Federal politics

GrainGrowers has welcomed the Federal Government's commitment to increase the Roads to Recovery funding program ... GrainGrowers CEO Shona Gawel said last year’s repeated flood events and persistent and unprecedented rainfall has deteriorated critical road infrastructure across Australia’s grain-growing regions and exacerbated systemic underfunding of the regional road network.  

The National Farmers’ Federation has welcomed news the Federal Government will double the Roads to Recovery funding program, providing a much needed shot in the arm to dilapidated regional roads ... NFF President David Jochinke said this increased funding would provide key resources to local government to maintain local road networks.  

Here we go again, yet another example of a live export case in the courts that has fallen over because the emotional rhetoric does not match up to the facts.This is what happens when animal activists and activist ministers come together and attempt to use the legal system to end a legitimate trade.

Occasionally I come across a speech in parliament by one of our elected representatives that needs to be shared loud and wide.   The following was made by Western Australian Liberal Senator Slade Brockman, President of the Senate, ex farmer, lawyer, PGA staffer and tireless defender of the people who make their income from primary industries. All those who oppose the live export trade should take the time to read what he has to say.

Patrick Goldsmith. Point Turton’s Hugo Taheny has been named as one of 11 ambassadors from across the country for International Day of People with Disability ... An elite athlete with a haul of accolades to his name, including two gold medals at the Virtus Global Games in Vichy, France, earlier this year, Mr Taheny was invited to take on the role by the federal government, alongside lawyers, writers, artists and academics.

Suncorp Group and Natural Hazards Research Australia have released a discussion paper to help drive a national conversation on giving communities at high-risk of being repeatably impacted by extreme weather the opportunity to be relocated out of harm’s way.  The discussion paper was developed out of a roundtable held in Canberra...

Southern Riverina communities are being called on to ‘fight for our future’ at a rally next week. It aims to highlight the community concern at the social and economic damage that will be caused if water buybacks are introduced, as proposed by the Albanese Government.

Promoting a political agenda that costs jobs and ruins the livelihoods of people in rural communities has been described as "a sad reflection on the priorities of our city-based political elite." ... Mr Lolicato said the MDBA’s own socio-economic community profiles show job losses, again primarily from water buybacks, at more than 3,200.

With the Senate set to decide the fate of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, an alliance of First Nation leaders, irrigators, farmers, ecologists and environmental organisations today travelled to federal parliament to urge politicians from across the political spectrum to deliver for inland rivers and communities.    

I recently received a copy of a letter sent from the Federal Department of Agriculture to a farming family in Beverley in response to their letter to the Minister for Agriculture, Murray Watt, asking him to explain the basis of the government’s policy to phase out live exports. Unfortunately, the Minister was too busy searching for the magical new markets for mutton that he promises exist, which will replace live export sheep, to have the time to put his own name to a reply, so he delegated the response to his loyal department.

We all know that the federal Labor government has set itself the impossible task of reducing carbon emissions by 43 per cent by 2030, plus setting itself a target of achieving 82 per cent renewables across the power grid ... Hence the recent announcement by federal anti-agriculture Minister, Murray Watt, offering up the livestock sector as one industry which could be made into an unwilling sacrificial lamb to the climate change gods by imposing rather than hoping for emissions cuts.

The Albanese Government has released the Infrastructure Policy Statement to guide the Commonwealth’s funding of properly planned and targeted infrastructure to help unlock a range of significant economic, social and environmental objectives. For too long under the Coalition, Commonwealth infrastructure spending focused on electoral rather than national benefit … That needs to change: Catherine King

Labor failed to undertake modelling on the impact of banning live sheep exports, before announcing the shutdown of the live sheep export trade. The revelations came during Question Time in Parliament, when leader of The Nationals and Shadow Agriculture Minister David Littleproud asked Prime Minister Anthony Albanese if Labor had undertaken any economic modelling on the impact of closing the $85 million industry.

“According to Meat and Livestock Australia, some sheep and lamb categories have fallen by up to 70 per cent in the saleyards in the last 12 months. Lamb prices have drastically reduced and cattle prices have fallen by about 60 per cent. Yet families at the supermarkets have barely noticed a difference in prices”: David Littleproud.

Longridge Board of Governance … have become increasingly concerned about the forecast of intermittent power outages … Given that Longridge does not have a generator ... Bill Vine, recently contacted Tony Pasin … asking the question “why should Longridge need to go to the market to fund a generator?”

A report released by ABARES this week has highlighted that weeds and pests are costing farmers $5.3 billion a year through management and production loss ... The sector has told the Government its key concern with the new producer Levy is the apparent abandonment of a Container Levy policy on importers.  

The Albanese Government’s proposed changes to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan will shut down farms, destroy jobs and increase the price of food ... National Farmers’ Federation, NSW Farmers, AgForce Queensland and the NSW Irrigators’ Council– have joined forces to warn the Government is going far beyond the original 2012 Plan that sought to balance environmental, social and economic wellbeing.

Recent changes to the proposed corridor for the 500kv Victorian New South Wales interconnector have placed additional stress on some of the region’s families as they now find themselves in the firing line ... The Bennett’s property sits between the majestic floodplain jewels, the Edward River and Billabong Creek, but now, the altered VNI West puts their generations of tranquillity in jeopardy.

The Victorian government’s regulation of timber harvesting, which has led to the impending closure of Gippsland’s native forest industry in January, directly contradicts the joint national-state approach to ensure biodiversity alongside a timber industry over the previous 30 years, analysis shows ... When setting up the National Forest Policy Statement in the 1990s, the JANIS working group – conservation scientists and planners from all states and the CSIRO – drew up the criteria to form a CAR (comprehensive, adequate and representative) reserve system.