Fitzgibbon, Joel, MP

Mr FITZGIBBON (Hunter) (16:53): I grant leave to the member for Grayndler as he leaves the chamber; I know he was desperate to listen to my speech, but he does have a commitment in the Federation Chamber. He is forgiven! The Agriculture and Water Resources Legislation Amendment Bill 2016 and the Excise Levies Legislation Amendment (Honey) Bill 2016 taken together make a number of amendments to a range of portfolio legislation and repeal a number of items of what the minister has described as 'redundant' legislation. In other words, they are mainly and largely housekeeping matters and, in turn, largely, I hope, about keeping legislation as efficient as it can be and reducing red tape for farmers and others affected by the sector. In doing so, the bills touch on a whole range of issues, some of which I will leave aside. But I do want to touch on a number of them. I want to share some reflections on the decision to abolish the APVMA advisory committee, and then of course on issues around the APVMA. I want to touch on water, which is critical, of course, to the farm sector and currently subject to substantial debate both in this place and out in the community. I want to talk a little bit about transparency in reporting. I want to say something about our research and development corporations and something about the Farm Household Allowance and drought policy more generally, because there is reference in the bill to it, and something about biosecurity, which also is canvassed in the bill, and something on the environment and energy, both of which are related to in this bill. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Broadbent ): I should remind the shadow minister he has only got half an hour. Mr FITZGIBBON: Exactly, Mr Deputy Speaker; I think I will just manage to squeeze it in. But I do appreciate your guidance and advice—and encouragement, for that matter! The APVMA advisory committee is being abolished by this bill. That certainly raised alarm bells for me when I first heard of that initiative. I have consulted with industry leaders. Given that the APVMA works on a full cost recovery basis, any additional and potentially unnecessary burden on the APVMA comes at a cost to those who fund the APVMA—and that of course is not the Australian taxpayer; it is those who use the services of the APVMA. I should have said at the beginning that the APVMA is the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, so that people know what the APVMA actually is and what it does. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. Mr FITZGIBBON: And of course it plays a very critical role in Australian agriculture, and not just in agriculture but in a whole range of industries. Its importance extends to human and animal health, as well as, of course, farm productivity and therefore farm profitability. So industry has told me it is not so concerned with the abolition of the advisory committee or board, but what it is concerned about is the Deputy Prime Minister's determination to relocate the APVMA from its home here in Canberra to Armidale in his own electorate—something that is going to cost the taxpayer something like $26 million in the short term, just with respect to relocation costs. That is a lot of nurses and teachers and other services for rural and regional Australia. But the costs are much greater than that because if the APVMA loses its capacity then of course it loses its ability to approve chemicals like crop sprays and a whole range of other products and, of course, veterinary medicines, which are critical to the farm sector. On the basis of the government's own cost-benefit analysis, for example, it says that, based on a conservative estimate, for crops alone, there could be an impact of between $64 million and $193 million per annum on that sector. The impact of course on the farm sector more generally is much larger. Why is this so? Well, because the efficiency and capacity of the APVMA is critical. Like any government agency, it is relatively underresourced and always struggling with its workload, and the loss of staff of course only exacerbates that situation. Last week we received the December quarterly working report of the APVMA, which, sadly, tells us that the organisation has already lost 100 of its staff. When the staff were surveyed about their willingness to move from Canberra to Armidale, I think it was less than 10 per cent who expressed a willingness to move. These are young professionals—or not always young, but professionals: regulatory scientists; regulatory lawyers—living and working in Canberra, with their children in Canberra schools, and more often than not with a partner working in the public service or some other profession in Canberra, and, for obvious reasons, they have no desire to move to Armidale. And the feedback I receive privately is that they will not. Kareena Arthy, the CEO of the APVMA, told Senate estimates that she agreed that this unnecessary relocation was going to have a significant impact on the workforce, and I think the figure she used was seven years—seven years it would take to rebuild that workforce. You do not graduate as a scientist and move straight into the APVMA and do the job of those people who will leave, nor do you finish a law degree and go to the APVMA and immediately work as a regulatory lawyer in the APVMA. It takes years of training within the APVMA to fully fulfil the roles and responsibilities of those who work there. Decentralisation can be a good thing. As a member of a rural electorate, I have always supported it. It rarely works, but I have always supported it. But it has worked, and it only works when there is a strategic plan that has been well thought out and there has been a proper process followed including consultation. But this one has not involved any strategic plan. It has been a thought bubble of the Deputy Prime Minister and a pork-barrelling exercise solely about bolstering his political stocks in the second city in his electorate, which he finds most politically difficult, and that is Armidale. That is what this relocation is about. It is about no more than that. To be uprooting an organisation like the APVMA to a regional centre without any thought at all to the impact on agriculture is an extraordinary thing for a minister for agriculture to be doing. The members of the House will recall that the