LABOR powerbroker Joel Fitzgibbon’s return to the front bench has prompted a stern caution from Assistant Agriculture and Water Resources Minister Anne Ruston about the dangers of continuing to neglect bipartisanship towards the farm sector.
Mr Fitzgibbon served as Agriculture Minister shortly ahead of the 2013 election and shadowed the senior Coalition minister Barnaby Joyce in the previous parliament.
He has been reappointed to the Opposition’s agricultural role and was given additional duties and responsibilities in the new parliament as Shadow Minister for Rural and Regional Australia.
His workload will be supported by Victorian Labor MP Lisa Chesters who was promoted to the role of Shadow Assistant Minister for Rural and Regional Australia.
Ms Chesters – the member for Bendigo – was also made Shadow Assistant Minister for Workplace Relations and plans to attack temporary overseas worker visas in regional communities that are experiencing high unemployment.
Mr Fitzgibbon said opportunities in the agriculture, fisheries and forestry sectors were “vast” and needed a “cohesive sustainable long term plan to fully capitalise on them”.
“Sadly, despite my offer for a bi-partisan approach to our food and fibre sectors three years ago, Barnaby Joyce remains locked in his populist approach which has done no more than perpetuate low profitability, flat-line productivity and contribute to a shrinking global market share,” he said.
“Labor will continue to offer a higher-value path to higher and sustainable profitability for agriculture, fisheries and forestry sectors.”
But in an interview on Sky TV, Mr Fitzgibbon said he was pleased Mr Joyce was staying with the agriculture portfolio because, “I’d miss him dearly (and) it's pretty good sport with Barnaby”.
He said the reappointment would give the Nationals leader three years to make amends for the “three years lost under his stewardship in the portfolio”.
“He is too busy with the populist stuff to talk about some of the hard decisions that need to be made in agriculture and where we really want to take agriculture,” Mr Fitzgibbon said of his opposite number.
Speaking to Fairfax Agricultural Media, Senator Ruston admitted the ALP’s failure to win core rural seats at the election showed it needed to improve rural and agricultural policy handling and recommit to a bipartisan attitude.
She said very few agricultural issues should be ideologically disagreed upon when under discussion in federal parliament.
Senator Ruston - who will continue to focus on horticulture, fisheries and forestry in her portfolio duties - said 99 per cent of issues debated in the agricultural space, whether they be policy, regulation or legislation, “everybody should agree with”.
“I think the Labor party could do well to not use agriculture as a political football in any way shape or form because it’s not necessary,” she said.
“There are plenty of other things where we have very different views from the right side of politics to the left side of politics, but agriculture should not be one of them.
“I get really cross when anyone in the Labor party or the Greens or any of the crossbenchers uses our farmers as political pawns because party politics should not be involved in agriculture.
“There’s enough agri-politics to worry about in this space without playing party politics.”
Senator Ruston called on the Opposition to retain a bipartisan approach towards agriculture and ensure, “we do the best thing by our farmers because there’s nothing to be gained by fighting with each other”.
She was also critical of the Labor party’s preference deal at the recent election with the Animal Justice Party (AJP) which has an ultimate policy to end livestock farming and move towards plant based food production systems, to serve an animal rights agenda.
Senator Ruston said the AJP deal showed the “lengths and depths” the Labor party was prepared to go to win government, despite promising bipartisanship.
“They’re prepared to sacrifice Australian livestock industries to get a few more votes in Sydney and that’s disappointing because Australia was born and bred on the back of our farmers,” she said.
“It’s the industry that has saved us when our mining industries haven’t been so good or our technology or manufacturing sectors haven’t been travelling as well as they could.
“Agriculture has always been there to prop up this country and so to do anything to sell our agriculture sector down the drain for a few cheap votes is unconscionable.
“I’d like to think that anything I did or any policies that I proposed or put forward were always in the best interests of our farmers.”
National Farmers’ Federation President Brent Finlay said his group wanted to work with all sides of politics to ensure agriculture remained a national priority post-election, at a time of unprecedented opportunity for Australian agriculture.
He said continued investment in digital connectivity, building 21st century infrastructure, trade relationships linking Australian farms to new markets, ensuring positive environmental outcomes work hand-in-hand with productive farms and policies that back access to diverse farm labour requirements were all critical to the sector’s future.
“We are ready for a constructive relationship with the government, the Opposition and the newly elected Crossbenches, to progress these vital initiatives on behalf of Australian farmers and propel Australian agriculture into a decade of growth and prosperity,” he said.
Most industry sources have welcomed Mr Joyce’s return to the agriculture portfolio urging him to continue implementing policy reforms and measures delivered through the $4 billion Agricultural competitiveness White Paper, released in mid-2015.
The Nationals also succeeded in adding water policy to the agriculture ministry when the Coalition agreement was signed after Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister last September.
In contrast, the ALP has promised to return water policy management to the environment portfolio, which includes areas like the Murray Darling Basin Plan, if they return to government; despite the move being backed by the farming sector.
Former Labor Agriculture Minister Tony Burke has been appointed shadow environment and water minister on Bill Shorten’s new front bench replacing Mark Butler who was made shadow climate change and energy minister.
Mr Burke was environment and water minister when the controversial Basin Plan was signed into law in 2012 and Mr Joyce was his shadow.
