Warren Truss MP: Qld Country Life, 7 May 2009
18-May-2009
At a time of economic downturn, gigantic new federal debt and a lingering and cruel drought, you would think no government would be silly enough to impose new taxes and costs on one of the few industries showing promise of economic growth in the year ahead.
Well, think again. Australian farmers are going to be hit with a round of policy reverses and massive new costs in another Labor assault on the farm sector.
Once again Labor is moving beyond legitimate government cost-cutting or unfortunate coincidence and into an undeclared war on rural and regional Australia.
If they didn’t vote for us, belt them, seems to be Labor’s mantra.
The latest whack is the Rudd Government's rapid approval of controversial quarantine reforms proposed in the Beale Report (released just before Christmas). The Government plans to implement full cost recovery for export inspection and certification services, scrapping the 40 percent rebate provided by the previous government to exporters. This decision, along with other changes to be made to the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service will add up to 1352 percent to the cost of these compulsory services.
No other country forces its exporters to foot the whole bill of export certification, acknowledging the huge public benefit of being regarded as a reliable exporter of clean and green products.
Just when our agricultural sector has the chance to emerge from the drought and out of the shadow of a high dollar, they are to be unnecessarily hammered. The decision raises further doubt about their future, and about their capacity to compete with other exporters and about this Government's real commitment to addressing the global issue of food security.
The remainder of the cost of the Beale reforms was to be met by an increase in the passenger movement charge - a similarly ridiculous proposal that within 24 hours was seemingly killed off by the Agriculture Minister, Tony Burke, after a storm of protest from the tourism industry.
The farmers were simply ignored!
The incredible decision to allow the import of bananas from The Philippines, a country riddled with all of the most devastating banana diseases in the world also signals a new and reckless approach to quarantine risk.
The list of Rudd Labor Government attacks on farmers reads long:
• The Budget featured a $1 billion hit to country Australia. Regional development programs worth $436 million were scrapped and replaced with one worth only $176 million, and all that money was already allocated to Labor’s election promises. Existing agricultural programs worth $334 million were replaced with ones worth only $220 million, and there is still no replacement for the $959 million Opel contract to provide fast broadband to regional Australia;
• Labor is preparing to change Exceptional Circumstances drought funding, making it harder for farmers to survive future droughts;
• Against the strong objections of the majority of wheat growers, Labor pushed ahead with the abolition of the single desk for wheat exports, leading to lost export sales and a lack of security for smaller growers;
• The buyout of water licences and the purchase of productive Toorale station at Bourke are permanently laying waste to some of the nation’s most important farm lands. The process is being driven without concern for the damage being done to whole rural communities and the nation’s food security, and without the environment benefiting from any increased water flows.
• Agricultural research and development has been hit hard by cuts to CSIRO funding, which have since been mirrored by mass closures of research facilities;
• In the new Australia / New Zealand/ ASEAN free trade agreement, Australia has agreed to immediately lock-in zero tariffs on all food imports, but Australian farmers will continue to face tariff barriers on most of their food exports to Asia, and
• The proposed Rudd emissions trading scheme will hit farm costs from day one. A report by the Australian Farm Institute has found that the value of Australian agriculture could be reduced by $2.4 billion a year by 2020 and by $10.9 billion a year by 2030. Jobs and investment will be lost, production and exports will fall, and consumers will pay up to 25 percent more in real terms, the study found.
Farmers will once again be asked to play a key role in helping our country through the difficult times ahead, but this time it’s not just the environment or the global economic environment they have to contend with. Farmers need to make their voice heard about how Government policy is hurting them, and now.
Source: Hon Warren Truss MP
