Yesterday the Minister for Agriculture Murray Watt gave Parliamentary members a briefing on the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) threat to the $80 billion Australian livestock industry. The threat assessment from FMD has been raised from 9% to 11% because the disease has arrived in Bali.
One Nation is concerned that the measures at airports to ensure FMD does not come through arrivals is insufficient. Minister Watt has announced that our measures are 90% effective but are based mostly on passengers’ self-assessment honest.
We are concerned that vaccines needed to control the outbreak are stored in the UK and, despite Agriculture Minister Watt’s misleading answer during Question Time, we do know the strain likely to arrive in Australia. We have no reason not to place vaccines in Australia now so we can be ready for any outbreak.
Under Australian regulations it is perfectly safe to eat the meat from livestock that have been vaccinated against FMD. If FMD does enter Australia, our meat and related exports will be prevented from leaving the country for many years. The viability of the industry is at risk and under threat.
Transcript
My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Senator Watt. Thank you for your briefing this afternoon on foot-and-mouth disease. Minister, if foot-and-mouth disease does enter Australia, the short-term response would be to start vaccination. Food and Safety Australia and New Zealand says vaccines are safe for human consumption. Having said that, Australia owns foot-and-mouth disease vaccines located in the United Kingdom. How many vaccines does Australia own in the United Kingdom?
Senator WATT (Queensland—Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Minister for Emergency Management) (14:39): Thank you, Senator Roberts. I’m pleased that you were able to come along to that briefing. The feedback that I had was that it was very informative for the members who attended. We are approaching this in a bipartisan manner, and we would welcome the opposition joining us in that, as I know you are, Senator Roberts.
Just to pick you up on one point: if, God forbid, foot-and-mouth disease were to enter Australia despite the measures that we are putting in place, we have a well-developed plan known as AUSVETPLAN, which is prepared between the federal government and states and territories, about how we respond to biosecurity outbreaks. Biosecurity outbreaks are managed and led by state governments with the support of the federal government, and we have seen that occur in relation to the Varroa mite outbreak recently, where we have been supporting the New South Wales government. The point about vaccines is that biosecurity advice that I have received is that we would not immediately vaccinate all livestock or even a large segment of livestock immediately in Australia, and that is because if you vaccinate your livestock—
Opposition senators interjecting—
Senator WATT: It’s unfortunate that the opposition don’t want to understand and listen to the measures of preparing for the outbreak. The reason you don’t vaccinate, Senator Roberts, is that you are then deemed by the rest of the world as having foot-and-mouth disease, and that is what prevents the export of our product overseas. It’s effectively the same as having the outbreak here when you vaccinate. The idea would be that in the first instance you would impose a 72-hour livestock standstill to limit the movement of animals, and only if the outbreak got further would you consider vaccines. My advice, and I will get this checked, is that we have approximately one million vaccines available to us in a stockpile and they are available within one week’s notice.
Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (14:41): We have 25 million cattle and 2.5 million pigs. How is one million enough?
Senator WATT (Queensland—Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Minister for Emergency Management) (14:41): As I said, the first move, should we have an outbreak here, is not to just run out and vaccinate every herd of cattle, sheep, pigs or goats across the country—or buffaloes, for that matter. What we would actually do is try to control the outbreak in the localised area that it is in so that it didn’t spread further afield. If it did spread further afield, that is when we would look to vaccinations as an alternative. It is not the only alternative that we would have, but it is certainly one, and we would be able to access other vaccines at very short notice. What we are actually prioritising in relation to the supply of vaccines at the moment is providing them to Indonesia, and the reason we are doing that is that, if we can bring that outbreak under control in Indonesia, not only is that in their national interest; it is in our national interest. We have continued to have very productive discussions with the Indonesian government about what other vaccines and other assistance we can provide. But my priority right now is keeping the disease out, and that is why we want to support the vaccine rollout in Indonesia.
T he PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, second supplementary?
Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (14:42): Why are these vaccines not already in Australia? We are one of the largest cattle and related product producers in the world. Speed of response is critical to protecting our biosecurity. Why are these not being brought to Australia now as a precaution?
Senator WATT (Queensland—Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Minister for Emergency Management) (14:42): As I said, vaccination is not the first measure that you would undertake if there were an outbreak, but there are a couple of other reasons why we have got those vaccines here now, the first of which is that there are sometimes issues about the bringing of live virus into a country, and the responsible members of the opposition understand this. In addition, though, we don’t necessarily know what strain of the disease we would have in Australia, and we want to make sure that the vaccines that we obtain would actually be effective for the strain of the virus that we would get if we were to get it. In fact some of the technical support we have started providing to Indonesia was actually to help them diagnose the strain of virus that they had so that we could then go out and procure the vaccines that would deal with that particular strain. There’s no point sending vaccines to people if they don’t work for a particular strain of the virus, and we would need a little bit of time to diagnose the strain that we have here in Australia so that we could then very quickly obtain the correct vaccines to deal with the version of the virus that we got.
Who would have thought that affluence would be measured by who could afford lettuces at $20/kg, rather than Lamborghinis? The humble zucchini is now $2 each, and meat and fuel prices are continuing to rise. Inflation will remain with us for the next 18 months.
A small percentage of these rises are caused by supply issues relating to the war in the Ukraine however to blame Putin is to misdirect the blame to a convenient fall guy. Australian governments cannot use the war in Ukraine and Putin to explain away the prices rises and supply issues. Like COVID, Ukraine’s war has highlighted the deep flaws already existing in Australia’s approach to strategic industries.
Years of flawed climate ideology has destroyed our ability to grow food in Australia.
The government’s forced uptake of expensive, unreliable wind and solar power at the expense of cheap sources has increased electricity bills, one of the largest costs of doing business at every stage from farm to table.
Australia imports 1.7 million tonnes of the most common form of fertilizer – urea and only produces 200,000 tonnes locally, most of that here in Queensland. Urea is made from natural gas. Australia has one of the world’s largest reserves of natural gas so why are we paying 400% more for imported products when Australia could be self-sufficient?
Australian Governments have been asleep at the wheel when it comes to protecting strategic industries such as fertilizer. Production shortages will continue and prices will continue to rise and that is on successive short-sighted, LNP and Labor State and Federal Governments.
There is also “green tape”, thousands of pages of heavy handed, draconian laws which do very little to protect the environment and are not based on solid data or science. Instead, they just make it too hard or too expensive for many farmers to use their land. In Queensland some farmers are being prevented from working their land at all.
Our most essential need for surviving and thriving is water. Supposed environmentalists have stopped major dam building initiatives for nearly 30 years. Responsible use and environmental management is of course necessary. Australia has enough water to feed and clothe the world. A lack of vision and forward planning from politicians means that we are at the whim of every weather cycle.
If there’s one thing we should have learnt from the COVID response and now from regional conflicts it is this. Australia can’t rely on the rest of the world. We need to be able to grow every bit of our own food here with minimal government interference.
More than that, Australia has an obligation to use the gifts this country has been blessed with to take our place in the worthwhile endeavour to feed and clothe those who would otherwise be in need.
