulburn Valley produces 80 per cent of the national pear crop and a significant amount of our national apple crop, and the biosecurity issues around the importation of New Zealand apples had a severe impact on that community in terms of confidence and in terms of what this government understands about how they live, how they work and what they require in terms of leadership from a government out there in the regions. This was all going on at the same time that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan consultations were happening right across that area of northern Victoria, and it led to huge uncertainty and a huge lack of confidence. If this government were serious about supporting agriculture, fisheries and forestry, it could do more around quarantine and biosecurity. It could do more to support our potato growers and our ginger growers. We have so many inquiries into biosecurity issues within the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee at the moment, it seems that this whole area needs to be looked at and the government needs to get serious about supporting our industries and protecting them—and I am not afraid to say 'protecting our local industries from international threats.' When I go back to Shepparton I think of the closed shops right around that area as a result of a combination of this government's response to environmental watering and their relationship with the Greens.

Schedules 7 and 8 make some other amendments. Schedule 7 will amend the Farm Household Support Act 1992 to remove specific references to departments and secretaries in the act so that when changes are made to the administrative arrangements orders the act will not require amendment. With respect to the Farm Household Support Act, I am still waiting to hear from the minister on an act of grace payment around farm exit grants. So, when we are talking about supporting farm households, they are doing it tough. As Senator Joyce outlined, they are not just dealing with a decrease in income; the increase in input costs for farms is ridiculous.

I was out at Tongala with the dairy farmers with Senator Joyce a few weeks ago, hearing their direct tales. This carbon tax was not actually going to affect agriculture, but the impact on our dairy farmers has been significant. There are people who cannot pump water because of the carbon tax. There are people who have to pay exorbitant electricity costs to keep their milk fresh and safe for human consumption, costs that have just risen exponentially under the carbon tax.

It was not just increased electricity costs and input costs; they were talking about increased labour costs and increased costs of fertiliser—right across the board, their inputs are increasing. You just cannot keep doing this. You cannot keep absorbing. Across the way says: 'It's only a one per cent increase. It's only a 0.5 per cent increase'. But, when your margin is less than four per cent, that very quickly adds up to an unsustainable business, and that is what we are dealing with. It is as a result of an increasing number of green and environmentalist agendas right throughout this government.

The coalition is interested in reducing not only red tape to our small businesses but also green tape. It is very disappointing that the federal government has walked away from negotiations with the states to streamline the assessment and approval processes under the EPBC Act. There was a commitment that all levels of government would work together to ensure that our environment is protected and our businesses can still make a dollar. It is not rocket science; we have just got to make it simpler, without sacrificing the environment. It is possible if we work together and worry less about the fallout in Brunswick and more about the actual outcomes.

I am reminded of the Prime Minister's visit to Western Sydney last week. I mirror the concerns of the National Party leader, Warren Truss, when he very sensibly asked the Prime Minister to spend a week in regional Australia, living and working with us, seeing firsthand the frustrations that we experience. No, we are not congested with traffic, but we have a lot of other challenges—don't we, Senator Ruston, out there—challenges that the Prime Minister would do well to actually see and feel firsthand—not just fly in for the photo op, for the flood or the fire, but to actually come and see how we live and work, and understand us. And then maybe this great bit of legislation before us, making minor amendments to a variety of bills around the agriculture, forestry and fisheries portfolio, would become a cause for the Prime Minister; maybe she could encourage the minister to seek other ways, more significant ways, to assist agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries. She is welcome down my way, if she wants to come down to Victoria. But I am sure there are multiple communities right throughout Australia that would love to host the Prime Minister for a week.

At the end of the day, regional Australia does produce the wealth. The agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries contribute 20 per cent, as Senator Joyce said, to our economic future. They are innovative; they are world's best practice. The way we are able to manage our environment and our agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries together and ensure best outcomes for both is world leading and we need to be celebrating that and supporting that. This government has—in the examples I have outlined for you—a poor track record over its time.

Despite the government, the department is very capable of taking action in this area. I would really like to commend them and encourage them to go further. It also shows this government is capable of reducing regulation, despite the modesty of the ones before us. I support this bill and commend it to the Senate.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A number of the things raised by Senator McKenzie are fantastic examples of where the agricultural sector in this country is overburdened by the weight of compliance regulation and red tape.

I stand to speak on the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2012. This bill seeks to make a range of amendments on a range of different bills. I would like to briefly comment on the wine legislation amendments, but I would like to reserve the majority of my comments today for the States Grants (War Service Land Settlement) Act 1952, which is to be repealed as part of this bill.

