MOTIONS

Mr KATTER (Kennedy) (17:01): I move: That this House: (1) acknowledges that: (a) Australian agriculture contributes about $100 billion to Australia's economy, feeds our nation and is fundamental to the nation's food security, regional employment and economic resilience; (b) Australian farmers have some of the highest input costs in the world, such as: (i) high wages; (ii) high regulatory compliance; (iii) high freight; and (iv) high fertiliser costs; (c) Australian farmers also have some of the lowest levels of government producer subsidies and support in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, unlike counterparts in the European Union, United States of America or Japan who receive extensive state backing; (d) these conditions have made Australia highly vulnerable to agricultural imports, many of which have destroyed our Australian farms, such as the grape, apple and citrus sectors, and ultimately led to higher supermarket prices for consumers; and (e) despite the significant environmental, social and economic impacts of international agricultural imports, the Government is currently considering import applications, or allowing imports, for bananas, peanuts, pomelos, mangosteens, garlic, and ginger; and (2) calls on the Government to: (a) take immediate and decisive action to protect Australia's agricultural sector by ensuring that any import application relating to fresh produce be rejected unless it is demonstrated by the applying country that there is: (i) no biosecurity risk; (ii) no social or economic impact on Australian farmers or their communities; (iii) no difference in chemical and pesticide usage and overall environmental standards; (iv) no difference in cost of production including wages and working conditions; and (v) an overriding need and demand for the imported product; and (b) immediately introduce legislation that prohibits imports if non-compliant with international obligations including, but not restricted to, slavery, child labour and other unfair working conditions and wages, and environmental impacts including pesticide and chemical usage.

I moved a motion in the House, some years ago, that biosecurity responsibilities be taken out of the hands of the very expensive public servants in Canberra and be given to the Kynuna CWA, since it's only a matter of saying yes to everything. I do not know of a single knockback. There probably have been some, but I'm not aware of a single knockback.

Every time you apply to come into this country, they allow you in, but it doesn't matter whether you've got diseases or whether you've got people working for $5 an hour, and that's not a Third World country. It's some time ago now, but there were $5 an hour wages for farm workers in the United States when our wages here were $18 an hour. Should people who pay their workers $5 an hour be allowed to get their product into Australia to compete against our hard workers?

They were working for very little money, for $18 an hour, I can assure you. But we let them in. It pushes down our wages to their slave labour levels.

But let me go back to the disease issue. They allowed product into Australia, and it was carrying black sigatoka. We told them, again and again, if you allow the product into Australia, we will get black sigatoka.

Now, 250 hectares of Australia cannot grow anything at all. There's a big six-strand barbed wire fence around it and a big sign saying, 'You can't enter here.' How much of Australia have we got to sacrifice to this stupidity? Citrus canker came in and wiped out half the citrus industry in Australia.

We said, 'Don't let the prawns in or you'll get white spot.' They let the prawns in, so we got white spot. I could go on and on and on but, at the present moment, there are no biosecurity knockbacks that I am aware of. Once again, I put forward that maybe the Kynuna CWA should take on the project, because it's just a matter of saying yes to everything.

We were an island for 40,000 years. No-one came here. We had no farming history for 40,000 years, so we don't have any of the diseases that all the other countries have because they've had people coming in and out and carrying the diseases with them.

We were disease free, but, thanks to the likes of biosecurity and the moronic governments that have prevailed in Australia, saying yes to everything with their fruit-rabid free market extremism, we have disease after disease after disease coming in and wrecking what was the most disease-free country in the world. Now, we're, more and more, becoming like everyone else.

I commend the proposal to the house. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Aldred ): Is the motion seconded? Ms Sharkie: I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.