Our farmers have been extraordinary in their commitment to growing food and fibre because this is a noble endeavour. Successive LNP and Labor Governments have made this endeavour harder and harder in the name of ideology and failed climate “science”.
Now the result of years of mismanagement is being felt in petrol stations and supermarkets across Australia.
Australians can no longer afford to go backwards at the hands of climate zealots whose inner-urban, well-off lifestyles are the least affected by climate madness.
Build dams, install the cheapest available power sources and get government out of the tractor-driver’s seat. If Australia is to survive coming food crises, we must do all of this now.
An old quote says a country is only three missed meals away from a revolution. We have enough arable land to feed Australia and millions overseas, government just needs to get out of the way and let farmers do what they do best.
Irrigators are heading north to escape nightmare restrictions in the Murray Darling Basin. Many are coming into the beautiful black soil plains of the Flinders river in North Queensland. At the moment this area is natural pasture covered with deep rooting grasses that support grazing.
While the soil supports broadacre crops, this introduces an erosion risk in the floodplain, and most of the black soil plains are flood plain. Replacing deep rooted grasses with deep rooted grains, to create mixed grain and grazing properties seems to make sense.
In 2008 the CSIRO released a paper which suggested making this change could provide a 40% increase in revenue per hectare. I asked what we were doing to look at these developments which could turn the North into a new foodbowl.
Transcript
I’m going to go to Senator Roberts for questions.
Thank you Chair. And thank you both for being here today. I’d like to commend your work on perennial wheat and preventing soil erosion. It’s something that we’ve only just become aware of and the Chair knows, from her experience in North Queensland, that this is very important to the Flinders area in particular, stopping the soil erosion up there when we convert to crops. I’d like you to talk about, I’ll give the the other senators some background so that it makes sense, I’d like you to talk about deep-rooted, perennial grains, please. A quick background: irrigators are heading North to escape the nightmare restrictions in the Murray-Darling basin. We’ve spoken with some of them in the Gulf. Many are coming into the beautiful black soil plains of the Flinders River in North Queensland. At the moment, this area is largely natural pasture covered with deep-rooting grasses that support grazing. While the soil supports wheat, cotton and other broadacre crops, this introduces an erosion problem in the flood plain, and most of the black soil plains are flood plain, and they get their rain in a short part of the year. Replacing deep-rooted grasses with deep-rooted grains to create mixed grain and grazing properties seems to make sense. In 2008, the CSIRO released a paper which suggested making this change could provide a 40% increase in revenue per hectare, so that would be phenomenal on top of the figures you’ve already stated. So I understand that the Grains Research and Development Corporation are working on perennial wheat. The Woodstock Research Centre near Charters Towers is, I understand, trialling perennial wheat. Can you please provide an update on the progress of perennial grain development as it would apply to Queensland cropping?
Thanks Senator, look, at this stage we obviously have a number of investments, certainly in Northern Australia and in the Northern region of the grains industry. Some of these are very highly adaptable to the new area that you’re talking about. Perennial grains is actually not an area that GRDC has been concentrating at depth in, in recent times. It is something that people are raising with us as being an opportunity to look at in that Northern or the Far Northern zone. And if it obviously falls into the remit of GRDC, which is amongst our 25 leviable crops, which obviously wheat is, we can certainly have a look at it. At this stage, we’re not doing a lot of work, there is some trial work, as you say, going on up there on a run, alternative and different crops. Some of them aren’t in our remit, but we’re certainly happy to look at what those opportunities are. And we’ve got some discrete initiatives up there at the moment to look at what could be possible. And we also have some very good rotations, agronomy solutions and husbandry opportunities with our traditional cropping programmes, bring rotations into the North that might be extremely beneficial, and also mitigate some of those issues that you’ve actually raised around erosion and accessing those unique opportunities in those deeper soils.
So, it looked as though the perennial wheat was first raised about 2011, I think, from the GRDC, and then we saw some more material, just in 2021, from an external body: the rising potential of Australian perennial wheat. And it really does seem amazing, because you increase the fodder for the cattle or the sheep, as well as reducing soil erosion. So the way I took the conclusion, from what you’re saying, is that you’ve done little work on that at the moment, is that right?
That’s right, Senator. I mean, there’s certainly obviously opportunity that we’re happy to look at, but perennial wheat in the North has not been deemed a priority by growers as part of our current RD&E plan, but, as I say, we are doing discrete work and we’re in consultations in the Far North about what could be possible. So, we have investments, as I say, up there and we’re consulting heavily with, particularly, growers on the ground and some of those other stakeholders that work in that region, such as QDAF, to see what other opportunities we could bring to bear and what research needs are required. And we’re at the table for that.
What are the obstacles at the moment to do more work on that?
Well, there’s probably minimal obstacles. We just need to make sure that we actually design whatever research may be required up there to bring to bear some opportunity. We need to make sure that we’re actually gonna meet the agro-ecological zone and also the climatic and soil conditions. I know that your report that you mentioned, that’s recently been done, they’ve identified an opportunity. We’re more than happy to look at that, in consultation with the players up there, and see what might be possible. Perennial grain, particularly in our traditional region, Senator, had not provided either short- or medium-term opportunity. We’ve been able to bring to bear far better outcomes with our husbandry and agronomy outcomes in our traditional grain-growing areas with our new rotations and the technologies that we bring to bear using annual, as opposed to perennials.
So, what I interpreted, Mr Woods, from your opening response to that second question is that you’re careful to not develop something that people are not interested in. Is that right?
We prefer not to have an unroadworthy vehicle before we start, Senator.
Okay. And Henry Ford said, when someone said, “Why are you building cars? There are no roads.” He said, “The roads will come.” And they did. So, it seems very exciting. And your main obstacle at the moment is the lack of market reception, or customer reception, is that it?
That is correct, Senator. There’s not a lot of acceptance or engagement or excitement with regards to perennials, in the grower spectrum, so I think there’s some work to be done.
Okay. That will do me. Thank you very much. I’d like to contact your agency if we could. Can we do that?
Very happy to, Senator. Thank you.
[Roberts] Thank you, Mr Metcalf. Thank you Mr Woods.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/mjvUbFdoY8o/0.jpg360480Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2022-02-17 14:39:302022-02-17 14:39:36Could perennial wheat be a 40% increase for graziers? Grains Research Development Corporation
The figures don’t lie, Australian farmers have saved the economy from a recession. While the government will always try to take credit for a good news story, I made this speech back in September celebrating the true heroes of Australia, the farmers on the ground.
Transcript
I recently spoke on mining exports keeping the Australian economy out of depression. Today I’m addressing the other good news story: agriculture. In the last 12 months, wheat prices are up 33 per cent, corn up 57 per cent, canola up 72 per cent, sugar up 65 per cent and—the one the Greens hate the most—cotton up 45 per cent. It’s not politicians keeping Australia out of a depression; it’s farmers’ hard work and resilience. Drought and cold from the current solar minimum are reducing crop yields worldwide.
