National Farmers' Federation Report

by Roy Chisholm

Let me say that the past year has been a roller-coaster ride of extraordinary climatic and political events that have given little certainty to mainstream agribusiness in this country.

Climatically, we have seen cyclones in Queensland followed by devastating floods in most states, the drought in Western Australia, the break of the prolonged drought in the Eastern States and of course the International events of volcanic eruptions,  earthquakes and tsunamis.

Politically the climate has been equally as volatile. June 2010 saw the incumbent Prime Minister Kevin Rudd unceremoniously booted out of office, to be replaced by Julia Gillard on the pretext that the Government had "lost it’s way".

Closely following this, Australia went to the polls, the result being a dead heat between the major parties with independent's aligning themselves with Labor while brokering negotiated political outcomes for their electorates.

The Greens took a greater slice of power than ever before, which will soon culminate in holding the balance of power in the senate. The past twelve months have proved difficult for NFF negotiating with the Federal Government on policy issues especially while dealing with the Feds game's of policy ping pong" and "ad hoc decision making".

NFF Members Council and six sub committees are responsible for setting the direction and policy adopted by the NFF.  Policy that remains reasonably constant in its principles, which delivers the best outcomes for the Agribusiness sector on Australia.

Examples of major Government policy shifts affecting agriculture in the past year have included the proposed carbon tax and an introduction of an ETS, taxation, Murray Darling Basin Plan, workplace relations, flood tax, NBN and health.

These changes in policy and direction have kept NFF management and members council on their toes throughout the past year, there are too many to individually list so I will attempt to cover the issues more important to the Northern Pastoral Sector.

ECONOMIC

The recent national disaster from Cyclone Yasi and resultant flooding has highlighted that the National Disaster Relief and recovery arrangements need to be fine tuned with regard to minimising red tape, support with existing debt repayments, extensions to the grant and loan criteria and access to zero tax drawdown from FMD's.

Foreign ownership.  NFF has a submission into the Inquiry into foreign acquisitions amendment bill. Currently in Australia there is no register of foreign ownership and ABS will be conducting a survey shortly.

Under the Henry Tax review, NFF is seeking to have the company tax rate reduced to 28% by 2015, and reviewing capital allowance concessions to allow asset write-off for items under $5000 and all other asset write-offs at 30%pa.

R & D funding decline. NFF had consistently called on Government to continue to invest R & D funds into rural sector and that a national strategy for rural innovation would assist in the delivery and accountability of those funds.

WATER

The outcome of the Murray Darling Basin Plan will have a major impact on future water infrastructure development in Northern Australia. My guess is that it will be several years before a satisfactory solution is found. NFF has several committees working on this issue.

INFRASTRUCTURE

Unfortunately any major spend on road and port infrastructure will be more than likely gobbled up on rebuilding the damaged road and rail infrastructure due to the recent flooding.  NFF is working with Infrastructure Australia to ensure that the National Ports Strategy and the National Freight Strategy delivers an outcome of a seamless transport system that is consistent across state boarders.

The NBN has more unanswered questions than answers, NFF is constantly trying without success to obtain answers to the retail cost of installation, fees and services, what happens as technology advances and what will be the delivery in regional and remote Australia.

BIOSECURITY

The NFF submission into the Beale quarantine and bio-security review in 2008 highlighted failures in protecting Australia's shores from imported pests and disease. To date many of the recommendations from the review relating to import quarantine reform still remain unfunded.

GM and food labeling.  NFF is supportive of food labeling giving consumers clear information about the food they consume provided that labeling laws do not impose unreasonable costs, be impractical to implement or provide adverse trade implications.

CARBON

The Rudd Government was initially considering including Agriculture in the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Had that policy been implemented and assume that a cow produces 2 tons of carbon per year and the price of carbon is set at $ 30 the average cost per year for one cow is $60.00.

Average NT herd size say 8,000 head or nearly half a million dollars annually in carbon tax. Here ends the Northern cattle industry.

NFF has lobbied vigorously to have agriculture excluded from a carbon scheme, which to date has been successful, however, being a carbon intensive industry particularly, in remote areas like the Northern Territory there is no such exclusion to our inputs of fuel, freight, supplements, power and water generation and general supplies.

While NFF has welcomed the Carbon Farming Initiative, which may have some perceived benefits in the future, there is nothing that NTCA recognise that will be beneficial to the Northern Cattle Industry.

NFF has also seen considerable change in the past year. With David Crombie finishing his fourth year as president, Jock Laurie is the newly elected President with Duncan Fraser taking the role of the Vice President position. Ben Fargher resigned earlier this year to follow other pursuits after serving NFF as CEO for six years and eleven years working in NFF House.

Denita Warne has been acting CEO up till two weeks ago. Matt Linnegar has just stepped into the CEO role from a background with AMLC, Ricegrowers Association and Murrumbidgee Irrigation.

Once again I would like to thank the staff of NFF for their encouragement and support in the past year.

Roy Chisholm
Napperby Station
March 2011