minister was dragged kicking and screaming to undertake a cost-benefit analysis on this move, and then he was, over a period of months, dragged screaming to release that cost-benefit analysis publicly. We suspected why he did not want to release the cost-benefit analysis, and we were right when he was finally forced to do so. He did not want to release it because it is very, very bad news for Australian agriculture's profitability. It even has potential impacts for our exports sectors, because the APVMA has a role to play in the approval of exports and the protocols et cetera. If a product is slipping through the APVMA—for example, crop sprays which go on the food which we eat—which has not been properly tested and assessed, then there can be an implication for human health. If veterinary medicines slip through without proper screening, testing and approval, then there are obvious implications and ramifications for the farm sector which relies on those animal medicines—not to mention those at homes with cats and dogs, because the APVMA approves all of those chemicals and drugs as well. So why is this happening? I have answered that question already, and I will continue to hold the minister to account on that question. I am very pleased that last week the senators, in their wisdom, decided to refer this matter to a Senate inquiry to ask these very important questions. The government chose not to give effect of this relocation through legislation, because it knew it would lose, so we do not have an opportunity to test this move in this House. It decided not to give effect to this relocation by way of a disallowable instrument, because it knew it would lose. It has found a public policy instrument that I have never heard of in my 21 years here to do its dirty work—an instrument which, of course, is not disallowable. That instrument, bizarrely, says that in the future no agriculture-related entity or authority can be based within 100 kilometres of Canberra. That is an extraordinary length to go to to pork barrel one's own electorate. We will test these matters before the Senate inquiry. I strongly suspect that we will not have to be stirring them up or encouraging them. I suspect they will be lining up to tell the good senators that this relocation is a very bad thing for the agricultural sector—and anything that is bad for the agriculture sector is, axiomatically, a bad thing for rural and regional communities. We will be asking the hard questions and, through the committee, pressing the minister on these questions. I was speaking to a number of cattlemen and people in the grains sector last week on this question of decentralisation. Again, if done properly, it can work. But when they come to Canberra, the national capital, they come to see four, five or six authorities, organisations and ministers. They come for the one-stop shop, and it works very well. If we were ultimately successful and had nothing here in Canberra, they would have six stops God knows where around the country: one in Perth, one in Adelaide, one in the Northern Territory, one in Brisbane—who knows—or one in each of the regional centres in those states around the country. These are the questions that have to be pursued. As the opposition spokesman on agriculture, I often find a need to ask for and receive a briefing from the APVMA—as I hope the minister does—because issues often arise about the efficacy of chemicals or veterinary medicine. Sometimes people are complaining there is a risk to human health. Sometimes the manufacturer is complaining that it is too difficult to get their product through the APVMA processes. Sometimes growers or farmers are being denied the drugs they need because the APVMA has overreached. The growers do not believe it is necessary to ban a product or to not register and license product because they do not believe that it poses the threat to human health that has been suggested by the professionals at the APVMA. These issues emerge regularly, and it is very helpful to me, as the opposition spokesperson, to have the APVMA people come up here on the hill, brief me on the issue and take my questions so that I can make those inquiries on behalf of constituents. This is a very big issue. I think the fact that the minister remains so determined in the face of so much evidence against this idea shows that this is nothing more than a pork barrel. We will continue to pursue it. On that score, I am reminded that the minister, in his wisdom, has now decided to send a call right around the country to every CWA, local council and football team—whoever—saying: 'You must send a submission to the inquiry on the relocation of the APVMA. This is so critical to your hometown that you must get a submission in.' He is writing to and stirring up thousands of regional towns. I do not know how many authorities he is moving, but I suspect there will only be one beneficiary from the relocation of the APVMA—I concede this—and that is Armidale. And good on Armidale. He has turned it into a 'centre of excellence', by the way. It is a centre of excellence now, but I think even the good people of Armidale understand that is nothing but spin. The minister can run around the country stirring up submissions and he can inundate the committee members in the Senate with letters from the CWA and the like, but we will not have the inquiry sabotaged. I am sure the members of that committee will keep the inquiry focused on the key question, and that is: what is the impact—the adverse impact, I will argue, I think quite successfully in the end—of this relocation on the agriculture sector, those living in rural and regional communities, human health, animal health and, of course, as I said, even the health of the pets people have at home? The second issue I want to touch on is water. I am not going to say much about it because I think the member for Watson might be making a contribution to the debate this evening, so I will leave that to him, but it is important that, after 100 years of debate and negotiations, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan stays in place. We are always open to amendments when they are well considered and are discussed with us, particularly recommendations from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. We supported the cap that was put on buybacks a year or two ago and we stand ready to support sensible