At the same time, the drought in many places in Australia has ended. Prime Minister Morrison and Treasurer Frydenberg are taking credit for a strong economy that’s none of their doing. For years this parliament has been making life as hard as possible for farmers and irrigators. In 2019, One Nation asked this parliament to provide a measly 200 gigalitres of water from the Hume Dam to keep our farmers going through the drought. Labor, the Greens and the Liberals and their sell-out sidekicks the Nationals, teamed up to vote down our motion. As a result, the basin winter crop in 2019 failed.
Here we are in 2021 and the Murray-Darling Basin from Queensland to South Australia is at a high 80 per cent of water storage capacity. Hume and Dartmouth hold 5,700 gigalitres. The water the politicians said wouldn’t be there because of climate change is there. This parliament fails again. For weeks now up to 20 gigalitres a day of water that should have gone to farmers has been sent out to sea at the Murray mouth. With Lake Victoria’s storage full and Menindee filling quickly, flooding in the lower basin is a real possibility—and still farmers along the Murray and Murrumbidgee are receiving only 30 per cent water allocation.
At these crop prices, is this parliament mad? Give farmers their water and let them grow food and fibre to feed and clothe the world. We have one flag. We are one community. We are one nation. It’s time now to allow every Australian to lift themselves up through our own initiative
Farmers at Gatton and beyond are petrified of the spread of destructive fire ants. Fire ants ravage crops and if they get into animals, they drive them crazy with pain. Left unchecked, they’ll turn productive areas effectively barren.
I asked the Department of Agriculture about what we are doing to eradicate them. Unfortunately, it looks like there isn’t enough money allocated to eradicate the destructive fire ants.
Transcript
[Malcolm Roberts] How much is it costing Australia in funding the fight against spread and ultimate eradication of fire ants?
[Mr Tongue] Senator, it’s approximately $450 million dollars. I’ll defer to my colleague Ms Laduzko.
[Mr Metcalfe] These are red imported fire ants?
Yeah, red imported fire ants.
[Malcolm Roberts] We’ve got domestic fire ants?
[Mr Metcalfe] No, we’ve also got the yellow crazy ants as well.
[Malcolm Roberts] We’ve got a lot of ants.
[Mr Ludisco] The red imported fire ants particularly which are a particular problem in the Brisbane Valley.
[Malcolm Roberts] 400 million over what period?
[Ms Laduzko] Sorry, Senator Roberts, we have a ten year funding programme currently agreed across all States and Territories in the Commonwealth and the budgeted allocation for that current ten year programme, about which we’re nearly halfway through is 414 million.
[Malcolm Roberts] So about 41 million a year.
[Ms Laduzko] Yeah, roughly speaking.
[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you. How successful is the management and eradication programme?
[Ms Laduzko] We are four years into a sustained effort at eradicating an invasive ant that has got quite a wide spread. I think and I think I might’ve given this evidence last time to the committee which is we have been learning a lot more about the ant. It’s a very large scale eradication so we’ve been making progress but in the meantime, the programme which is actually led by the Queensland government has been trialling different ways of killing the ant through different bait combinations and technology so I’d have to say we’ve seen some positive signs and there are some learnings around eradication but the actual size of the task and whether it’s sufficiently funded are matters for current discussion.
[Malcolm Roberts] So you haven’t got any concrete measures other than that, you’ve just making progress? Not trying to be cheeky, I just would like to have something quantified. How do you assess progress? Because that’s an awful lot of money.
[Ms Laduzko] Yes, assessing progress is an interesting question and partly we go through cycles of eradication and surveillance so we eradicate to a programme and then we go back and do surveillance to see how effective those measures have been. If you want specific information, I’d probably prefer to take it on notice because that would be what I would source from the program-leading Queensland government to make sure I’m accurate.
[Malcolm Roberts] Okay, thank you.
[Mr Tongue] And Senator, just to describe there is the programme is run by an independent committee chaired by Wendy Crake who is a very distinguished authority in natural resource management matters.
[Malcolm Roberts] Queensland or Australia?
[Mr Tongue] Australia, Australia and as Ms Laduzko said, jointly funded and there is quite a significant amount of detail that we can provide you on notice about the roll out of the programme, how they’re measuring effectiveness, etc. It is just a very big eradication programme, that’s all.
[Malcolm Roberts] That would be useful because I’ve attended a meeting at Gatton, in the heart of the Valley, and the residents there were pretty upset that they don’t trust what the Queensland government is doing so yeah, I’d like to learn more about it, thank you.
[Mr Tongue] Certainly.
[Malcolm Roberts] How effective are similar overseas eradication programmes?
[Ms Laduzko] I think that it’s true to say, Senator, that nowhere has anyone successfully eradicated red imported fire ants. In fact, Australia is the only successful eradication outcomes and they were on smaller incursions that were, we were able to contain to port environments so we have successfully eradicated small outbreaks but it’s not my understanding that any other country has ever managed to eradicate.
[Malcolm Roberts] So is that ominous for the Valley?
[Ms Laduzko] Well, I think it gives us pause for thought around the size of the eradication and the funding commitment and what our long term strategy is but we do have it, you know, it’s, I think, there’s some stats that suggest if we’d done nothing from when we first saw it, it would already have largely covered the entirety of Australia by now and we have managed to keep it to a defined region.
[Malcolm Roberts] Okay so in that sense, it’s effective.
[Ms Laduzko] In that sense, it’s effective.
[Malcolm Roberts] Or it may have delayed the overrun of Australia? We don’t really know yet.
[Ms Laduzko] That’s probably a fair call.
[Mr Tongue] Red imported fire ant is viable in 99 per cent of the Australian continent, Senator.
[Malcolm Roberts] So what’s actually being done on this in Australia? Are you just containing it or you’re trying to eradicate it? Sounds like you’re trying to eradicate it.
[Mr Tongue] It is an eradication programme. It has been going under various guises for a number of years now. In fact, this is a ten year programme. Prior to that, I think we’ve done a seven year programme ahead of that so it’s an eradication programme.
[Malcolm Roberts] How far are we into the ten years? Excuse me for interrupting.
[Mr Tongue] We would be between year four and year five.
[Malcolm Roberts] So we’re halfway through.
[Ms Laduzko] A little less than halfway.
[Malcolm Roberts] Yeah, okay. So what’s being done in terms of the actual on the ground, what’s happening? I know the Queensland government is…
[Mr Tongue] Sorry, it’s quite a complex programme and it’s very large. The nuts and bolts part of it is we’ve agreed a programme for how we approach the eradication efforts so we have zoned certain areas and they’ve embedded a sentiment of moving from west to east with rolling eradication efforts and suppressing in those other areas. I haven’t got to so hard eradication, suppression, suppression, rolling forward but we also have to put a lot of investment in the edge to make sure it doesn’t further escape. The west to east model goes from rural land through to urban environments and that changes the nature of how you do eradication and how you engage the community.
[Malcolm Roberts] And it makes it difficult.
[Ms Laduzko] It does make it a bit more difficult, yes.
[Malcolm Roberts] So it’s hard to tell where are we. At the moment, we seem to be stabilising in your opinion?
