CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS
Mr FARLEY (Farrer) (16:12): I rise to speak for the working families of Farrer, specifically those of Deniliquin and Leeton and the broader Riverina, who this week learned they are losing 78 jobs at SunRice. These are not abstract figures. They are 78 families, skilled millworkers and transport operators, who've shown up every day to process the rice that feeds this nation.
These are the people every government claims to champion, until a decision made in Canberra reaches their homes and their jobs. Let us be honest about what's happened. Drought is real, but the Leeton Shire Council and the Ricegrowers' Association of Australia have said it plainly: these job losses are a direct result of the federal government's water buyback program and specifically the 2023 Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Act.
The sequence is simple. The Commonwealth buys the water entitlements to meet the basin targets. The buybacks distort the price of water.
Water becomes scarcer for annual croppers, and crop volumes collapse. Mills cut shifts. Workers lose their jobs.
SunRice has gone from 24/7 production at Leeton to 16 hours, and Deniliquin has been cut from 24 hours to just eight. Deniliquin is the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere. Compare this to Tomago Aluminium in the Hunter Valley.
When Tomago, one of the largest smelters in the Southern Hemisphere, faced energy pressures, governments scrambled to act, with $2.5 billion, long-term power agreements and assistance designed specifically to keep those furnaces hot and those jobs intact. The argument was made loudly and successfully: we cannot afford to lose those jobs. The regional multiplier matters, and the state has a duty to keep the lights on.
The difference is not the workers or the value of their labour; it's the politics of who is deemed strategic and who is deemed expendable. All the rice industry is asking for is not a huge government handout like Tomago received. It's merely asking to put the water back into productivity and capacity at a fraction of the cost.
That is not an economic judgement; it's a values judgement, one that says a thousand jobs in the Hunter Valley matter more than 78 families in Farrer. Let's have a look at the situation. First, the rivers are flooding, so allocate water.
Second, provide financial support to reinvest in technologically advanced equipment. Third, and more importantly, treat regional workers as stakeholders in water policy, not collateral damage. Farrer built an industry that feeds the world.
These Murray-Darling Basin workers did not ask to be sacrificed. They deserve the same urgency and investment as any other regional workforce. This parliament owes them an honest answer about why their livelihoods were considered an acceptable price to pay for poor water policy.
(Time expired)