DAFF Abandons Agriculture
07-February-2012
John Cobb MP -
Agriculture is being abandoned by the Gillard Labor/Green Government, with their Agricultural Department’s new mission completely dismissing agriculture, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Food Security John Cobb said.
The Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry’s (DAFF’s) in a letter to industry stakeholders in December last year outlined the new mission statement: ‘We work to sustain the way of life and prosperity of all Australians’.
“This is not a prank! The new mission doesn’t even mention agriculture and fails to give any direction or accountability to what DAFF stands for, Mr Cobb said
“The Government’s mission is to focus on the Australian way of life. Surely the Agricultural Department’s role is to promote the needs of Australian Agriculture.
Under the previous Government, the Department’s mission was: ‘Increasing the profitability, competitiveness, and sustainability of Australia’s agricultural, fisheries and forestry industries and enhancing the natural resource base to achieve greater national wealth and stronger rural and regional communities’.
“This Government and DAFF’s new vision is blind to the Department’s primary purpose, which is to create an environment for investment and productivity growth in the farm sector, giving farmers the modern tools they need to remain world leaders in agricultural production,” Mr Cobb said.
“That means supporting leading-edge agribusiness development and state-of-the-art research and development that have practical application in the paddock.
“My fear is, this latest winding down of purpose and ambition in DAFF’s deliverables for farmers, makes a mockery of any pretence that this Government or its Department understands the farm sector, its needs or the people in it.
“The Department of Agriculture must focus on the challenges of food security and gearing our agricultural industries to meet them – both the growing needs here at home and the mounting food crisis globally.
“Bizarrely, in the letter to industry stakeholders outlining the new mission, DAFF also stated that ‘they do not promote the interests of any sector of our society or our economy over the broader community interest’. Why have a Department of Agriculture at all?
“We need champions for our farmer sector, both within Federal Cabinet and in DAFF, to unashamedly advance farmers’ needs and interests in producing more from finite resources. But this mob have simply given up.
“At the height of the global financial crisis, it was our farm economy that kept this nation out of recession – recording double-digit growth while other sectors languished in negative territory.
“Admittedly the Department’s old mission statement was at odds with the Gillard Government’s constant trampling of agriculture. Last year alone, Minister Ludwig supported Coles over dairy farmers, saying that the milk price drop was ‘good news for milk drinkers’; In June, he shutdown live cattle exports to Indonesia; In October he announced the demise of irrigation in the Basin; In November Labor introduced the carbon tax and, in December, the Minister finished the year by telling Japan that Australian agriculture has little chance of increasing productivity.
“This year marks the Australian Year of the Farmer and I hope farmers will see a reprieve from these relentless Government-led attacks, but unfortunately it seems they can only expect more of the same.
“The only mission this Government has is to systematically undermine the Australian farm sector.”