amendments, but we will not have Minister Joyce unravelling a plan that took more than 100 years to develop and secure agreement to. I said I wanted to say something about transparency in reporting. I am going to take the minister at his word, although I would like him to address in his summary my concerns about the removal of the need for service providers like LiveCorp, Dairy Australia, Forest and Wood Products, and Sugar Research to table their reports in this place. I can only assume that this is a red-tape issue, but I cannot see how tabling a report in the parliament is particularly burdensome to any of these organisations, and it is certainly not a burden to those whom they represent. I have raised this with the minister already and I think the answer was that he would require these bodies to make these reports public as part of their next funding agreement—I am looking to the advisers box to see whether I am getting a nod. That is fine. I do not have a particular problem with that, but it is another lick and a promise. Minister Joyce might not be the minister next month; he might move to transport. I am sure the member for Grayndler would enjoy that. But it is not good enough for the minister to say, 'We won't make them table them in the parliament, the people's place, anymore, but don't worry. The next time we do a funding agreement with them'—and it is due sometime soon—'we'll make it a condition of the funding that they make their reports publicly available.' Remember that there will be no legislative requirement for them to make them public. These bodies, as much as I like them, have faith in them and respect their work, should be required to account for the spending here in the people's place or on their websites. I do not mind where it is in this modern age, where technology has largely taken over, but, I am sorry, I cannot accept an indication that Minister Joyce will make it a condition of the next funding agreement. It just does not give me the assurance I am looking for. I could talk for an hour on research and development corporations, but I will not tonight. The member for Reid will be happy. The minister is removing the need for the five statutory RDCs to get together on an annual basis, something that I understand has been somewhat redundant because there are actually 15 RDCs; the others are non-statutory. He says, 'Don't worry, it's all going to be happening through the Council of Rural Research and Development Corporations.' That is fine, but I do not know that. I do not know the process. I do not know when it is going to be undertaken. I do not know what resources and support they will be given. I do not know how the minister is going to establish his own lines of communication with them. So in his summary he might build on that. The farm household allowance is relevant to this debate. There is a farm household allowance bill coming before the parliament this week. I will be having quite a bit to say on that then and I can see I am running out of time, so I will leave it till then, but I do remind the House that this minister abolished the Standing Council on Primary Industries, SCoPI. The ministers used to get together and talk about long-term drought funding. The member for Groom was an esteemed member of that process. It disappeared, and the reality is we will be talking about the farm household allowance later this week but we will not be talking about what replaced SCoPI and what replaced the Rural Advisory Council, which the minister also abolished. The farm household allowance is a three-year thing, it is coming to an end for many and we have no long-term drought plan. I just want to say this: nothing is more important for an agriculture minister than biosecurity. If you were starting again, you would call the portfolio 'Agriculture and Biosecurity' because biosecurity is the most important thing the minister deals with on a daily basis. It is critical, we cannot over-resource it and we cannot give it too much attention. We have just had a situation with prawns and the outbreak of white spot disease—and again the minister sees nothing. He knew nothing about Shoalwater Bay and the Defence expansion there, and he knew nothing about white spot for six months. I find that inconceivable but typical of this minister. It is completely inconceivable. Having been a cabinet minister on a couple of occasions myself, I know that the department would have come and said, 'Listen, Minister, we don't need you to do anything about it now or yet, but we'll bring you a submission at some point because we've got a big problem. We've got an outbreak of white spot in Australian prawns and it's a big issue.' But apparently that did not happen. Minister Joyce knew nothing about it. I just find that inconceivable. There is plenty in the bill, but let me go to this. In a sense, the Deputy Prime Minister challenged me to do it earlier, so I will do it. Those who know me well and best in this parliament know I have devoted a very large part of my political life resisting overreach on climate change, which is very topical in this place at the moment. I believe our climate is changing and I think it is very, very likely that human activity is making a contribution. So we do need to adjust our behaviour. And government has a very important role to play—that is small 'g' government, plural. Collectively. It has a big role to play in changing that behaviour. Now, avoiding overreach is important. But in the six years of the last Labor government, sadly, we achieved less than we would have liked on climate change and energy transition, because we opened ourselves to the mother of all scare campaigns—a deceitful campaign, but a campaign which was ultimately successful. It was a campaign which, arguably, led the then Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, to secure a mandate to repeal or to unravel everything we did. Now, avoiding overreach remains important, but had the former Labor government's policy framework remained in place we would all now be in a much better place. The nation would be operating under an emissions trading scheme in which carbon would be trading at much less than $23 per tonne; intensive-trade-exposed emitters would be supported on an ongoing basis; pensioners and low-income families would be protected from price rises; and carbon revenue to the government would be funding projects