At that time, the now minister for Queensland Nationals Senator and Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, Matthew Canavan was Mr Joyce’s chief of staff.
During the recent election campaign Mr Joyce called on Mr Fitzgibbon and the Opposition to work in a bipartisan way to finalise a government support package for farmers struggling with the dairy pricing crisis.
However, that message was ignored with the Nationals leader eventually accusing the Victorian Labor government of “crude politicisation” of the federal government’s handling of the crisis.
Mr Fitzgibbon will also resume as the ALP’s Country Caucus spokesperson which was established in the previous parliament to provide a rural policy formulation filter and boost the Opposition’s strategic focus on regional seats that could change government.
He said the establishment of Regional Development Australia and the Regional Australia Institute remained “great Labor initiatives designed to encourage local decision making based on sound research”.
“Labor will continue to build on its record on regional development policy and remains committed to adequately funding the infrastructure needs of rural and regional communities,” he said.
Victorian Liberal MP Dan Tehan said the Opposition’s Country Caucus concept was “a joke” when it was formed during the previous parliament and remained that way as it could “fit a meeting within a telephone box”.
“I think Joel Fitzgibbon will be licking his wounds (post-election) like Bill Shorten who could not get a primary vote greater than Mark Latham,” he said.
“Both Bill Shorten and Joel Fitzgibbon have had pretty ordinary elections when you start analysing the facts, after the result.”
Senator Canavan said he believed Labor was struggling to balance two constituencies and overcome a rural and city policy divide.
He said the ALP’s inner-city/urban constituency was continuing to demand tougher regulations on the agriculture sector and banning coal mining which were both traditional working class industries that created jobs.
Senator Canavan said the ALP was originally formed to protect rights of shearers but had done a preference deal with the AJP which wants to shutdown shearing and all animal use industries.
“The Labor party is struggling to work both of those constituencies and people are starting to work that out,” he said.
“We ran a very strong campaign in Central Queensland that the LNP unashamedly supports the mining industry but the ALP seemingly can’t come out as strong publicly because they’re trying to get preferences from the Greens and people pick that up.
“People want consistency and to be able to trust you to represent them but it’s hard for them to trust a party that says one thing in Canberra and something different out in the regions.”
Senator Canavan said the Opposition failed to deliver a substantial agriculture policy at the election and would be under pressure in the new parliamentary term.
But Mr Fitzgibbon said agricultural productivity has continued to flatline over the last three years with low profitability while the nation is continuing to lose global market share.
He said agriculture was going “backwards”, despite talk of a dining boom, under the Coalition and Mr Joyce.
“It's looking more and more like dining gloom,” he said.
“Barnaby is very good on the popular stuff - he talks about high commodity prices, where they are high, cattle is a perfect example, but that's drought-driven.
“It's not driven by a productivity agenda or something the government has done it's because we suffered a substantial drought.
“There are adverse impacts that flow from that, including loss of meatworker abattoir jobs and higher supermarket prices and the list goes on - but he never talks about the commodity prices which are falling.”
Mr Fitzgibbon said Mr Joyce didn’t mention dairy prices falling during a “real crisis” and also failed to criticise Murray Goulburn, the company “that has caused those problems”.
But in reflecting the ALP’s election policy position for Australian agriculture, he said the sector’s future was not in volume but in high value commodities.
“We need to remove ourselves as best we can from the commodity markets where we are price takers,” he said.
“Where, in other words, we are selling a similar product to the rest of the world - South American and other competitors - and we are taking the lowest price.
“The future in agriculture is higher productivity, but moving the sector up the value curve, so we are allocating our limited natural resources, water, soil, etc. and even labour resources, to the areas where we will get the highest possible return for them.”
Mr Fitzgibbon said if producers are going to pay higher prices for water they need to be selling a high value commodity.
“What we should be doing is chasing those products with which we can secure a premium,” he said.
“Niche type products - the equivalent of a Gucci bag for example.
“Products for example, like a marbled wagyu beef, in which the fat in the marbling is relatively healthy.
“You can pretty much name your price for a fatty wagyu cut.”
In other Labor front bench appointments, Victorian Labor MP for Ballarat Catherine King was made Shadow Health Minister and NSW MP Anthony Albanese the Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Regional Development.
Sydney MP Jason Clare was appointed Shadow Trade, Resources and Northern Australia Minister and NT MP Warren Snowden was made the Shadow Assistant Minister for Northern Australia
Mr Albanese said he was pleased Mr Shorten added regional development to his portfolio responsibilities, allowing Labor to sharpen its focus on the regions and ensure they have the infrastructure required to underpin future economic growth.
“While the Coalition uses infrastructure investment to win votes, Labor invests to eliminate bottlenecks, build capacity and boost productivity and jobs growth,” he said.
NSW Labor MP Stephen Jones was also appointed Shadow Minister for Regional Communications, Regional Services and Local Government.
“Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t understand the needs of regional communities, but this Parliament must deal with the big challenges facing our regions,” he said.
“This includes boosting economic growth and addressing high youth unemployment as well as a lack of infrastructure and services.
“It is vital that we have a blackspot program that delivers on regional not political needs, so that areas vulnerable to natural disasters aren’t left off the list.”