[Ms Laduzko] I think at the moment we have certainly, you’d have to say we haven’t allowed it to become worse and we’ve managed, I think, some success in the semi-rural areas. The question will be, as we get closer to those urban environments.
[Malcolm Roberts] What else needs to be done? What more needs to be done?
[Ms Laduzko] I think that’s an open question. You know, the scale of the response is enormous and it often comes down to funding and commitment of participants. Once you’re in an urban environment, everyone needs to be willing and engaged.
[Malcolm Roberts] So are there enough resources to achieve eradication?
[Ms Laduzko] Not something I’d like to comment on right now, Senator, we’re going through a bit of a review. Part of the resourcing question goes to what other strategies we can adopt. Is the technology moving ahead of us? Is the baits, are the baits becoming more effective? A few things like that so I think that’s probably a question perhaps you might like to pose in maybe next session when we’ve done a bit of our own efficiency review.
[Mr Tongue] And I should add, Senator, that it is a science-driven programme so we’re drawing on the best possible science we can. We’re trying to do something, as you’ve alluded to, that hasn’t been done anywhere else in the world. It is success to contain it at some level, it is success to contain it because it is a uniquely adapted little ant that really can move quite swiftly if left uncontained. The challenges around the urban areas, you know, baits, poisons, schools, backyards, you know, those sorts of things are quite difficult. We are also finding, I think in the programme, that the cycle of wet and dry, particularly in that kind of area of Southeast Queensland, can frustrate efforts, you know, lay baits, it rains, all of that work is lost. You go back again. So finding the kind of rhythm, the drum beat that will beat it is something that’s just under constant review. It is an enormous eradication programme and as Ms Laduzko says we’re re-looking at it at the moment and governments will need to make decisions.
[Mr Metcalfe] Not with a view for stopping it.
[Mr Tongue] Not with a view for stopping it.
[Mr Metcalfe] But with a view of how we do it, can we do it better?
[Mr Tongue] Can we do it better? If we up the cash burn rate, would we go faster? If we slowed the cash burn rate, will we do better? Some of those questions, you know. What is the right modality to get rid of it?
[Malcolm Roberts] Before I ask you my next question, it probably is associated with the next question, but just make the comment, not having a go at you but when people use the word ‘science’ around here, I usually start digging because it’s just usually opinion and no science. And in Queensland, farming is being devastated by the Queensland Labour government, citing science but being nowhere near science and they’re destroying whole communities, whole regions and farms so I just make that point. I’d like to see the science rather than believe it.
[Mr Tongue] Sure.
[Malcolm Roberts] So moving on that, on what basis are federal monies provided to the States to assist in these programmes? Because listening to a forum at Gatton, people seem be questioning the Queensland State government’s motives. Is there a different formula, for example, for stabilising and containing versus eradicating?
[Mr Tongue] There is a couple of ways to answer that. In the environment we work in when we do eradication responses, like for things that aren’t yet established, we have agreed deeds where States and Territories and the Commonwealth and industry, where relevant, have an approach they use for eradication and how they cost share that. The Reefer eradication programme we’re talking about started in advance of us having an appropriate deed structure to use so it’s run a little bit differently to other eradication responses but in essence, for us, we have a partnership agreement with the Queensland government that sets out milestones that need to be met in order for us to provide funding to a schedule.
[Malcolm Roberts] So there are conditions attached?
[Ms Laduzko] Yes, yep but consistent with many of these what are largely termed environmental eradication responses, the Commonwealth is contributing 50 per cent of the cost.
[Malcolm Roberts] Okay, thank you. So is this in any way an enduring money spinner for the States?
[Ms Laduzko] A money spinner? No, I wouldn’t characterise it that way.
[Malcolm Roberts] Could they manipulate it by taking various strategies, for example containment versus eradication, just to prolong it? That was a concern of constituents in Gatton area.
[Ms Laduzko] Yes, you can see how that comes ’cause it gets to a point where in all eradications, this applies in small ones, large ones, you have to make a concluded position about whether you think eradication remains feasible and cost-effective. At the moment, we are signed up to an eradication programme.
[Malcolm Roberts] Okay.
[Mr Tongue] And because of the structure of it, I would argue, Senator, how would I put this? All the jurisdictions involved, other than Queensland, have a huge interest in ensuring that the programme is running well because they’re all on the hook to fund it and so it would be very difficult for Queensland to manipulate a circumstance with the gaze of all the other jurisdictions upon it as well as the community where, if you like, they were turning this into some sort of money spinner.
[Malcolm Roberts] So what’s different about Queensland?
[Mr Metcalfe] That’s a very open question, Senator.
[Malcolm Roberts] Apart from the fact that we win State of Origin very often.
[Mr Metcalfe] Well, that’s right, yeah. You’re talking to a Queenslander here, of course.
[Mr Tongue] So this eradication is just, is different because of scale and it’s different because it’s outside what we know as the deed structure. So what we have is risk sharing arrangements between the Commonwealth, the States and Territories and industry, in the agricultural industries, they’re known as the plant deed and the animal deed, and they set up arrangements where we share risk and depending on the nature of the effort that needs to go into deal with a response to some pest or disease or weed, the scale of Commonwealth investment changes and those arrangements are managed by Plant Health Australia and Animal Health Australia and they’re bodies that, if you like, sit outside government and outside industry but they work across to manage those deeds. In this instance, we don’t have that arrangement so we’ve set up this independent style committee.
[Ms Laduzko] Just a slight qualification, we do but that arrangement came into place after we started.
[Mr Tongue] After we started this. This one’s slightly unusual and also scale, it’s vastly different.
[Ms Laduzko] And sorry, Senator, can I just correct something? I said 414 million, it’s 411.4. I think I was just truncating numbers.
[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you, I appreciate the accuracy. And you’re going to send us some details on how you’re assessing progress? In a quantified way.
[Ms Laduzko] Yes, if you’d like to put them through on notice and we’ll answer to that.
[Malcolm Roberts] Quantified.
[Mr Tongue] Yep.
[Ms Laduzko] Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Chair.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/ususjGouvSo/hqdefault.jpg360480Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2021-05-27 13:06:452021-06-01 17:40:32Destructive fire ants keep spreading – Biosecurity at Estimates
With water availability, labour prices and government all against the farmer, it is too hard for smaller farms to survive and even the large farms are struggling.
If our farms fallover, regional towns will quickly follow and then the rest of the country will be in big trouble. Governments at every level need to help our regions be building cheap, reliable electricity and secure supplies of water.
Decades of government dropping the ball on these issues has left us in a scary position. I talk about this in my new segment, Our Nation Today, with farmer Trevor Cross and Mike Ryan.
Let me know what you think.
Transcript
[Malcolm Roberts] Regional Queensland literally feeds and clothes us, Yet so many short-sighted government policy decisions will hit these regions first and hit the regions hardest. Travelling around Queensland, I’m constantly reminded that the one-size-fits-all policies just don’t meet the needs of rural and regional centres. We’re talking about the fundamentals that urban areas take for granted. Affordable, secure, and reliable water, energy, and food. Reasonable insurance premiums and freight rates, roads, and rail fit for purpose. Access to health and education that gives people the confidence to settle in the regions. There’s nothing more fundamental than food.