I was involved in the development of the wine integrity program that the wine industry developed a number of years ago. It is a very good example of a labelling program. However, nobody in this place should be fooled that that was the most extraordinarily difficult program to put together. The Winemakers' Federation, the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation and their state affiliate associations went through an inordinate amount of trouble trying to get some sort of consensus position about just developing that one homogenous product, the labelling program. So I think we would be well advised to take on some of the examples and the experiences of the development of that program when we have a look at some of the wider labelling programs that we are looking at.

Certainly, labelling has been the perennial issue, particularly with regard to identification of Australian product and Australian produce and the differentiation between our clean home-grown product in Australia and imported products. The debate is obviously further confused when we get out into the wider marketplace: 'product of Australia', 'made in Australia', 'packaged in Australia'; and the issues of seasonality, consistency of supply and ingredients that are not available in Australia. I would suggest that we would do well to have a look at the experience of the wine industry's Label Integrity Program in the process of trying to develop a labelling program for the benefit of Australian producers. And, in remembering this, we certainly need to have a look at the Greens bill that has been put before this place. We will see that it is fraught with a lot of danger if we try to go forward and make a one-size-fits-all labelling program, notwithstanding the fact that there is an urgent need for such a program.

It is actually with a level of sadness that I am here today to witness, I assume, with the passage of this bill, the repealing of the State Grants (War Service Land Settlement) Act 1952. The region that I was born in, that I was brought up in and that I now, again, live in was built as a soldier settlement. Post the First World War a number of soldier settlers came and lived in towns such as Cobdogla, Waikerie, Berri, Cadell, Chaffey and the town in which I live, Renmark. Some horrendous mistakes were made by these soldier settlers because they certainly did not have the kind of information about irrigation technologies and the things that we now so take for granted. They had no idea how to get access to market, to move their products to where they were to be purchased. Obviously, the tyranny of distance, following the First World War, was quite significant in comparison to our ability to quickly move product and produce as we do today. And bear in mind that a lot of this product was perishable, so it was not a case of putting it on a truck or a dray being pulled by a horse and letting it wander off to Adelaide in due course, because the product just would not get there. So there were many mistakes in the first soldier settlement in the region in which I live.

But, following the Second World War, we had another influx of soldier settlement properties, particularly in the town of Loxton, which was developed post Second World War and which is probably the major town we are referring to today with the repealing of this act. A number of other areas in South Australia were also developed as soldier settlements following the Second World War—places such as Parndana on Kangaroo Island and Padthaway in the south-east of our state. These were thriving regional communities. They had extraordinarily strong cultures. They were built on a sense of 'can do' in the face of extraordinary adversity. They had wonderful organisations of people who got together—the foundation of organisations such as the CWA, Civil Defence and RSL, which were all hugely active participants in the community. They built these communities into very strong, self-sufficient communities. They had no reliance on the outside world for what they did.

As a child I can remember that, if there were a bushfire in the surrounding area, my father and everybody else's father would all jump in somebody's ute. There would be 10 guys with shovels in the back of the ute. They would go off and they would dig firebreaks. Nobody put up their hand and said: 'Where's the government funding? Where's the front-end loader or the grader that is going to turn up, that somebody else will provide?' They just went out there and did it themselves. This pioneering spirit that was developed in these communities following the soldier settlements, I think, is intrinsic in the culture that still largely exists in these communities.

Another great thing that was born of the soldier settlements was the cooperatives. The growers, by necessity, got together and formed cooperatives so that they could actually market and sell their products. Of course, in those days it was difficult to sell individually from the farm gate. We did not have the tourism drive-bys where you could pop in and buy a bottle of wine at the cellar door. Farmers had to have a way of getting their products into the marketplace. So they saw the wisdom of forming cooperatives and, in the process of forming those co-operatives, they also retained control of their product well past the farm gate—something, unfortunately, that is being eroded over time. We now see our farmers not having the control over their product that they used to. Most of our co-ops have folded, they have been corporatised or they have been bought out by big players. The big end of town now has a huge amount of control over our farming communities and it is probably one of the great reasons that our farmers out there are possibly struggling. But, as I said, the spirit of these communities is still alive and I think it can be rekindled. But the fabric of this is slowly being eroded and we would be very well advised to take a good look at it now and try to resurrect it before it is completely gone. The productivity of this country has been built on the back of these communities, which are self-sufficient and which did not rely on government handouts, which they are now being forced to do simply because of the overburden of things that are being forced on them.

