THE National Farmers Federation has attacked both major parties and their leaders for failing to seize regionally-focused initiatives to tackle emerging national issues.
NFF released its election policy platform paper this week, taking both the Government and Opposition to task over issues like property rights, population policy, the economy and the environment.
Those four key issues will underpin the NFF's campaign for agriculture throughout this year's election, and are being pushed with crucial MPs and Senators ahead of, and during, the campaign period.
In its 30-page jam-packed election paper, NFF has called for commitments on a range of specific farming issues from both the major and minor parties, arguing - to date - they have not seen anything concrete from either of the two contenders for Prime Minister on these four main points.
The farm lobby's chief executive officer, Ben Fargher, said farmers were "over the rhetoric" and needed commitments to meet the big challenges facing the agricultural sector.
"We haven’t seen enough from either aspirant to Australia’s top job to warrant endorsement on any of these nation-building, forward-looking issues," Mr Fargher said.
"Australia faces serious problems and we need leaders committed to meeting them head on, not fluffing around the edges."
The NFF policy paper said Australian Governments had not stepped up to the plate with policies which addressed the opportunities and responsibilities Australian farmers faced to produce more food for a growing world population.
"Our international neighbours, struggling to meet increasing and shifting domestic demand, are already looking to Australia," NFF president David Crombie said in the paper's introduction.
"Government policies need to be geared to these challenges. At present they are not."
Mr Crombie said Australian farmers could increase food and fibre production but to do so needed research tools, water and farmland security, better infrastructure and open markets.
He also said existing problems dealing with congestion in Australian cities would compound unless governments recognised the role regional development could play in relieving the stress.
NFF wants the next Government to remove disincentives for living and working in regional Australia along with a review of the tax zone rebate scheme.
NFF's election paper also calls for a "a sweeping strategic overhaul of infrastructure", including road and rail networks, water and social infrastructure and a plan guaranteeing delivery of "appropriate and affordable" high-speed broadband technologies to regional Australia.
Also on the wish list are calls to make employment and training programs more accessible and rationalise the number of these programs, along with incentives to attract and retain a workforce through domestic relocation which will encourage people from areas outside regional areas to fill workforce shortages.
Immigration criteria for both temporary and permanent migrants should encourage or even require new Australians to work and live in regional Australia.
On the research front, NFF wants guaranteed increases to the current level of investment and commitment to a new national agricultural research and development plan to establish Australia as a world-leader in efficient agricultural production and climate change adaptation.
The paper said agricultural carbon mitigation and adaptation "must not come at the expense of productivity-based research and development".
On the environment, NFF wanted an equal weighting of social, economic and environmental outcomes, without a sole focus on the latter.
The paper also calls for specific commitments to a "10-year period of water policy stability" to allow irrigators and their communities to adjust to the National Water Initiative, drought and the implementation of a new Murray Darling Basin Plan.
On carbon accounting, NFF said both major parties must acknowledge carbon abatement practices could not be limited to those recognised by the flawed Kyoto carbon accounting rules, and wanted a commitment to advocating for changes to the international carbon accounting rules to better recognise agricultural contributions to sequestration and abatement.
The next Government would also be under pressure from farmers to enact legislation that entitled landholders to "fair and reasonable compensation payable by the Commonwealth" should any Commonwealth legislation or action reduce or alter the property rights or commercial interests of landholders.
Email a friend