A prosperous agricultural sector is essential for supplying Australia’s food needs and the needs of the rest of the world. In the financial year 2021, the gross value of agricultural production is estimated at $66 billion, a staggering figure. And it’s easy to forget that being a farmer is a tough gig because even in good years it’s 24/7 and the balancing acts of risks within a farmer’s control, and those beyond never stops. There’s been a lot of talk about an agriculture-led recovery after the COVID restrictions that smashed our economy and the need for confidence to pick up the pieces and to keep going. Many in our farming community have sustained shattering losses with ready to pick food being ploughed back in and a major reduction in the planting of next year’s crop, simply due to worker shortages.
I see a role for government in creating the right environment for businesses to flourish. Part of that is to help mitigate unnecessary risks, such as having strategically placed dams and a well-connected water infrastructure grid which should have happened years ago. So instead of the Queensland government spending $10 million to cart water for Stanthorpe when the town ran out, it would have been better spent on a longer term solution such as more town weirs to hold more water. We know that our water reserves and existing dams are not keeping up with population growth. Government should aim to minimise its unnecessary intrusions and yet any farmer will tell you that excessive regulations such as the reef regulations and vegetation management laws create an impossible business environment for farmers.
Layer upon layer upon layer of stupid and destructive rules and regulation leaves the farmer with ever-decreasing profits. And yet we expect farmers to just saddle up and continue to make it work. Today Mike Ryan talks with Trevor Cross, a successful Queensland horticultural grower based in Bundaberg. I first met Trevor in 2017 at his farm and was impressed with his passion for farming, his business savvy and the hard work that he and his team do everyday to put many veggies such as tomatoes, capsicums and zucchinis into our supermarkets.
[Mike Ryan] Trevor, thanks for joining us.
[Trevor Cross] Thanks Mike, good to meet you.
[Mike Ryan] Now, tell us about your farming business, the size of your holdings, where you’re located, what you grow and what you export.
[Trevor Cross] We’re in Bundaberg in Queensland, we farm about two and a half thousand acres of small crops. So we grow tomatoes, gourmet roma’s and cherry tomato. And then zucchinis, capsicums, chilies, melon, pumpkin, a few cucumber, snow peas, and sugar snaps, and just a few beans, so we spread that over about a nine-month period in the Bundaberg region. So most of our stuff actually goes Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne a little bit to Adelaide. And this year in New Zealand, it’ll open its exports again, it’s been out for 12 months with this virus. So it’s supposed to open up again this year, so hopefully that’ll be good for the industry.
[Mike Ryan] I can really empathise with what you do. I mean, my dad will probably kill me for this being from the land. I recall he actually decided to go into rockies and do rock melons and large acreage. Anyway, the bottom fell out of the market. And I recall he got a cheque from the bank for, I think it would have been something like sixpence in those days. And I’m thinking, why would you ever want to do this? And then he decided to go into avocados and citrus and stuff. And that’s just as terrifying. It’s a really hard business, isn’t it?
[Trevor Cross] Yeah. The biggest problem with farming it’s actually almost like an addiction. You go out and start growing something, it’s very, very hard to stop it. It’s not so much about money, I don’t think, when you’re a farmer. It’s about just seeing a crop planted, seeing the crop grow and getting it picked. But the biggest problem is there needs to be some rewards on the way through.
[Mike Ryan] What’s the greatest challenge, say, to business such as yours on the land?
[Trevor Cross] In our industry it’s, because it’s a high-labor industry, it’s probably, at the moment, getting enough people to actually harvest crops. Because when we’re in peak-season we have about 350 people here, so… And there is going to be a shortage. I’m not quite sure how far we’ll be down, whether it’s going to be 10- or 20-percent down. So that’s probably one of the hardest parts. Water supply’s another major component to our operation, and just general costing. The costs keep going up and up and up and the end prices doesn’t really reflect what it’s costing to do business, anymore.
[Mike Ryan] So you have two and a half thousand acres, which is a very large, large piece of land. Do you think the days of the smaller farmer, for example, 20 or 30 acres are gone, and that you need to have, just to accommodate your cost and make sure you get a decent return, that you’ve got to have a large business instead of those, not micro, but the smaller businesses used to be.
[Trevor Cross] It’s volume now, whereas before it was just a family, a family could actually survive on a hundred acres and live fairly comfortable, now a hundred acres unless you’re doing really niche market product, you would never, ever survive. So everything’s been turned into bigger farms. We’d be one of the largest, freehold personal farms in town now, there’s probably a couple other families about our size that are just doing it, and the rest is a lot of consolidated money from investment companies, and they’re now are doing nut trees, mainly.
[Mike Ryan] What’s greatest impact on your business when it comes to costs? Which ones are the ones that stand out? Is it labour?
[Trevor Cross] Yeah, Labour used to run about 33- to 35-percent we’d work on for labour, and the way it’s going, last year I think hit early forties, about 42-, 44-percent, and this year, unless there’s a big market change I think it’ll go 50%.
[Mike Ryan] Wow. That’s incredible, isn’t it? How do you survive?
[Trevor Cross] Well, I just hope that there’s actually money paid at the other end. At the point of sale, at the first point of sale at the marketplace, most stuff is fairly cheap. At the last point of sale, it could be three… between two and four times what it’s paid for. So, that’s what the average customer doesn’t think, They think if it’s dearer in the shop, the farmer’s making the money.
[Mike Ryan] I was talking to Senator Malcolm Roberts, and he was saying, just talking about how the consumer in the major metropolitan areas, they all think that the produce that they see almost is manufactured in the supermarket, but, you know, prior to that, you’ve got so many factors. I mean, from the farmer to the chain. Farmer, to the, what do you call it?
The grower. Not grower, the buyer who buys up for the land and then they on-sell it to someone else. And then it’s sold to the supermarket. You think from the farmer to the actual supermarket, ’cause my dad used to always say, he would love to be able to take out a shotgun with some pellets and get rid of those middlemen. Is it still the same headache and pain in the backside?
[Trevor Cross] The biggest problem is with the whole system, if you actually get out of the place what’s supposed to set the right price how do we know what the right price is? And I think the days when people were actually stealing at the first point of sale, I don’t think it’s there anymore because everyone’s fighting for a dollar. So they’re getting screwed down more and more. All the grower actually needs is probably about 20- 30-cents a kilo more and they become very sustainable. And that’s not a lot.
It’s only 2 to 3 dollars a box on average, and everyone’s paying bills, because the Ag industry, and this is not just what we do, It’s every Ag industry, there’s a lot of people get employed before it even gets to the farm. And then after it leaves the farm there’s a lot of people employed from transport, through to your retailers, your wholesalers, and then the processors… there’s many, many people relying on the farming industry.
[Mike Ryan]What are your thoughts of the future of farming, say, in Australia?