There is no doubt and we have to acknowledge that things such as exchange rates and the globalisation of the world marketplace and commodity prices are all having a major impact on our farmers at the moment. There is probably not a great deal we can do about that. But in looking at that we also have to realise there are a number of things that are under our control. I commend this bill today because it actually seeks to improve:

… the effectiveness and efficiency of regulation, reducing red tape and creating clearer Commonwealth laws, the proposed amendments will reduce complexity and unnecessary regulation, provide consistency, amend outdated or unclear provisions and reduce the likelihood of reader confusion.

Those are very admirable aims that are being sought in this particular bill. We commend it for that. But the reality is that it really does not go very far when you consider the enormity of the things that this bill is seeking to achieve out of the five acts that it is looking to work on. It really does not go very far. Senator McKenzie outlined an absolute myriad of different burdens that are currently placed on our farmers and a myriad of different acts and regulations. I commend the bill, but I certainly suggest that we need to go a lot further.

Just this morning I was dealing with an issue where red tape and compliance costs and the unnecessary overburden of government regulation and involvement in a process, which I do not necessarily think the government needs to be involved in to the kind of degree that it is, have seen a small Riverland grower lose a lucrative export market. Why? Because of the cost of export certification. Mr Punturiero, who is a small Riverland grower—he and his wife have a small citrus orchard in Renmark—has been exporting a few pallets of very high-quality limes every year into New Zealand. He does it for a very small period and exports only a very small number of pallets. Last year the cost of certification for his shed, because New Zealand is a market that requires certification much the same way as we require certification for products coming into Australia, was $500. This year he will have to pay $1,800 because he will have the benefit of a rebate of almost $6,000. Next year he will have to pay $8,350 to export the same small quantity of limes into New Zealand that he paid $500 for the privilege of exporting last year. The reality of all this is that he is not going to export them. He cannot possibly afford to pay $1,000 a pallet to AQIS, or the department, just so that they can come in for a couple of hours and say that his shed meets the phytosanitary requirements that are demanded by this market. Last week, along with Senator Xenophon, I moved a motion in this place to ask AQIS if it would review this particular licensing system, because it is totally and utterly discriminatory and discouraging to small- and medium-sized growers like Mr Punturiero.

Cost-saving reforms were supposed to have accompanied the move to cost recovery that was agreed to by both sides of the House when it was brought in, but what we have seen here is that the cost recovery activities have been introduced but we have not seen those cost-saving reforms that were supposed to overlay those changes. So, instead of seeing a situation where there might have been a small increase in the amount of money that was necessary for Mr Punturiero to pay for his certification, we now see a situation where it is now so exorbitant that he plainly cannot afford to pay it, and in the process of doing that has now lost—at least for this year, until we can get this matter sorted out—a very lucrative, albeit small, market into New Zealand.

It is not just horticultural industries that are being faced with this burden. I have had calls from people in the meat industry and the vegetable industry—it is across the board that the little guys are just not able to afford this amount of money. The really stupid part of all this is that we, as a country, end up being the net loser. Small growers, seasonal exporters, niche market exporters and growers who see a market opportunity will all be excluded from being able to export their products. These exporters—along with the big guys, who I acknowledge are obviously very important in the marketplace, but even the little exporters—earn export dollars. They are the ones who give us the plus side on our balance of trade, and let us not make too fine a point of it: those people that export are the ones that we really need to be looking after. We also need to realise that often a dollar spent in encouraging an export market to be developed or to be pursued ends up with a huge multiplier effect in terms of the money that is returned to the Australian economy by virtue of that.

When we pass this legislation today—which I am assuming we will—we need to be very aware of the consequences out there on the ground of putting in place legislative change, compliance and the burden of bureaucracy. As has been mentioned previously, one of the great things that we need to be doing is to encourage our research and development, which is something we have been cutting back on again. We need to encourage research and development, because it is our only competitive advantage in Australia. We certainly are not going to be able to compete in international markets on price, so we need to make sure that we are the smartest, the cleverest and the most innovative, as we have been in the past. I refer to this in terms of taking it back to the soldier settlers of the community, in which I grew up in. Those guys were innovative. We used to sell our irrigation technology into Israel. We now see that Israel has a huge irrigation technology business, and they are now selling to the rest of the world. We need to get back to a position where Australia is at the forefront of leading in technology, innovation and making sure that we take advantage of selling to the rest of the world what we do so fabulously well.

