Page 4576 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 18 October 2011
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Australia from a net importer of wheat to a net exporter of wheat about the turn of the last century. His most famous strain of wheat, federation, which was not only widely used in Australia but at one stage was the most widely planted strain of wheat in the world, was the historic contribution of the people of the ACT and region to the development of food, not just food production here but food production across the world. These are important issues.
The minister did talk about how we had a thriving horticultural industry in the past and although it is not as big as it was, it is still there and it is changing. The minister touched on this. We still have a thriving orchard industry in and around Pialligo. We used to have dairy farms, but that is now given over to grass production. We also have a wine industry, both in the Majura valley and around Pialligo, and new industries are emerging, such as the very successful truffle industry that we have seen developed, some inside the borders of the ACT and some outside. But perhaps the harbinger of the truffle industry in south-eastern Australia was in the Majura valley.
There are many issues in relation to food production that need to be addressed. One of them was something that I have been very proud to have been involved in, which was the process whereby we ensured the tenure of rural leases and the security of tenure of rural leases in the ACT. When I first came to work in this place as a humble adviser I got the job of being the rural adviser to the then minister for the environment and was immediately confronted with a number of issues that hinged upon food production and other sorts of production as well. Although we do have some food industries, we are mainly a fibre-producing area in the form of superfine wool. But the big problem confronting rural lessees when I first came to work in this place in 1996 was the lack of security of tenure. That was a little history lesson.
Most, but not all, of this area used to be freehold land and at the creation of the ACT there was a process of turning freehold land in residential areas into leasehold land. But most of the rural land continued to be freehold land until 1972, when the Whitlam government came along and decided that it would complete the process of converting all the land from freehold to leasehold. And there are constitutional reasons why that should have happened. But in the process of doing so the rural lessees in the ACT were left high and dry. They did not have security of tenure, and that continued for years and years. When I came to work in this place in 1996, most rural lessees in the ACT were working on three-month leases, from three months to three months.
It was the work of Gary Humphries at the time, who instituted a rural task force that consisted of rural lessees and others, which came up with the solution, which means that now most rural lessees in the ACT operate on 99-year leases. It was not said to me directly the other day but one of the rural lessees said, “Back then we did not think that anyone could solve the problem.” But the problem was solved, and the ACT is better off for having solved that problem. Security of tenure is one of the most important things that we have when we are looking at agricultural industries.
I do note that the Greens speak a lot about the importance of food production. We have had community gardens and peak oil debates and all these sorts of things about agriculture, but there are a few things that we really need to put on the record. It was the Greens who proposed closing down the ACT’s major food production enterprise,
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