DURING this week one year ago, the entire nation was sent into a political tail-spin as rural independent MPs like Queensland veteran Bob Katter and Victorian Cathy McGowan held the whip hand as another potentially divisive hung parliament loomed in Canberra, following a nail-biting double dissolution election on July 2, 2016.
Labor inflicted a savage swing against the Coalition on polling day to reduce the government’s majority to just one seat, in the Lower House.
The Liberals suffered most losing 14 seats – including Jamie Briggs going down to Rebekha Sharkie in the SA rural seat of Mayo to give the Nick Xenophon Team its first MP - in contrast to the Nationals who gained one seat, under Barnaby Joyce’s leadership.
But as the vote-counting continued anxiously following the Saturday poll, the nation waited with baited breath in focussing on the tense and narrow results of two critical Queensland rural and National held seats.
Michelle Landry in Capricornia and Ken O’Dowd in Flynn eventually held on to win and retain their places in federal parliament while also giving the Coalition a second term; albeit by the slenderest of margins.
Ms Landry was greeted with a resounding cheer and ovation by her Nationals’ colleagues when she arrived at her party’s first meeting in Canberra, following the election.
Mr Joyce also breathed a loud sigh of relief after defeating his arch political rival and sworn enemy Tony Windsor to hold onto his NSW seat of New England for a second term.
The one-time maverick Queensland Senator also proved to be a highly competent political forecaster just a few days after the election, when final results remained in the balance.
“Capricornia - we’ll hold by less than 100 votes - and Flynn we’ll hold by a few hundred votes,” Mr Joyce said at the time.
“I base it on an assessment of the previous postals and taking into account the current trend, the current swing.
“If the postals turn up we’ll hold both seats but if they don’t then we’ve got problems.”
July 2015
Two years ago on July 4, 2015, the Coalition’s Agricultural Competitiveness White Paper – touted to be valued at $4 billion and the first for Australian farming – was launched by the then Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce, on a dairy farm near Warrnambool in Victoria.
Despite arriving six months later than initially promised, as a core election commitment from opposition heading into the 2013 federal election, the White Paper was welcomed by farm groups albeit lamenting its inability to deliver inland rail funding.
It contained a range of policy initiatives big and small that continue to be rolled out with varying degrees of success including; $500 million for building new dams and water infrastructure to boost agricultural production; enhancing the Farm Management Deposits (FMDs) scheme and other taxation reforms; $100m to extend the Rural R&D for Profit Program to 2021–22; funding to encourage a multi-peril crop insurance scheme; and $11.4m to improve the ACCC’s agricultural expertise through a new Agricultural Commissioner and engagement unit.
The White Paper also contained $250m in drought concessional Loans each year for 11 years, $22.8m to increase Farm Household Allowance case management for farmers and funding for biosecurity, developing farm co-operatives and improving trade ties in export markets.
July 2011
Six years ago, the then Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig announced that the controversial, crippling and sudden suspension on live cattle exports to Indonesia had been lifted.
Originally signed as a ban of up to six months in early June 2011 out of concerns for animal welfare standards in Indonesian abattoirs, the former Gillard government’s snap trade restriction was cancelled after industry groups and government agreed to implement international standards for animal welfare by imposing the Exporter Supply Chain Assurance System on supply chains in all markets, not just Indonesia.
The decision to suspend trade - in an emotive campaign spearheaded by animal activists utilising social media to cause public outrage and bombard anxious MPs demanding the trade be shut down forever in the midst of the hung parliament - is now subject to a class action claim by cattle producers and live export industry members and other associated businesses, against the Commonwealth government, estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
10 years ago
In the final sitting week leading into the 2007 winter break from parliamentary sitting, agricultural topics took centre stage on several fronts in Canberra.
As the then Environment and Water Resources Minister, the current PM Malcolm Turnbull was asked about progress on implementation of the $10 billion National Plan for Water Security that led to the Murray Darling Basin Plan.
Mr Turnbull said the National Plan was “the most significant reform to water management in our nation’s history”.
“It is designed to ensure that our irrigated agriculture uses water most efficiently, that we make every drop count - a particularly important objective as we move into hotter and drier times in southern Australia,” he said.
“It is also designed to ensure that the management of the Murray-Darling Basin reflects the hydrological reality of one large, connected system of surface and groundwater resources and, in doing that, seeks to change the way in which the basin has been managed, or perhaps mismanaged, for more than a century.
“We have been working very closely with four states and the Australian Capital Territory— five other jurisdictions—to bring the national plan to completion.
“It is fair to say that the state of Victoria has had a different view from the very outset as to what the plan should involve.
“But we have recently had very constructive discussions with the Victorian government.
“I am confident that we can reach an agreement that will enable us to bring this great vision to completion.”
The then Trade Minister Warren Truss was asked about the wool industry declaring “this year marks the 200th anniversary of the export of the first bale of Australian wool - essentially Australia’s first export”.
“Wool has played a very important role in Australia’s exporting history over the years,” he said.
“In the 1950s it was said that Australia rode on the sheep’s back and, in reality, wool was a very important part of our exporting.
“It is still one of our major export commodities, particularly amongst our primary sector, and it is making a very substantial contribution to our nation’s export effort.”
AWB single desk doomed
A heated debate also raged in the Lower House and Senate over changes to the then single desk wheat export marketing system, proposed by the then Howard government in damage control over the ongoing, escalating controversy surrounding the AWB wheat for weapons scandal.
“It has been a difficult 18 months for Australia’s wheat growers,” said former WA Liberal Senator David Johnston.
“Last year they faced a devastating growing season as winter and spring rains failed and the drought continued to tighten its grip across the country.