There were bills referred to this morning such as the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment Bill 2012 that was supposed to decrease the amount of burden on growers for compliance. It seems a little odd that we can have an extra $2 million that has to be picked up by cost recovery to growers and that is not considered a burden. The Biosecurity Bill 2012 is another example, where the burden is on industry to prove. If we put as much effort into making the people who import into this country comply as we put into making our exporters comply when they send product offshore, I am sure we would see a better balance. I am not going to go on about the carbon tax and the increasing costs and import costs, but it is fair to say they are very real and, when you own a business in rural and regional Australia and you are fighting all the other things you have to fight, the increasing costs that we have seen, particularly in relation to those people who require refrigeration, have been exorbitant.

While I am very happy today to support this bill as it does, in some small way, address the red tape, it highlights to me the huge job we have to unravel the bureaucratic burden that farmers have to deal with every day. So, with a great deal of sadness, I acknowledge the need to repeal the act in relation to the soldier settlements from the community that I grew up in, and I hope that, maybe, in the amending of this bill, we will see further amendments in further bills to get rid of the burden and the red tape that face our growers so that maybe the soldier settlements in the communities—the strong and vibrant communities which I and many other people from the country grew up in—can be restored for the future.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I endorse the remarks of Senator Ruston. Just this morning, we were both on Leon Byner's program on Radio FIVEaa to talk about the plight facing Mick and Tanya Punturiero—salt of the earth people, lime growers. They are innovators and hard workers in the Riverland of South Australia who are now in a position where they cannot export to New Zealand, a niche market that they need and that has been denied to them because the AQIS inspection fees have gone up from $550 to something like $8,530, a 1,300 per cent increase. I know there are rebates involved, but there is bureaucracy, paperwork and red tape involved in that. The fact is that it should not be that hard to be a farmer in this country. You have a situation where there are so many obstacles and barriers, particularly for smaller producers—for the Mick and Tanya Punturieros of this world, who are the innovators and have done the right thing. I and Senator Ruston know Mick and Tanya well. They have been overseas and they have looked at the latest technologies in terms of water-saving techniques. They have looked at ways of producing limes that are world quality—they are clean, green producers—yet they are missing out on an export market because these rules have been put in place that just do not make sense. We also have to look at the context of how important agriculture is to this country. The gross value of agricultural, fisheries and forestry production in 2010-11 was $51.8 billion. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of jobs were created as a result of that, and yet we are making it more difficult for our farmers. Whilst I welcome this legislation, it does not address the fundamental issues and the fundamental challenges facing our farmers.

I note that Senator Colbeck in his contribution made reference to Asian honey bees. There was not adequate consultation and an opportunity was lost to eradicate the Asian honey bee when it was first discovered on a ship near Cairns. I note the work that Senator Milne has done in relation to this and her similar concerns. It is also worth mentioning, in terms of the context of labelling, that we are talking about wine labelling and improvements in respect of the integrity of our wonderful wine industry.

Senator Siewert made mention of genetically modified organisms, GMOs, and how there are reports coming out of the United States that Monsanto's corn crops, which are GMO crops, are failing. I think that is very, very significant. We need better labelling of GMOs in this country not just so that consumers can make an informed choice as to whether they want to buy a product containing GMOs or not, but also to protect those farmers that want to be GMO free and that want to keep export markets in Europe, in Japan and throughout the world where there is a clear preference for non-GMO crops. That would mean that those farmers would not be prejudiced as well.

I note that Senator Edwards made reference to the forward selling of the forestry contracts by the South Australian government—a stupid, stupid decision that will prejudice the vitality and the economic development of the south-east of South Australia in particular. It does not make sense. One issue I have is not with Senator Edwards but with the endorsed Liberal candidate for Barker—we have had a bit of an interchange in the media about what a state Liberal government could do to cancel that contract. The advice I have sought and had from constitutional law experts such as Professor John Williams, the Dean of the University of Adelaide Law School, is that there is no constitutional prohibition in the South Australian Constitution to stop any future government tearing up that contract and saying, 'We will go back to our original position.' Of course there are issues of sovereign risk, but there is no legal impediment to any future South Australian government to say, 'We will take back a particular contract and keep it in state hands.' I maintain that position is technically and legally correct. There is an issue of sovereign risk, but I would have thought that the risk to the people of the south-east—their jobs, the future of the timber industry and associated industries—is too great as a result of what the government has done.

