House of Representatives

Monday, 3 June 2013 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 9
cannot eat live cattle and you cannot eat grain. You can
eat flour or you can eat processed meat but you cannot
eat an ox. If you put those back in, it is probably in
about eight or nine years that we will become a net
importer of food. Either way, I have heard time after
time in this place people get up and seriously talk
about how we are going to be the food bowl of Asia.
For heaven's sake, will you realise that you will be the
begging bowl of Asia? You will not be the food bowl,
you will be the begging bowl. You are living in a
country that will not be able to feed itself within three
to nine years time. You are living in a country that will
not be able to feed itself, and the morality of
continuing down this pathway is to me extremely
dubious; the morality of our situation is extremely
dubious.
I sit under the two greatest man in Australian
political history by a long way: the famous Red Ted
Theodore and Jack McEwen. Both those men said
again and again that unless we develop this country we
will not be able to hold on to it. People in this
parliament come from giant cities and have most
peculiar attitudes, such as that we have too many
people. That is a view that you could see maybe in
inner Melbourne or inner Sydney, but if you walked
100 kilometres outside of either of those cities and
went across the rest of Australia to the sea in Western
Australia you would not see anybody. There is nobody
living there. Take out a narrow 100-kilometre coastal
belt from Adelaide to Cairns through Sydney and
Melbourne and a little dot around Perth, the country is
populated by less than a million people. If ever there is
a truism of history, it is that a land without people shall
be populated by a people without land. If you think I
am exaggerating, read Mr Hitler's book called Mein
Kampf. It is excellent reading in the sense that living
room is on every third page of the book. Have a look at
the little black book that was handed out to Japanese
troops as they swarmed south and that is exactly the
same message. It is about the land and owning the
productive resources.
I must digress on that in the little bit of time that is
left to me. There are 23 licensed wheat exporters
operating in Australia today that are foreign-owned.
These exporters have invested in grain handling
capacity. Under the sale of GrainCorp the situation is
not quite as clear as I would like it to be, but it would
appear to me that almost all of your grain handling
facilities—your silos, your storage, your rolling stock
and your port facilities—are now foreign-owned, and
foreign-owned by a single corporation. Our forebears
spent their entire lives fighting to get single-desk
sellers in this industry so they could get a fair go and a
decent return. But what this parliament, on both sides,
has done is sell that single-desk seller to a single
foreign entity!
CHAMBER
With the single entity in the case of sugar mills, you
can only have a monopoly. You cannot put it in the
back of a truck and send it up the road to the next mill.
Heavens! It is only worth $40 a tonne, so you simply
cannot afford to do that. And sugar deteriorates very
rapidly. So you have a monopoly position you have
imposed upon every sugarcane farmer in this
country—a monopoly position—because almost all the
sugar mills are foreign owned, except for Mackay and
the very small industry in New South Wales. All the
rest of the 28 mills are owned by foreigners. Sixteen
years ago they were all owned by Australians.
Prior to dairy deregulation—another clever initiative
of this parliament; and if Madigan spat hatred, then I
cannot blame him because I would feel the same
way—in the year 2000, both sides of this parliament
sold off the dairy industry in exactly the same— (Time
expired)
Bill read a first time.
Debate adjourned.
PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Penalty Rates
Debate resumed on the motion:
That this House:
(1) recognises the reliance of many families and individuals
across our community on penalty rates as a key component
of their income, particularly our lowest-paid workers;
(2) acknowledges that work-life balance is important to the
health and welfare of workers, families and our community;
(3) recognises that penalty rates often compensate workers
for time they may otherwise spend with family; and
(4) opposes measures that would remove or undermine
penalty rates, 10:41:19 AM—
Ms OWENS (Parramatta) (10:41): I am pleased to
rise to stand on this important motion. I know that
everyone on this side of the chamber believes that
Australian workers should be able to lead a decent life,
sustained by a fair day's work for a fair day's pay, and
to have working conditions that allow for the building
of a life with family and friends: to plan your finances,
to spend time together and to build the things that
matter in a good life—health, financial security, family
and friends. The motion before the House reminds us
of what a working life supports: that balance between
home and work that allows for the formation of those
family units—whatever they look like—and
community networks that form the basis of a cohesive
society.
When you work unusual and changing hours, a price
is paid in lost time with family and friends, and penalty
rates are one way that the price is shared between the
worker, who pays the price, and business and
consumers who benefit from it. Penalty rates are
something that for over 100 years we recognised
should apply in jobs and workplaces. They share that