PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Ms ALDRED (Monash—Opposition Whip) (17:26): It's a pleasure to support my friend, colleague and neighbour as part of the great Gippsland region in speaking to this motion regarding the agriculture sector. The electorate of Monash is part of the Gippsland region. Combined, we are proud to produce 23 per cent of the nation's milk output, 26 per cent of Victoria's beef production and a large chunk of Melbourne's water, and you can thank us very much for still contributing the majority of Victoria's baseload electricity as well.

I'm passionate about agriculture. I worked as a farmhand before studying my masters of agribusiness at Melbourne uni and dedicating a big chunk of my working life to advocating for farmers and agribusinesses in the Gippsland region as part of my role at the Committee for Gippsland. I'm really proud to represent a number of those iconic national brands like Burra Foods, Saputo, Radfords meats, Gippsland Jersey and Durkin Produce, which takes our spuds from Thorpdale to all over the country, as well as Fankhauser Apples in Drouin; they're a multigenerational farming business that have been growing apples in Australia for over 100 years.

We've got dairy farmers in Berrys Creek and farmers in Mirboo North, Lance Creek and Ellinbank. Food security is national security, and I'm very proud to represent a region that grows, makes and manufactures things that the rest of Australia relies on every day of the week. These enterprises, along with dozens of other premium growers in our region, produce clean, green agricultural food that Australia is known for.

We can't consume everything that we grow in Australia. About two-thirds of what we produce is exported to international markets, which are hungry and eager for our food and products. But right now our agricultural sector is up against it, and it's up against it on a number of fronts.

I heard the Business Council of Australia referred to. Well, they've also come out with some pretty stark warnings about our productivity, which has declined significantly even in the last couple of years. Productivity strikes at the heart of the ability of our farmers to get their products out of the ground, manufacture them, value-add to them and get them to market.

So productivity is a really big challenge for many farming families right now, along with the price of electricity and also, in relation to this motion, the regulatory go-slow and unprecedented land grab that defies economic logic. My friend and colleague the member for Gippsland has spoken to a number of the migration challenges that we've got right now contributing to persistent workforce shortages.

Instead of supporting our farmers, the government handed down ministerial direction 119, which officially shunts agricultural skilled visas to the very bottom of the priority queue right when we need them the most. I don't want to see a situation where clean, green, high-value agricultural products are stuck stranded in the ground because there's not an availability of people to pick them or harvest them.

That is a really big issue. To make matters worse, the government has quietly turned off the tap for seasonal workers. The Department of Home Affairs has abruptly paused the working holiday-maker visa applications for 24 countries, including major partners like Argentina and Brazil.

I got to see this firsthand when visiting a strawberry farm in Neerim North in West Gippsland recently. The farmers there, Phil and Bridie, had been dairy farmers and recently, in the last season or two, switched over to growing strawberries. It was wonderful to see the really high-value produce coming out of the ground at their farm, but they talked me through some of the worker shortages and challenges that they were up against.

These visa programs are incredibly important to farming families like Phil and Bridie's, along with many other agribusinesses right across the Monash electorate. The National Farmers' Federation has repeatedly warned that, if we do not secure these workforces, crops will rot in the ground and costs will spike at the check-out. We are not just dealing with affordability and reliability issues for farming families.

We are also having to have regard in this place for families really doing it tough right now, right across Australia, who ultimately pay the price at the check-out. So I'm very pleased to support this motion by my friend and colleague the member for Gippsland. He is passionate about backing local farmers, I'm passionate about backing farmers and so is the coalition.