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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-10-15 Daily Xml
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Farmers

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI (Leader of the Opposition) (15:30): As I have said in this place many times before, our farmers are the backbone of this nation. They feed us, they clothe us and they underpin our economy. Yet every year they are asked to do more with less, to produce more food, to meet higher standards and to absorb more risk, all whilst competing on a playing field that is anything but level.

Across the world, governments understand that food security is national security. The United States heavily subsidises its farmers through direct payments, crop insurance programs and fuel rebates. The European Union spends tens of billions of euros each year through its Common Agricultural Policy supporting farming, environmental practices and rural development.

Meanwhile, here in Australia our farmers compete in that same global marketplace with a fraction of the support. They are told to adapt, to innovate and to become ever more efficient, yet they are already among the most efficient producers in the world. What do we reward that efficiency with? More regulation, more compliance and more cost. We lecture them about consumer expectations and global standards, while conveniently ignoring that their overseas counterparts are being propped up by enormous subsidies that shield them from the full volatility of markets, of weather and of global trade shocks.

Our farmers are not asking for handouts. They are asking for fairness, for recognition that while they operate in a global market they do so under Australian conditions, conditions that are harsher, more variable and less subsidised than almost anywhere else on the globe. It is time we cut the spin about efficiency and started talking about survival, because there is no point in being the most efficient farmer in the world if you have been driven off your land.

We cannot keep squeezing farmers to extract every last drop of productivity while ignoring the reality that margins are shrinking, costs are soaring and red tape is strangling innovation. We must stop pretending that market forces alone will protect our agricultural future—they will not. The global market is not free or fair. It is distorted by billions of dollars in foreign subsidies, by trade barriers and by political decisions made oceans away from the people who grow our food.

Food does not come from supermarket shelves; it comes from the soil, from sweat and from generations of knowledge. If we want to keep that here in Australia, we need to back our farmers, not burden them. That means investing in productivity through research, water infrastructure and biosecurity. It means equal trade, fair taxation and genuine recognition of agriculture's national importance.

That means investing in productivity. It means not covering our prime agricultural land with transmission lines, wind turbines and solar panels. If we want to secure Australia's food and fibre future, we must ensure our best farming country remains just that—farming country. Renewable energy has a role to play, but it must not come at the expense of food security and regional communities.

Above all, it means rejecting the lazy narrative that farmers just need to work smarter. They already do. It is governments that need to get out of the way, to understand that policies made in Canberra and made here in Adelaide have real consequences in Wudinna, in Peterborough, in Murray Bridge, in Loxton, in Naracoorte and everywhere in between. Let's ensure our farmers are competing on a fair field, not one that is tilted against them, because when we lose our farmers we lose far more than food production: we lose communities, we lose families and we lose part of who we are as Australians.

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