This bill also looks at wine labelling. There is another issue that has not been touched on, and that goes to fraud. That goes to winemakers, particularly in overseas markets, where there is counterfeit wine. I was involved in the case not so long involving Emanuel Skorpos, who runs the Flinders Run Winery. He is an award-winning winemaker on the Southern Flinders Ranges Estate. He had to spend his own money and chase up the counterfeiting of his labels in China. I think more needs to be done on this. We need to give as much support as we can, particularly for small producers, in respect of that.

The Blewett review has also been mentioned in the context of this debate, and I note that Senator Joyce made a useful contribution. Several years ago, in a very unusual unity ticket, Senator Joyce, then Leader of the Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown and I introduced a bill. We co-sponsored a bill in relation to the issue of food labelling and country-of-origin labelling. That shows that this is an issue that transcends party politics. It transcends ideologies and it is about common sense. We need to have effective food-labelling laws in this country in order to assist, as Senator McKenzie said and as Senator Ruston made the point in her contribution, people who want to be able to make a choice about buying Australian produce. Right now our food-labelling laws are an absolute disgrace. You have a situation where 'Made in Australia' just means that a product has been 'substantially transformed' by 51 per cent in the production process. What does that mean? It means that you can buy orange juice that says 'Made in Australia', yet 90 per cent of the concentrate of that juice could have come from Brazil, for instance, and consumers are none the wiser. The label says 'Made from local and imported ingredients'. That is an insult to consumers.

The Blewett review was a long time coming. It made some recommendations to improve the system. I thought the Blewett review was weak in many respects and that it did not go far enough. But at least it made some constructive recommendations, and I commend the work that Dr Blewett did in relation to that. But what did the government do? It ignored it. It ignored it to the cost of consumers. It ignored it to the cost of our farmers. Last year I went to a property in the Riverland where 50-year-old orange trees were being ripped out because the price of oranges was so terrible. If you talk to Ron Gray in the Riverland—a stalwart of and an advocate for strong food-labelling and country-of-origin labelling laws—he will tell you about the trees that he has had to rip out having turned off the water. His neighbours have done the same thing. Prices are so low, in part because our food-labelling laws are so weak. This bill does not address that and we need to address that.

Biosecurity was touched on by Senator Colbeck. It is worth mentioning that we have a situation where apples have been allowed in from New Zealand. AQIS says it has risk matrixes in place, but I do not know whether they are that effective. I am concerned that we are looking at bringing in potatoes from New Zealand which will potentially have a huge impact because of the zebra chip disease in New Zealand. If we get that disease in this country, we will never get rid of it. It is the same with fire blight. I really wonder whether the people in biosecurity are more interested in pursuing a free trade mantra than in pursuing what their core activity should be, and that is to guarantee the clean, green reputation of Australian produce and to keep it disease-free.

Senator McKenzie made a point about buying Australian products and how we need to have truth in labelling. We need to have truth in labelling because, if we do not have truth in labelling, Australian farmers will not stand a chance. This bill really just touches on the edges of that for wine labelling. It is worth reflecting on the issue of foreign ownership of our farmland. Despite my name, I am certainly not xenophobic, but I think there is a real need for appropriately balanced and appropriately targeted foreign investment in this country, particularly in greenfields sites. Our current foreign investment laws are so vague and so imprecise in terms of a national interest test. Also, the threshold is so high—something like $244 million before the Foreign Investment Review Board will even look at something. It is not in the national interest.

We could learn, and it pains me to say this, from the Kiwis across the Tasman. The New Zealanders have an Overseas Investment Office where there is a more clearly defined national interest test, where they look at any transaction involving more than five hectares of prime agricultural land. I am not suggesting we go down the path of five hectares—though that was initially my view—but a $5 million threshold would seem to be more realistic and in line with the consumer price movements from the 1970s when the test was just $1 million.

We need to revamp our foreign investment rules, not in a way to discourage foreign investment but to encourage transparency. It also begs a number of big questions about sovereign funds—funds owned by other governments, effectively controlled by other governments, where the threshold is zero dollars, as it should be. Our national interest test is so vague and so imprecise as to be useless.

It is worth reflecting on what was said by David Farley, the chief executive of Australian Agricultural Co., whom I think is widely respected in the industry and who knows his stuff. He gave very useful evidence at an inquiry on foreign investment, which was instigated by Senator Heffernan. An opinion piece in the Australian Financial Review in June of last year stated, 'Why should China be given the inside running on a very promising agricultural project?'—and this was talking about Northern Australia—and Mr Farley said:

Our political and business leaders are arguing that we need to pay more respect to China and put more effort into our relations with the Chinese at the expense of our neighbouring South-East Asian countries.