which lift productivity in our farm sector and initiatives designed to protect the Great Barrier Reef and the environment more generally. Just as importantly, our economy would now be better prepared for its energy transition and it would be more advanced. My belief in the coal industry remains strong and it can continue to count on my energetic support. So too can those who keep our coal-fired electricity generators humming, keeping our lights on, our fridges cold, our manufacturing plants running and other businesses operating. For many years to come our coal industry will continue to displace dirty coal, inefficient coal, in developing nations, and that is a good thing. But in the not-too-distant future Australia's coal-fired generators will have reached the end of their commercial lives. Four of those generators, with an aggregate output of around 10,000 megawatt hours, can be found in or on the edge of the Hunter region. One, with a capacity of 2,000 megawatt hours, will be closed within the next five years. Within 20 years they will all be history—all of those generators will be gone. They will have run their useful lives. Now, while this will occur gradually, over almost two decades, this will be the biggest economic event in the Hunter region since the closure of BHP, which itself took more than a decade to have full effect. But it is not just a problem with the Hunter, it is a problem for the whole nation. The loss of 10,000 megawatt hours out of our supply situation is a significant loss. The good news is that the Hunter is well placed to remain the nation's powerhouse. The high-voltage transmission lines and other transmission lines are there. The skills are in the Hunter. Solar energy already has a foothold. We have excellent wind and geothermal resources and plentiful gas—we must unlock those gas reserves. We have a range of clean energy institutions in Newcastle, including the CSIRO. But where is the transitional plan? Given that he backed Tony Abbott when he destroyed Labor's plan, what is the now Prime Minister doing to ensure the lights stay on, that prices are stable and Hunter jobs are preserved? Over the past three years I have been frustrated by the struggle to bring these real issues to the attention of this place. But I was flabbergasted when the Prime Minister, rather than make things better and embrace and promote a plan, decided to make things worse by putting out false hope that everything can just be put right, belatedly, with the establishment of new clean coal generators. Well, this is false hope and, sadly, it is not going to happen. The Rudd government invested a fortune in carbon capture and storage. Sadly—and no-one is more sad about it than me—it just has not lived up to its promise. Supercritical generators are more efficient, but they are not clean. They may be 20 per cent more efficient but they are not going to attract the investment here in Australia. Just as importantly, the energy companies are not interested in building new so-called 'clean coal' generators, for which you need 30 years of operation to secure the return you are looking for. They are just not interested and they have said so. So we cannot delay a national plan any further and we cannot delay any more the Hunter's transition—what is coming to the Hunter—by just bleating about clean coal. As sad as it is, it will not be the answer for the Hunter, it will not be the answer for the state of New South Wales and it will not be the answer for the nation. Sadly, we have to accept that. We have to accept that, come to terms with it and get on with building a new beginning for energy—in the Hunter and beyond, right across this nation. We will not get the investment in supply that we need when we have so much uncertainty. We had the uncertainty beginning with the repeal of Labor's good work. We have had so many positions from this current government that it has left the market confused, and we are now sending out even more confusing signals to the market by suggesting the government of the day—the government of the nation—is now putting new clean coal generators forward as its solution to what is effectively the crisis that we are now facing. It is time to have some bipartisanship. The Prime Minister says he believes in climate change. He says he believes that humans are making a contribution to that. Throughout all of his political and, indeed, throughout his business and adult life he has backed an emissions trading scheme. He has been a consistent supporter of the renewable energy target. So up until he became Prime Minister he was a guy that I thought was one of those who were keen for change and who could see the need for a transition—a guy who could be relied upon. Sadly, his ascension to the prime ministership has changed that. I make an appeal to him, not just on behalf of my communities in the Hunter but on behalf of the economic future of the nation and all those homes, industries and businesses that rely upon government to provide strong guidance and certainty in energy policy. Generally speaking, energy policy in this country has not been hotly contested politically—at least, not until now. When you think about it, John Howard probably started the debate with the introduction of the mandatory renewable energy target, and it was a great initiative of John Howard. He too saw that it was time for government to provide some guidance and some leadership on this issue. The heat really came into the debate when the member for Warringah was the opposition leader and decided that he could win an election with a scare campaign on energy and prices for both industry and consumers, households, and—sadly—history tells us that he was right. He did win an election on it. But he created a very large problem that each and every one of us is now continuing to deal with. Given we all agree on most things—at least, in private conversation—it is about time we got together and sorted this thing out. And the sector that will benefit most from a sensible settlement on this very important area of public policy will be the land sector—including our farmers, growers and fishers—and even the forestry sector. It is very relative to this bill because the land sector is calling out most for reform and change and certainty in climate policy. We are elected to this place, on this hill, to do that for them. And it is about time that we did.