South Australia’s regions continue to suffer through increasingly tough times made worse by Labor’s contempt and ideological distain for Australia’s agricultural industry, says Federal Member for Barker Tony Pasin.
Mr Pasin said trying to survive as a primary producer in the two years of State and Federal Labor has felt like death by a thousand cuts for many farming businesses.
“There has been a very distinct decline in confidence of our farming sector since the change of government at a State and Federal level in 2022. Policy decisions being made in Adelaide and Canberra are severely affecting our farming businesses and the flow on effect for regional communities is becoming very clear.
A few years ago Australian Agriculture was heading towards a goal of becoming a $100 billion industry by 2030.
At a national level, the Coalition spent a decade in Government establishing frameworks to support a sustainable and growing agricultural sector with the establishment of the National Water Grid and the Regional Investment Corporation (RIC).
The former Coalition Government also committed more than $11 billion to drought measures and had a plan to build resilience against future drought, while the Federal Labor Party played political games and opposed the $5 billion Future Drought Fund in Parliament at the time.
“The Labor Party never had a plan to help farmers through drought while they were in opposition and since coming to Government they have been too distracted to care,” Mr Pasin said.
“Labor’s drought plan is woefully inadequate and their silence about what’s playing out across SA and parts of Victoria speaks volumes,”
“Two years of Labor policies have seen farmers contend with Labor’s failed energy policy leading to increased power prices, increased labour costs thanks to Labor’s IR and migration agenda, a ban on live sheep exports, removal of productive water from the market and a complete disregard for primary producers experiencing drought, frost and major commodity shocks”.
“The drought is gripping and failed crops and lack of feed for livestock is extremely disheartening. Our struggling farmers need to know the State and Commonwealth Governments have their backs when times get desperate and that’s simply not happening,” Mr Pasin said.
“The Premier is too busy planning music concerts and climate conferences in Adelaide while the Prime Minister picks paint colours for his NSW beach house.
“We need a government that focuses on the long-term vision for food and fibre production in this country or we will start seeing more and more imported food on our supermarket shelves. A long-term vision means giving short term support to help farmers through tough times, a concept completely lost on Labor,” Mr Pasin said.
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