Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2026-2027
Mr CHESTER (Gippsland—Deputy Leader of the National Party) (12:46): Australia is home to world-class farmers, and one of the reasons our 85,000 farmers are world class is that they know how to manage risk. They can manage the risk of seasonal conditions. They can manage the risk of commodity prices.
More recently, they've had to manage the risk around fuel and fertiliser prices, related to the war in Iran. But how is an Australian farming family meant to manage the risk of a prime minister who deliberately misleads them prior to the election and does something completely different only 12 months later? How is a farming family meant to manage the risk of having a prime minister promising no changes to capital gains tax, no changes to trust arrangements and no changes to negative gearing and then, 12 months later, changing his mind?
How are farming families meant to manage that risk? This is precisely the wrong time for the government to be making it harder for our farming families. Just yesterday ABARES released a forecast that indicates quite a concerning picture for Australian agriculture.
Production is forecast to decline. Export earnings are forecast to decline. Winter crop production is forecast to fall significantly from recent highs.
Most concerningly, the average broadacre farm business profits are forecast to fall dramatically in 2026-27. These are tough times for a lot of our farming families, and this prime minister has just made it tougher. At precisely the moment when farm profitability is falling and under pressure, there is little—if not nothing—in this budget that directly addresses declining farm incomes.
If the government's own forecasters are warning about tougher conditions ahead, you'd expect a positive budget response. Instead, like always, the answer from the Labor Party is more punitive tax measures. The complex issue that we need to deal with here— Ms Collins: Rubbish!
Mr CHESTER: I hear the minister interjecting, saying 'rubbish'. She'll get her chance. Family farming businesses rely on long-term investment decisions and succession planning.
Succession planning is one of the most difficult aspects for our farming families across the nation as they try to make sure the next generation has a future on the land. The government's tax changes have generated significant concern across the agricultural sector, and no amount of bluster and bulldust from the government can take away from the fact that the peak farming organisations are raising concerns with this government about the broken promises contained in the budget.
The concern is that these changes create additional barriers to intergenerational farm succession. The National Farmers' Federation chief executive, Mike Guerin, said: If you impose CGT on that transfer you make farm succession impossible. … … … The current threshold is $2m in turnover and $6m in net assets. That was set in 2007, so it doesn't reflect the operating realities of farming businesses today.
The NFF president, Hamish McIntyre, said: … the message from agriculture is clear: The last thing this country should be doing is making it harder for the next generation to stay on the land. He also said: We need to ensure changes to CGT don't unintentionally compromise the future of Australian farmers The Victorian Farmers Federation acting president, Peter Star, said: A farming family … simply cannot absorb the kind of CGT liabilities now arising when transferring a farm to the next generation.
That is the feedback not from the Liberal Party and not from the National Party but from the peak farming bodies. They're concerns being expressed about how farming families are meant to manage this broken prime minister—sorry, this broken promise; he's a broken prime minister as well. This is a broken promise from a prime minister who promised no changes to capital gains tax.
My questions to the minister today are: Will the minister stand up today and guarantee that Australian farming families won't be worse off as a result of the changes her government has made in the capital gains tax arrangements in the budget? Why did the government announce significant capital gains tax and trust taxation changes affecting family farms without first consulting your own department or Australia's farming sector?
At a time when invasive pests and weeds are costing Australian agriculture billions of dollars each year, why did your government cut the established pest animals and weeds program without putting a replacement program in place? After four years in government, can you explain why regional communities were promised stronger support for agriculture, yet this budget contains cuts to drought preparedness, cuts to pest management, no funding to implement the national food security strategy, fewer industry support programs and no meaningful response to falling farm incomes?