[Trevor Cross] Well, I know if we keep going down this track we can’t last much longer. Even our business now we’ve actually got 400 acres of nut trees, and we’ll probably continue to change over just because of the labour price and for our small profits we’re making out of employing all the people, we may as well not have them. We may as well just go to where it’s all mechanical.
So, I don’t know if my boys will actually take over and do what I do, ’cause it’s a seven-day-a-week job. You’ve got to be in amongst the people and see what’s happening. I actually think, even in this area around Bundaberg, there won’t be too much of this industry left within probably four or five years. I think the majors will be all gone.
[Mike Ryan] That’s just terrible, too, because once you have less growers like yourself then you’ve got this monopoly and the monopolies are not what we want. I mean, look at the US and you’ve got these multi-billion-dollar corporations that control the price of produce, although you go to a supermarket and they do the same thing there too, they screw down the grower, although the grower being a lot bigger than what they’ve dealt with, they’ve got their sort of, at least it’s coming up to almost 50-50 between the grower and the actual supermarket chain.
It’s a really, really tough life. What do you think is the most important thing in keeping our farming sector successful and growing? What do we actually need to do besides revise wages, for example, on the land. You can’t keep paying out 50%. You’re going to make no money.
[Trevor Cross] Yeah. Everyone’s entitled to money, Mike. The wage earner is entitled to money, and they all want to lead a good life, but we’ve just got to get a share of that sale price at the end. Basically, I think all growers need just a little bit more money, and it’s not a lot, a couple dollars a box, as I say, it’s not a lot of money. And then everyone’s happy because I don’t think any man who’s been on the land for all his life deserves to actually have the bank come and sell him up, because of the poor market prices. I think everyone can work together.
If capsicums or zucchinis or whatever, ’cause we’re only seasonal, we do about eight months a year in Bundaberg, and then the South is just finishing up now, they would have had the most horrible year in their life. And people have been on the land all their life and next minute they gotta sell their farms because of poor prices. It’s only a couple of dollars a box, they wouldn’t have needed much more and they’d be still viable.
[Mike Ryan] So what do you do, though? If you weren’t on the land, what would you do?
[Trevor Cross] I don’t really know what I would actually do cause I’m not much into fishing, I don’t like doing anything else. And so that’s what I call it, a hobby.
[Mike Ryan] An expensive hobby though, isn’t it?
[Trevor Cross] Yeah but most… a lot of farmers grow because they’re addicted to growing. That’s what they’ve been bred to do. They grow. And they show up nearly every day. So it’s a challenge because you’re challenged against the weather, challenged against people and you become a plumber an accountant, you know, almost doctor, sometimes. So there’s nothing you can’t actually do. A good farmer can do just about anything there is to do.
[Mike Ryan] If somebody was wanting to find out more about what you do, do you actually have a website we could go to and have a look, just to get an idea and appreciation what it’s all about.
[Trevor Cross] No, I would say I keep pretty well under cover but we could actually have a bit of a look at doing something if there’s people interested and actually do something.
[Mike Ryan] Yeah. We must do that. I’m sure you’ll handle the technology as well as my dad.
[Trevor Cross] I have to get someone to help me, yeah.
[Mike Ryan] Trevor, great chatting with you. All the best. Thanks for giving us your time today, and also say thank you to your wife in the background, she’s done a wonderful job.
[Trevor Cross] No worries. Thanks, Michael.
[Malcolm Roberts] The harsh reality is that we, as a nation, will either flourish or decline with our regional centres and with Australian farmers. Our farmers must make a profit to make their livelihoods sustainable. And that, after all, is where we get our food. Our rural and regional communities have unique challenges and need a different set of solutions to ensure fair and equitable access to basic services and to grow viable communities. Thank you for joining me Senator Malcolm Roberts on Our Nation Today.
[SEN. ROBERTS] Let’s clear up some recent confusion about One Nation’s position on Acland mine continuing to operate and to reinstate three hundred vital local jobs and 2300 indirect regional jobs. We’ve criticised how a third party representative of Acland approached One Nation in the past.
Pauline reminded everyone of this recently and now that Acland has been willing to give us facts and data and the courts have fixed an injustice I’m pleased to support the mine. Affordable energy and export income is good for our country and Acland will be good for the local area.
I support the decision of the Court of Appeal and the four judges. I support Acland’s Stage 3. Let’s have a look at the timeline of the extension of the operating mine. The Bligh govt gazetted the Stage 3 extension in 2007, thirteen years ago. There was some local opposition.
The project then went to the Land Court where the adjudicator, whose official title is Member, rejected the mine’s application in 2016. One Nation accepted that decision. It then went on appeal to the Supreme Court, where Acland was successful. After that it went to on to the Court of Appeal which included the highly respected Justice Sofronoff and two other judges. Acland won that.
The Court of Appeal, our highest court in Queensland, ruled that the decision by the Land Court Member was affected by “apprehended bias” and was unsound. That means one Land Court Member showing apprehended bias ruled against the mine and hundreds of jobs AND four Supreme court Judges overruled him.
The courts have corrected an injustice within their own system.
[INTERVIEWER] What about the current appeal?
[SEN. ROBERTS] This decision is now on appeal to the High Court thanks to the Labor government continuing to give taxpayer money to The Environmental Defenders Office to interrupt development and jobs.
The Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development issued three advices in relation to Acland’s impact on groundwater over 2014, 2015 and 2016. The 2014 and 2015 reports criticised Acland. It’s 2016 report was positive and said that all matters raised had been addressed.
This report won Acland Federal environmental approval.We want to encourage businesses who are told they have a problem and fix it. This is what Acland did and got sign off from an independent, statutory scientific body that the courts said had access to the same information as any objector.
[INTERVIEWER] What about the evidence given in the Land Court?
[SEN. ROBERTS] Several witnesses on both sides gave evidence that had the appearance of being first-hand but was later shown to be based on hearsay. The Land Court Member in the first decision made no criticism of the objectors who gave such evidence yet was highly critical of one of Acland’s witnesses who did exactly the same [1].
The Land Court Member said that Acland had deliberately distorted the facts and eroded the confidence of the court. The Court of Appeal found that there was no basis to impute this [2]. The Court of Appeal found that at a certain point the Land Court Member was, quote: “animated by an extreme and irrational animus against Acland” [3].
Essentially, he the Member, had taken a negative attitude towards Acland. The court of appeal said at times the Member was combative, argumentative and sarcastic to Acland [4]. In the Supreme Court, it was found that there was no evidence to support the claim that Acland had engaged in pressure tactics [5].
The Court of Appeal found there was no basis for the Land Court Member’s conclusion that Acland had sought to portray objectors as bigoted individuals who were only interested in spreading misinformation [6]. The Land Court Member himself concluded that some of the objectors were ready to make assertions without evidence, make submissions that were scandalous and unsupported by any evidence and as to one witness, having an anti-Acland fixation that overflowed into her evidence [6].
The Court of Appeal found that the Land Court Member’s imputation that Acland had tried to hide relevant information in relation to groundwater impacts was “irrational” [7]. While the original Land Court Member’s decision rejected Acland, it’s obvious that was not sound.
