MEMBER for Murray Helen Dalton has accused the NSW government of forcing farming families to “shut up shop”.
The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party (SFFP) MP raised the issue in parliament last week, telling her fellow representative the “annihilation” of small family farms across New South Wales was driven by government policy, rather than drought or market forces.
“For years, I have heard rumours of a plot to wipe out family farms in this state and to import all our food cheaply from Asia,” Mrs Dalton said.
“I used to think this was just paranoia and conspiracy but lately the plot has thickened.”
Mrs Dalton said in recent weeks parliament had heard some “extraordinary” statements from prominent National Party members.
“That is the party that is supposed to represent regional Australia,” she said.
“Last month, Federal Minister for Agriculture Bridget McKenzie said that struggling farmers should consider selling up and leaving the land.
“Last week, former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said the same thing on Sky News, telling farmers to get another job.
“After decades in which their own government’s policies have seen a transfer of hundreds of billions dollars away from family farms and communities, and into the hands of giant, often foreign-owned corporations, these politicians are now telling the remaining Aussie small town survivors to shut up shop.
“If only getting another job were that easy for farmers, for their families and for their communities.”
Mrs Dalton said for a farmer, getting another job was not like moving from a bank job to a marketing job in Sydney,
“Selling your farm is a traumatic experience,” she said.
“It is like selling your heritage, your identity, your home.
“In rural New South Wales, you cannot just walk into another job down the road.
“Every time a farming family leaves the bush, the flow-on effects for small towns are enormous.”
Mrs Dalton said less farming families meant less money going into corner shops, fewer children going to local schools and less demand for the local businesses.
“More people lose their jobs and more families move to Sydney,” she said.
“Government bureaucrats use this as an excuse to cut funding for schools, hospitals and services, and the multiplier effect—or the minus effect—just continues.
“Last month, SunRice announced the loss of 32 jobs in Leeton and Deniliquin, taking the total number of jobs lost in the company to 130 in the past year.
“What people do not realise is that 130 jobs lost in Leeton and Deniliquin is the equivalent of 33,000 jobs lost in Sydney, when you compare the populations.”
The Murray MP said if a large employer were forced to retrench 33,000 workers in Sydney, it would prompt mass protests, rallies and front-page stories.
“The government would initiate a rescue package,” she said.
“But in Deniliquin and Leeton, the government just turns the knife.
“The government is still pushing ahead with plans to flush 450 gigalitres of our productive water and another 2000 gigalitres of so-called planned environmental water to South Australia.
“That will wipe out entire industries.”
Mrs Dalton said it was the government that had killed these jobs, not the drought, with sectors such as the dairy industry sunk by “bad water and agricultural policy”.
“The number of dairy farms in Australia has gone down 400 per cent over the past 40 years,” she said.
“When water is now more expensive than milk, how can this industry possibly survive?
“If city people do not care about job losses, suicides and the demise of country towns, the death of dairy will make them take notice, especially when they have to use Chinese-produced long-life milk for their morning coffees.”
Mrs Dalton said the average age of the Australian farmer was 56, and children were increasingly choosing not to take over the family business.
“They are moving to the city, and I do not blame them,” she said.
“It is up to us in parliament to show our children that there is a future in farming, to show them that we want to grow our own food, not import it.
“We should show them that we want diversity in agriculture, not domination by multinationals, and that we want people living in regional towns, not moving to Sydney and Melbourne.
“I call on this government to publicly commit to supporting irrigated agriculture in this state.
“It is time that this government invested in family farms and rural communities, and stopped destroying them.”
