Victorian Labor “lefty” a rising rural force

Bendigo MP Lisa Chesters is one of her party’s young guns with increasing clout within the Labor country caucus movement.

She was promoted to the role of Shadow Assistant Minister for Rural and Regional Australia after last year’s federal election and is now champing at the bit to attack the Coalition government and boost Labor’s farming credentials and enhance rural policy.

Despite being diametrically opposed to Shadow Agriculture Minister and country caucus instigator Joel Fitzgibbon, within Labor’s factional kaleidoscope, Ms Chesters said the two opposition rural MPs shared common passion and values towards their portfolio responsibilities.

She said she really enjoyed working with Mr Fitzgibbon who is from the NSW country electorate of Hunter and has had a lengthy career in federal politics - after inheriting the seat from his father Eric in 1996 - while her journey is only just starting; having first been elected to her Victorian rural seat in 2013.

Ms Chesters said the Hunter MP was known as a “factional warrior” from the Labor right and she was from the Victorian Labor left and seen “very much as a lefty”.

“So, in terms of two people working together in terms of Labor, you could say we’re from opposite sides,” she said.

“Factionally, we both come from different sectors inside the Labor party.

“I’m the Victorian lefty and he’s the NSW factional right warrior.

“Traditionally we’re not supposed to get along but we really connect and really have a clear vision on agriculture and how Labor needs a voice in this space.”

Ms Chester said Labor leader Bill Shorten and Mr Fitzgibbon were “two definite mentors”.

“If you told me four years ago that Joel Fitzgibbon and Bill Shorten would be mentors of mine I would have said, ‘really’,” she said.

“But they’re two people who, coming into the caucus, have had some really good advice to offer for a relatively young and new MP coming into parliament.”

Ms Chesters said Mr Shorten was from the Victorian right of the Labor party’s factional paradigm but he also had a “significant background” in agriculture and understanding due to his work with the Australian Workers Union (AWU).

She said she often spoke to the Labor party leader about what was happening on-farm and in agriculture.

“Bill’s union represented shearers back in the day and they still do today,” she said.

“There is significant agriculture still within the AWU which was Bill’s experience before going into parliament.”

Ms Chesters grew up in regional Queensland around Maroochydore which, back then, was cane, dairy and pineapple growing country, and understood the vital importance of farming to rural prosperity.

“As a kid I can remember back in the day when they used to burn the cane and we’d have an ash Christmas - not a white Christmas - when the house and garden and pool was covered in ash,” she said.

“Having a background of growing up in an economy that relied on agriculture is really close to the bone for me.

“Even though my family wasn’t a farming family, many of the kids at school were from families who relied on agriculture.”

Ms Chesters was elected at the 2013 poll and joined the ALP country caucus which brings together the Opposition’s regional MPs to advocate collectively.

“I put my hand up to be secretary to help drive and formulate Labor’s rural and regional policy and I loved it,” she said.

“As a new MP, it gave me an opportunity to meet stakeholders in the sector and to be able to connect what was happening on the ground in my electorate, with what’s happening in Canberra.”

After gaining a solid grounding during her first term championing rural issues in Canberra, Ms Chesters was elevated to be Labor’s shadow ministry.

Ironically, the news came via a phone call from Mr Shorten while she was in the audience watching a local youth theatre performance in her electorate of the musical ‘Oklahoma’ that’s all about a rural romance between a cowboy and farm girl.

As she sat next to the performance director, the phone started buzzing and beeping and it was Mr Shorten on the other end saying she’d just been promoted and given great rural and regional responsibilities.

“It kind of gave the rest of the performance a very different slant,” she said.

“Oklahoma is a love story set in a rural and regional area and I thought, ‘this is a very interesting twist of events’.

“Joel rang me and then Bill rang me and their advice was to just continue your passion.

“They said, ‘you’re someone who has stood up and spoke out about rural and regional issues and it’s important that Labor has a voice on these issues so here’s an opportunity for you to really get out there and be a strong voice for Labor in these areas and work for the country caucus and expand our representation, in this space’.”

The ALP’s country caucus was instigated in the previous parliament to increase the party’s capacity to filter policy decisions and considerations through the prism of potential impacts on rural and regional Australians.

In many ways it’s aimed at preventing any repeat of politically catastrophic decisions like the snap ban on live cattle exports to Indonesia in 2011, that’s now subject to a billion dollar class action claim against the Commonwealth, by impacted industry members.

But Labor‘s inside-Canberra forum is dwarfed by the Coalition’s strong rural representative line-up that includes the Nationals led by Barnaby Joyce and practicing farmers like WA Liberal MP Rick Wilson and highly rated agribusiness consultant and NSW Liberal MP Angus Taylor or talented Victorian rural Liberal MP Dan Tehan.

However, Ms Chesters said the experienced and knowledge to be gained by being involved in caucus committees and backbench committees couldn’t be underestimated.

She said those forums provided the opportunity to “get out there” and learn first-hand from advocacy and lobby groups about core policy issues.

“The ag sector, unlike a lot of other sectors, is very good at bringing the people who are at the coalface of policy change, to come and speak to you,” she said.

“What I was able to do in my first term was spend a lot of time out on the ground, getting out there on-farm, learning first-hand about challenges with policy and the strengths and weaknesses of different government proposals.

“That experience really grounds you so if the government puts forward a change, you’re able to run all that past the person you’ve been on-farm with and work out how that change will impact this particular farm or community.”

Ms Chester’s Victorian electorate of Bendigo contains a lot of wheat, hay and sheep production and is also the home to GrainCorp.

While dairy farming is not as prominent, the milk producing heartland of Shepparton is only an hour to the north of her base.

Ms Chesters said the dairy crisis had been a “live issue” in her electorate because “people care about what’s happening to dairy farmers”.

“They’re doing it tough,” she said of the dairy sector’s recent fortunes.

“What the ag sector is calling for more than anything is consultation and consistency – that’s what I learn when I’m talking to people – and also a seat at the table to have a say.”

While Agriculture and Water Resources Minister Barnaby Joyce has accused Labor of not taking agriculture seriously and using the backpacker issue as a political football to try and portray the government as chaotic, Ms Chester said he was only deflecting.

She said Mr Joyce and the government had a “mantra” of blaming Labor for their own failings and having actually been in government for over three years, that rhetoric was wearing thin.

She said the highlight of last year was Labor building a reputation that “we are an alternative government and genuinely passionate and interested in our farming communities”.

Ms Chesters said the ALP country caucus was growing having also won a number of rural seats at last year’s election and winning new Senators interested in the agricultural space.

Holding the government to account on farm policies like the backpacker tax was also another big win for 2016.

But she said it was always “frustrating and hard to be in opposition”.

“I would have loved it if Bill Shorten had of phoned me up to say we’d like you to be Joel Fitzgibbon’s assistant minister,” she said.

“In opposition you can plan for when you’re in government and hold the government of the day to account, but you are limited in what you can do.

“It’s really true what they say that your best day in opposition is still not as good as your worst day in government - to be in the position to put forward good policy.

“I feel every day it’s like where trying to save the government from themselves, especially in agriculture.”

But for his part, Mr Joyce believes the opposition’s claim of wanting to be bipartisan towards farming and rural Australia, is frustratingly contradicted by support for policy initiatives that are not supported by industry, like instigating a federal the office of animal welfare and a legislated climate trigger for land clearing.