[INTERVIEWER] There was a comment that Acland tried to influence a One Nation candidate?
[SEN. ROBERTS] There was an accusation, since retracted, that our local, grassroots candidate had been wined and dined by the mine. None of these are true. I want to acknowledge Alan Jones’ strength of character in correcting and apologising for the assertion about that candidate. I thank him for that.
[INTERVIEWER] What has led to your support for Acland?
[SEN. ROBERTS] I visited Acland 3 weeks ago and worked through my extensive checklist of things I think needed to be considered.
These include: Safety & health; Water underground; water overland; water usage & supply; land use rights; constitution; aboriginal land (none at Acland); rural land quality & use; farm produce type; environment – air quality, vibrations, reclamation, noise, past performance; town services & rates; jobs and local/regional economy; infrastructure impacts; social impact; bank support; owner’s flexibility and consideration of others’ needs; government fiscal responsibility/debt;
Acland meets all of them. In fact, Acland has extensively changed its mining plan at high cost to itself to meet locals’ needs. I listened to a small group of opponents to Acland.I listened to the local community, business owners and farmers who strongly support this project.
Coal is good for this country and Acland will be good for the local area. I support the decision of the Court of Appeal and the four judges. I support Acland.Let’s get government green tape, red tape and blue tape out of the way, and get shovels in the ground and dump trucks on the road.
In a state with $100 billion of debt thanks to the Liberal-Labor duopoly we need export income and affordable domestic energy for our economic recovery and to secure our state’s future.
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Capture-1.png?fit=731%2C409&ssl=1409731Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2020-08-05 10:39:542020-08-05 11:21:52Why I support the Acland Mine Extension
In 2011 the Gillard Government banned live cattle exports costing farming hundreds of millions of dollars.
Recently the Federal Court ruled that the ban was invalid and the government should pay compensation to farmers.
Today the Liberal and Nationals tried to introduce a motion claiming that they support the live cattle industry.
Well, I decided to see how firm their commitment was to farmers by introducing an amendment to their motion.
Take a listen and see what happened ……..
Transcript
Hi, I’m in Parliament House, Canberra. And I just wanted to bring you up to date with something that’s happened today. It goes back to the Gillard government’s capricious ban on live cattle exporting that hurt, devastated cattle industry right around the country.
Back, well, almost 10 years ago, 2011, I think it was. Anyway, it was recently ruled by the federal court to have been invalid. And compensation is to be paid to farmers around the country. Which is wonderful news.
So, the Nationals, led by Senator Canavan, it seems, decided to put a motion in the parliament, into the Senate today. And the motion said, “That the Senate “notes the federal government’s commitment and support “for the live animal export trade.”
So, we thought, okay, before that motion gets up, we’ll add an amendment. And our amendment says, “And calls on the government “to rule out appealing the federal courts decision “that Labor’s 2011 suspension of live cattle exports “was invalid.”
In other words, we want to make sure that the government does not appeal it. And so, as soon as I stood to move that amendment, it was denied. I was denied the formality of moving that. And Senator Cormann did that. he’s the leader of the government in the Senate.
He did that. And he said, the reason was because this amendment had only arrived with him and other senators in just minutes before. Well, the reality, the truth is that it was in the Senate chambers on every desk an hour and a quarter before. An hour and a quarter.
Plenty of time to consider it. So, what I noticed was, as soon as I sat down, Senator Canavan jumped to his feet, and said that he wanted to make a short statement. And that short statement said that he was talking with the government about not appealing.
So what we’ve done is we’ve forced them to recognise that they should not appeal. But we’ve had Senator Cormann contradict the truth. And we’ve had Senator Canavan apparently reacting to this. So that’s yet another way we get things done in parliament, even when they tell us to shut up.
I spoke in favour of the creation of the Office Of An Inspector-General of live cattle exports.
The purpose is to provide certainty that the welfare of the animals is being respected while at the same time ensuring the commercial viability of the cattle export trade.
Animal welfare is crucial to farmers because farmers care for their animals.
That’s why farmers have poured tens of millions of dollars into educating people who handle their cattle overseas. I was following, in the speaking order, a vet who said that core to the farming business in cattle and sheep is weight and that farm animals lose weight under stress. It is in the farmer’s financial interest and their own moral and ethical interests to look after animals.
That’s why farmers care for animals.
Transcript
As a servant to the people of Queensland in Australia, I want to speak in favour of this bill. Yet while I speak in favour of this bill, I want to explain two core contradictions that this bill highlights. First though, Madam Acting Deputy President, an overview. This bill provides for the creation of an Office of the Inspector General of Live Cattle Exports. The purpose is to provide certainty that the welfare of the animals is being respected, while at the same time ensuring the commercial viability of the export cattle trade.
Firstly though, animal welfare is crucial to farmers because farmers care for their animals. That’s why farmers have poured tens of millions of dollars into educating people who handle their cattle overseas. I’m following in the speaking order, a vet who’s just said that the core to the farming business in cattle and sheep is weighed and farm animals under stress lose weight. It is in the farmers’ financial interests and their own moral and ethical interests to look after animals. That’s why farmers care for animals. That’s why farmers have poured tens of millions of dollars into educating foreigners on how to handle cattle, Australian cattle overseas.
I can think of people like Bryce Camm that I’ve met in Central Queensland and in Darling Downs – bright, experienced, knowledgeable, committed. He points out things like export competitors, sophistication of farming these days. This is not just a simple matter of putting a few cattle on a boat, it is a very scientific business. Thinking of Linda Hewitt in Central Queensland – energetic, savvy, dedicated, and knowledgeable again, and similarly concerned about government interaction or interference in the business.
So Madam Acting Deputy President this bill is importantly not just about farm products, farm animals, it is about confidence in the cattle industry. Because with confidence graziers invest. With confidence graziers employ. With confidence graziers earn export earnings right across our country and that benefit comes through in the wealth of our nation Madam Acting Deputy President.
Some background facts. The live cattle trade generates $1.2 billion in export earnings, with $620 million being returned to the local economy. This employment is critical to local economies from TI in the north to Thargomindah in the south-west, from Cooktown in the north to Cunnamulla in the south-west. This employment is critical to local economies and in particular the Northern Territory and the northern parts of Western Australia and Queensland. Yet it’s important right across the country, not just in the Territory as Senator McMahon has just talked about her own state, but right across the country because the flow-on effects, as I’ll discuss in a minute.
But in the Kimberley for example, 700 local Aboriginals are provided with jobs by live cattle exports. Even the ABC noted that this job is “All these blokes know.” The live cattle export allows Australia to breed tropical, heat-resistant breeds of cattle in Northern Australia to be exported to Asia where they are generally grown-on locally. A lot of countries to which are live cattle and sheep are exported do not have refrigeration and people need to buy their food daily. And that means we’re looking after a need of theirs in their country. So this means the live cattle trade helps our economy, but it also helps economies right across Asia and the Middle East. It helps them with employment and also with domestic herd quality. It helps these countries overseas to help themselves.
