Mr LITTLEPROUD (Maranoa—Minister for Water Resources, Drought, Rural Finance, Natural Disaster and Emergency Management) (15:39): What we just heard from the member for Hunter has demonstrated the deep seated impact the last federal election has had on him personally, because the people of Hunter turned on him. They turned on him, and one of those parties that nearly beat him was One Nation—not just the National Party. It seems now that the member for Hunter has been able to convince the Australian Labor Party to forget about Swan economics. They're now going to look to One Nation and Pauline Hanson to give them a direction on the economy and on agricultural industry. God save Australia, because if the member for Hunter has become so disturbed by the near-death political experience he had on 18 May, then the Australian Labor Party has got real problems. The member for Hunter talks about the ACCC report and says, 'Yes, it was me who took that report and acted on it.' The member for Hunter talks about how he believes in the ACCC. In fact, he wasn't going to put in a price floor; he was going to ask the ACCC to do an investigation into a price floor. Let me tell the member for Hunter and the Australian Labor Party: we can save them a couple of million dollars, because the ACCC gave a clear direction for a mandatory code of conduct. We are putting that in place in a calm, methodical way to make sure it is right, because it is important. It's an important pillar in making sure that we reset the dairy industry and in making sure that there is equality in the marketplace. There are a number of factors within the marketplace that need to be addressed. The ACCC gave us a pathway to do that, not to go back to the economics of One Nation and shut ourselves off from the world and forget about the fact that we are a nation of 25 million people that produces enough food for 75 million people. We need to engage with the world. We need to trade with the world. The reckless, careless actions that the Australian Labor Party are talking about would put at risk the trade agreements that we have put in place. That would not just jeopardise the dairy industry but would jeopardise agriculture. If you're a beef producer in Kennedy, if you are a cotton producer in Maranoa, if you're a citrus producer down in Victoria, this would put at risk the trade agreements that are giving us real returns at the farm gate. That is what this would do. To say that it wouldn't shows no understanding of our place in the world and the dangerous nature of populism and politics that the Labor Party is now entering into with One Nation, a party they condemned here endlessly in the last parliament. They are now going hand-in-hand with Pauline Hanson and One Nation in deriving their economic policies. The economic policies that Swan economics brought us have now been taken over by Pauline Hanson and One Nation. We understand that there's more reform in the marketplace, and that's why we're creating a market platform that allows our dairy farmers to create and to trade like other agricultural production systems, and that allows them to have more power in who they sell their products to and to create more market tension. That's how you address this. It's not just one silver bullet. That doesn't add up. I recall the member for Hunter being in this chamber and talking about the last time there was a price floor in this country. It was for wool. He sat here and heralded the fact that it was John Kerin, the former Labor member, who broke and destroyed the wool price floor. He addressed that to the member for Kennedy, who is in the chamber now. Yet, now, the member for Hunter wants to put in place exactly what John Kerin got rid of. Pauline Hanson has really got hold of the member for Hunter. This last election has really upset him. He is running scared in his own electorate; he is running scared right across the country with the dairy industry. It's nothing more than a cruel hoax. But there is another part of this whole dairy industry that needs fixing, and it's the supermarkets. When I stood up— Mr Fitzgibbon: And you were going to fix it! Mr LITTLEPROUD: I did. I got rid of $1 milk, my friend, because I had the courage to call out the supermarkets and say to Australians: 'Stop going in and supporting those supermarkets that don't support dairy farmers.' But, no, the member for Hunter crawled back under that rock he'd been hiding under for six years. He didn't want to show his face. He'd been hiding away. He did not show his face. He was tucked up, away underneath that rock, hiding. He wouldn't call out the supermarkets. In fact, he criticised me for actually calling for Australians to boycott those supermarkets until they passed money onto Australian farmers. You know what they did? They passed on the money. They found a mechanism to make sure that money got back to the farm gate. But nothing from the member for Hunter. In fact, he was supporting corporate Australia and the big supermarkets, and he knows he was, because he was tucked away down here for the last six years. The member for Hunter was tucked away, because then the opposition leader wouldn't allow him to put his head up. Now he's found some morals. Now that he's had a near-death political experience he's finally found his front. He's finally found that he can come out and say the things he wants to say. Well, he's a bit too late and he's taking the wrong advice from One Nation. You have to be calm and methodical if you're in government. You have to make sure you put in place the reforms that work and are long-lasting, not those that will have detrimental impacts like a floor price. That's nothing more than a cruel hoax. Why do that? As you've even articulated, those farmers are doing it tough. They are doing it so tough out there, yet you propose a cruel hoax that will not work. And, in fact— The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Hogan ): The minister will address the chair. Mr LITTLEPROUD: Sorry, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker. The member for Hunter knows full well that he is doing nothing more than providing a cruel hoax and playing on the misery of Australian dairy farmers. I thought he was bigger than that but unfortunately not. We will continue on. We will continue on on the pathway to resetting the dairy industry. I say right here now to the supermarkets— Mr Fitzgibbon interjecting— Mr LITTLEPROUD: I'll take the interjection from the member for Hunter, because I have a strong record of standing up to them. I say to them again, as I said when I was agriculture minister: you have a role to play. If these reforms come in, you need to work with an industry that will be there and be sustainable, so you have an opportunity to prove what you did last time and support dairy industries now and provide that mechanism that you did. I broke that $1-a-litre milk and made sure that that money went back to them. They created the mechanism. They can do it tomorrow. We understand the drought. There is a drought on. Unfortunately, when we talk about a national strategic plan the member for Hunter, again, wants to play politics on the misery of Australian farmers, not just dairy farmers. We are the first government that is not only dealing with the here and now of the drought but looking at the next drought. For the first time, we've said, as a government, that we are going to tackle future droughts while we're in the middle of one. A three-pillar stimulus of putting money back in farmers' pockets now, keeping them there. There is the Regional Investment Corporation that dairy farmers can take up, refinancing up to $2 million of an existing debt from a bank. They can put it in the Regional Investment Corporation—no principal and no interest for two years. If you had a rate of 6½ per cent you would be saving over $150,000 a year. We're taking that out of the big banks' pockets and putting it back into the farmers' pockets. We're making sure they have the cash flow to survive. There's the farm household allowance—over $120,000 that will be put in their pockets to give them the dignity and respect they need to put bread and butter on their tables. We're supporting the communities, because the drought extends past the farm gate to the communities that support them. There are hundreds of millions of dollars in stimulus to keep them going—to keep small towns moving as we go through this. As I said, we're the first government to look to the future with a Future Fund giving a dividend of $100 million a year to provide programs that will build the resilience that we need to stave off future droughts. We have come a long way. I used to be a bank manager. I used to sit around farmers' kitchen tables. I remember the days when we used to take out cheques for $250,000 in interest rate subsidies. Those days have gone because the farming industry has moved away from it, and so we should because we wouldn't have the trade agreements we have got in place now. Farmers have prepared themselves for these droughts, but we're going to give them the tools they need to go further. Finally, we're going to put over $3 billion out there and hope that a state will take our hand and build some dams—some water infrastructure—to harvest the water to build the resilience to grow regional Australia. Unfortunately since 2003 only 20 dams have been built—16 of those have been in Tasmania—because we have state governments who are inept. Unfortunately, the states have the responsibility to build the water infrastructure. We're prepared to pay for it. Come and take our hand. When the member for Hunter sits here and feigns concern about the dairy industry, because of his near-death political experience on 18 May and the deep-seated impacts One Nation had on him at a local level—and now he takes the advice of One Nation in how he would run Australian agriculture and dairy—then I say to the Australian dairy industry: you are better off without the member for Hunter.