STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator McDONALD (Queensland—Deputy Leader of the Nationals in the Senate) (13:34): I rise today to sound the alarm on another threat to Australian food security. The Albanese government is progressing a process aimed at opening the door to fresh banana imports from the Philippines. Australians should know that the department of agriculture's own officials visited banana farms in the Philippines and observed diseases which would devastate the banana industry here, including Moko, black Sigatoka, banana freckle and Panama disease Tropical Race 4.

While Australian growers are working every day to feed Australian families, Labor is examining more ways to weaken the protections that have made Australian bananas the envy of the world. This doesn't happen in isolation. It's part of a broader pattern from a government that refuses to prioritise what's good for Australia; a government that continually puts ideology ahead of food production.

We've seen attacks on farmers through the proposed EPBC Act changes. We've seen commercial fishing communities hammered by net-fishing bans. We've seen productive water ripped from regional communities through the Murray-Darling buybacks.

We've seen oppositions to dams and water infrastructure that would strengthen agricultural production. Now we have the threat of imports hanging over one of Australia's most important horticultural industries. What concerns me even more is that, while Labor talks endlessly about resilience and sustainability, government funding for agricultural, veterinary and food science research has fallen by more than $100 million over the past four years.

At the same time, environmental science funding has increased by around $400 million. That tells you everything that you need to know about Labor's priorities: less investment in growing food, less investment in protecting food and less investment in farmers who feed this nation. Australian farmers are not the problem.

They are our greatest national asset.