I would say more respect should be paid to the expertise contained in our own agricultural industry and more effort put into making sure that Australia is equipped to play its role in the global demand for food.

I agree with what Mr Farley says and that is not to say that we should not have significant investment from China and other countries in our agricultural sector, but we need to ask some fundamental, seminal questions. One of those questions needs to be: are there enough incentives for farmers and for superannuation funds to invest in agriculture? I do not think we have the relevant taxation and superannuation investment vehicles and incentives in this country to drive that investment, to drive R&D and to drive the changes that we need to be a powerhouse for the region and for the world in food production.

Mr Acting Deputy President Bernardi, you are probably well aware of the article in the Adelaide Advertiser of 23 February this year by Cameron England which talked about a Qatari government owned company, Hassad Australia, that bought a $9 million cattle property near Bordertown and is understood to be negotiating with several farmers on the Eyre Peninsula to buy prime property and grazing land. The reason that Hassad Australia is doing that is the government of Qatar on behalf of the citizens of Qatar understand the potential of Australian agriculture. They get it. They understand that Australia has the potential to be the food bowl of the region, and indeed of the world. But we have a situation where our own farmers are driven out of business because we do not have the food labelling laws, the investment rules and the taxation rules to encourage investment. To me, we must redress that and this bill does not do that.

If I could just mention coal seam gas. The government have made some announcements on that and I congratulate the work that Senator Larissa Waters has done in this area, and it is an issue that Senator Joyce has raised on many occasions. There are going to be rules for coal seam gas and about the aquifer, but I worry that it might be too late for some of the developments that have been approved. Unless we give appropriate priority to our prime agricultural land, that is a real issue. I am hoping that it is not too little too late in terms of what the government announced only yesterday.

Finally, I want to comment on the Murray-Darling Basin. I note that Senator Hanson-Young, who is in the chamber, has been a very strong advocate in relation to ensuring the health of our river system. I think there is a real issue here concerning the early adopters of water-saving measures. Senator Ruston, who is from the Riverland, knows well that our producers in the Riverland had to be more water efficient much earlier because they are at the tail end of the river system. After the 1968 drought, a number of measures had to be implemented to ensure the survival of our food producers, the farmers and irrigators, in the Riverland. I do not believe there is anything in the current Murray-Darling Basin plan that gives adequate recognition to early adopters. It does not do that and that is a fatal flaw in this plan. You must of necessity, for the sake of equity and for the sake of rewarding good behaviour many years ago, give something back to those farmers whether it is encouraging research and development or whether it is providing a specialised fund for those farmers who have already done the hard yards and who can only access a tiny, tiny fraction of the $5.8 billion in water infrastructure programs. They cannot access those funds, by and large, because they are already too water sufficient to qualify. That is an anomaly and it is not just in South Australia's interests but also in the national interest to acknowledge those early adopters.

This bill does address some issues but it needs to go much further. If we are going to be serious about ensuring the viability and the strength of an industry worth over $50 billion a year to the Australian economy, with massive flow-on effects and with massive job impacts, we need to do much, much better. This parliament and this government, and future governments, must take up the challenge so that we can be the food bowl of Asia and so that we can also give our farmers a fair go.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the senators for their contribution to this debate. The Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Legislation Amendment Bill (No.1) 2012 will reduce red tape and make portfolio legislation clearer. This bill is an example of the government working with industry for more practical and effective regulation. It responds to industry requests for reform of regulation and streamlines administrative procedures. Some examples are amendments to the label integrity program which address concerns raised by retailers and wholesalers and amendments to the definition of 'vintage' which address concerns raised by some wine producers who harvest their grapes later than the normal harvest period. In addition, amendments to the fisheries legislation will simplify administration for business. It will also ensure that, when it is necessary for the Australian Fisheries Management Authority to issue directions to close a fishery, the requirements are clear for fishers. A further example is amendments to levies legislation which will provide an improved response time for our industry levy payers when they submit requests for the remission of late levy penalties. The portfolio continues to identify redundant legislation for removal from the statute books. The repeal of the States Grants (War Service Land Settlement) Act 1952 is a further example of the portfolio's efforts towards deregulation. Importantly, this bill provides a cost-effective opportunity to clean up portfolio legislation; the various technical amendments will improve readability, update references and remove redundant texts, resulting in clearer legislation. I commend bill to the Senate.

Bill read a second time.