“Growers have also had to deal with continued pressure to dismantle their wheat single desk due to strong, but justified criticism of the corporate behaviour of AWB Ltd stemming from the findings of the Cole Commission of Inquiry.
“In spite of these challenges, growers continue to voice their desire to take control of their industry.”
The proposed Bill aimed to extend the then Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran’s powers including the right of veto over bulk wheat exports, effectively allowing other companies like WA’s giant grains co-op CBH to break the trading monopoly.
It also opened the door to eventual market deregulation and removal of the AWB monopoly by the new Rudd government, elected later in 2007, by deregulating wheat exports in bags and containers and also implemented changes to the now defunct Wheat Export Authority.
Mr Johnston said the changes had occurred after the Wheat Export Marketing Consultation Committee conducted 26 public meetings across the wheat growing regions of Australia and received almost 1200 written submissions.
“Overwhelmingly, growers stated their support for the single desk,” he said.
“Almost as overwhelming was the call for the single desk to be operated by an entity entirely separate from AWB Ltd.
“The government has decided to give growers until March 1, 2008 to establish a new entity to manage the single desk.
“The government acknowledges that the challenge it has set the industry is a significant one.
“It will require strong leadership and unity within the industry to reach a satisfactory outcome in the time allowed.
“It is now time for the industry to act.”
In the Senate, the then Shadow Agriculture Minister and former Labor Tasmanian Senator Kerry O’Brien proposed unsuccessfully to refer the Wheat Marketing Amendment Bill 2007 to a committee inquiry.
“The Prime Minister’s announcement imposes an ultimatum on growers: you either get your act together and form a new entity without our help or we will impose complete deregulation on the industry,” he said at the time.
“The effect of that threat is to further polarise an already divided industry, impose an incredible burden on the industry at a time it is busy planting the next crop and, if not facing the worst drought in history, trying to recover from the worst drought in history.
“All of this is in an election year and will make it even more difficult for industry to achieve what the government could not achieve, and that is unity.”
Former Nationals Senator Ron Boswell said the then Labor leader Kevin Rudd had put out a press release stating his position on the single desk was that it would be reviewed by the Productivity Commission “which is the kiss of death for any single desk”.
“At all times, the majority of growers have been consistent in calling for their right to control the marketing of their product,” he said.
“This principle has also been The Nationals guiding light on this issue, an issue which at times has been very controversial.
“The deplorable conduct of the AWB in Iraq let down Australia and, more significantly, let down wheat growers.
“The oil for food scandal was used as a political tool not only in an attempt to divide growers themselves but also, crucially, to separate them from the single desk.
“We do not want to see the wheat industry become dominated, like retailing, by Coles and Woolworths.”
In the House of Representatives, former independent MP and farmer Tony Windsor took a major swipe at Australian farm leaders over the single desk issue and their role in another political debate occurring that week around internet broadband policy legislation and impacts on communication standards in rural and regional Australia.
“I was interested to hear the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry – I see that he is leaving the chamber - cite the National Farmers Federation as a source of knowledge on this issue,” he said.
“I think their behaviour during the telecommunications debate has been disgraceful.
“The duplicity of the former president, Peter Corish, on this issue is something that will go down in the history of the farming community and country Australians.”
In supporting the changes to the wheat marketing arrangements, Mr Windsor said he had been “very disappointed - as I think many people have been, on both sides of this debate - in the leadership shown within the agricultural sector”.
“The National Farmers Federation once again has been found wanting in this debate,” he said.
“The Grains Council has been almost absent - it did not seem to have a view; then it had a view that was different to that of some of its members.
“It has almost become a joke in terms of displaying leadership in the grains sector.
“I think the Prime Minister has laid it on the line that, if the industry cannot get its act together, all bets are off.
“I challenge the industry.
“The growers have displayed what they want.
“It is time that the leaders in this industry overcame some of their little state boundary skirmishes and petty agri-politics and started to address the future of this industry.”
Then senior ALP power-broker Simon Crean said the government’s legislation was another attempt to manage Australia’s wheat marketing arrangements following the wheat for weapons scandal.
“I say ‘another attempt’ because the government has failed to come up with a solution,” he said.
“It was bad enough that the government presided over the largest corruption scandal in Australia’s history, that it was negligent in not responding to repeated warnings of abuse by the Wheat Board and that it cost the country in reputation and lost earnings to wheat growers.
“Now it is showing itself incapable of coming up with a solution - despite the fact that the Cole commission has reported and the government has introduced, six months ago, interim measures.
“Today all we are doing, in effect, is extending the interim arrangements for another 12 months.”
Mr Crean said the Cole commission revealed that “under this government” a corporate culture developed in the Wheat Board that was “characterised by excesses and arrogance”.
“It is a culture which has cost the Australian taxpayer $300 million - but it is not just the cost; it is what that money went to,” he said.
“It went as bribes to the Iraqi regime and ended up with Saddam Hussein, the same dictator that the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister reviled in this place as the enemy that had to be replaced.
“Those bribes ended up in the coffers of Saddam Hussein whilst, at the same time, we were sending our troops to Iraq to depose him.
“How stupid can a government be to allow that to happen?”
But Mr McGauran said members of the Labor Party had only taken the opportunity, “in shrill and exaggerated tones”, to attack the government and specific ministers regarding the AWB oil for food scandal.
But he said not once during the debate did a member of the Labor Party state that they would adhere to a single desk.
“The Labor Party is not committed to a single desk,” he said.
“My challenge to the Leader of the Opposition is to put on the record his support for a grower owned and controlled entity assuming the single desk operations after 1 March next year.
“I think the silence will be deafening.
“I conclude therefore that a Labor Party in government will not support a single desk.”