Madam Acting deputy President, the graziers and employees like these Aboriginal stockmen loved these cattle. They respect these cattle because their income comes from the cattle and because they are living creatures as well. The demonization of the live cattle trade is an insult to good and decent and caring people. There is another perspective here that I want to add. As chair of the Select Committee on Lending to Primary Production Customers, I learned firsthand of the damage the banks and receivers do to so many cattle and so many rural producers. Yet I learned of more. I learned of government tipping farmers over the edge due to government interference in the Murray-Darling Basin, stealing a farmer’s property rights, the live cattle export ban, that flowed right across our country. It didn’t just affect the north. It affected the old cattle producers right around the country.
Prime Minister Gillard’s knee-jerk reaction, her capricious reaction in cancelling the live cattle trade after footage of foreign workers abusing our livestock emerged, caused terrible losses in the industry. These are now the subject of a $600 million class action lawsuit. Gillard’s reaction, Prime Minister Gillard’s reaction was to the ABC’s fabrications and sensationalism. It’s a pity that our farmers aren’t media savvy, because they would have been countering this a long time ago.
Yet farmers around this country are waking up. One thing that farmers won’t do though, unlike the Greens and the activists, the farmers will never tell lies. They’re using facts. And I want to commend their dedicated families, the communities that were cleaned out by the banks as a result of government facades. And now we’re entering even more dangerous territory because when a drought hits, it is often necessary to export cattle in this manner to save them from being put down. That option must available to farmers. This is, live cattle export is actually an animal welfare benefit. So One Nation are committed to ensuring live cattle and sheep and all animals are treated with the same respect overseas as they are treated in Australia and that’s why we support this bill. Farmers livelihoods, as I’ve said, requires care of animals. Yet the Green ideology says the reverse. I’ll discuss that further later this afternoon.
I got further now though because we are committed to ensuring not only farm animals but farmers and all Australians are treated with respect. So let’s consider the Liberal-Labour legacy that’s devastating agriculture. Here are just some of the things that I can list. The stealing of farmers’ property rights in 1996 under a Liberal government done with a deal with the Borbidge National Party government in Queensland. The Liberal federal government and the Borbidge state government. That was done as a result of the UN Kyoto Protocol. It was based on no data that the UN produced and it was based upon later implementation through the Labour party in the state of Queensland, a Liberal-Labour duopoly.
The lack of investment in water infrastructure is crippling our industry. We can see that now everywhere. A prominent Liberal, who I won’t mention, for whom I have some respect, was asked by a friend of mine just last week, “Why didn’t the Liberals invest in building dams 10 years ago?” And the answer was staggering. “Because we didn’t need them 10 years ago’,” was the answer. What rubbish. We need investment now to protect the future. Talking with a farmer in southern Queensland, who was talking in turn with a Chinese buyer in Japan, that’s how the international connections work. He was being told by the Chinaman that the problem with the Australian agricultural product is a lack of consistency. Not quality because our quality is better than anywhere else in the world. It’s the consistency of delivery, and this drought now stands as a beacon for that. So we need investment in water infrastructure, we need proper allocation of water.
Then we think about and some of the allocation has been affected by the UN’s Rio de Janeiro Declaration, which was based not on data, which has been implemented by the Labour government, followed by Liberal governments, and that was 1992 onwards.
Then we have energy policies, we have a drought and as I’ve said many times we have farmers in central and southern Queensland and north Queensland not planting fodder in a drought because they can’t afford the water prices. We’ve got cane farmers similarly worried about their energy prices affecting their farming, and the energy that’s crippling our country, the energy prices that are crippling our country are due to the UN’s Kyoto Protocol, the UN’s Rio de Janeiro Declaration, and the UN’s Paris Agreement – all based on no data, all due to the UN, and all implemented by both the Labour Party and the Liberal Party.
And now we have an insane government action in Queensland where the state Labour government is putting in severe penalties and restrictions based, again not on data, but on UN Protocols and on a consensus statement. Not science, a consensus statement. We’ll have get a cup of tea or a few beers and come up with a consensus statement.
Then we talk about the fishing that’s being decimated. Fishing industry decimated right around our country following UN Kyoto Protocol, following Rio de Janeiro Declaration in 1992 from the UN again.
Forestry, the same, no data to back it up, but now the Queensland Labour government wants to smash the forestry industry in south-east Queensland.
And then they’re just the specifics that are hurting agriculture in my state. And then we look at tax, we look at economic mismanagement, budget cycles now becoming ways of getting favours. And as a result, we see rural and regional Queensland being smashed. It’s not foreigners doing this, it is decades of the Liberal-Labour duopoly government.
Madam Acting Deputy President, we need real action, management and vision for the farmers of Australia. As I said, from TI to Thargomindah, from Cooktown to Cunnamulla, rural areas need the support of these restrictions, these artificial government imposed restrictions removed. Thank you, Madame Acting Deputy President.
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Screen-Shot-2020-05-05-at-10.16.06-am.png?fit=2706%2C1510&ssl=115102706Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2020-05-05 10:21:512020-05-05 12:58:25Create the Office Of An Inspector-General of live cattle exports
The Federal Government’s COVID-19 stimulus packages must address how Australia can be more self-reliant in food production, and calls for a guarantee of water for farmers to plant essential crops this month.
Senator Roberts said, “COVID-19 has changed our world forever as nations like Vietnam ban exporting their home-grown rice to us, and now more than ever, we need government to prioritise food production in Australia because our basic food security is threatened.”
“Nations are now prudently keeping their own food for themselves while stupid government policies mean we are dependent on the importation of food staples that we can grow here in Australia.”
While recent rains across the Murray Darling Basin have been welcomed, farmers need the certainty of a water allocation during the season to have the confidence to plant crops.
“When harvested, not only would this winter crop create a regional monetary stimulus but would also protect us from new food shortages caused by countries’ COVID-19 export restrictions,” stated Senator Roberts.
Absurdly, Australia already relies on importing cereals like wheat and rice and now COVID-19 trade restrictions means even durum wheat used for pasta has become impossible to source.
“It is in Australia’s national interest to prioritise water to farmers to improve our farming productive capacity, that has been damaged by successive Liberal and Labor governments who have given our competitive advantage away to overseas,” added Senator Roberts.
Queensland, New South Wales and Victorian farmers have received zero general security water allocations for irrigation in the last 3 years. The Murray Darling Basin Authority has chosen instead to water forests unnecessarily and send irrigation water out to sea in South Australia.
“I call on our Governments to guarantee the release of 1000gl of water for irrigation, to give our farmers confidence to plant a full winter cereal crop.” “The COVID-19 crisis has given yet another reason to reset the Murray Darling Basin plan, with a focus on sensible environmental practices and on growing and protecting the productive capacity of regional Australia,” declared Senator Roberts.
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/brad-helmink-8EFA86nI6yg-unsplash-1.png?fit=2300%2C1533&ssl=115332300Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2020-04-05 22:44:042020-04-05 22:53:28COVID-19 Stimulus Package must include water
