MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE
AND FOOD — PERFORMANCE
453. Mr P.J. RUNDLE to the Premier:
I refer to comments by the Minister
for Agriculture and Food reported in The West Australian of 21 July
regarding foot-and-mouth disease and subsequent calls by peak organisation the Western
Australian Farmers Federation for the minister to resign, while the
Pastoralists and Graziers Association confirmed the minister has not had the
confidence of the sector for a very long time. Will the Premier show leadership
and restore the confidence of the agricultural sector and regional WA by asking
the Minister for Agriculture and Food to resign?
Mr M.
McGOWAN replied:
I have answered this question many
times publicly. The Minister for Agriculture and Food used a formulation of words that was clumsy in relation to a significant
issue, and she apologised for it. Now, if people have to resign for
using clumsy words, member for Roe, you would not be in this Parliament. She
made a mistake and she apologised; and that, as far as I am concerned, is the
end of the matter. She has a record of achievement as long as your arm in every
single portfolio she has been engaged in, including the area of agriculture.
The member might recall that when members of the National Party and Liberal
Party were ministers for agriculture in the last government, there was a huge
fiscal cliff in the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development,
the then department of agriculture, of $131 million because agriculture got cut
each and every year over the term of the last government. We backfilled that on
the urging of the Minister for Agriculture and Food. We put in place the $48 million
grains research partnership with the Grains Research and Development Council. We
put in $25 million, because of this minister, to the Western Australian
Agricultural Research Collaboration—a huge number of different
agricultural research programs across the state that I will not go through, but
large numbers with additional funding; and a huge effort into restoring soils
and land.
The minister is the first minister
to ever embrace carbon farming in Western Australia, which is embraced by
industry across the state, and welcomed by everyone. This was not done before
this minister arrived in the role. We boosted funding for natural resource
management partnerships across the state. Whether it is oats, wine, barrier
fencing, dealing with wild dogs—you name it, this minister has driven
it. There was $10 million for the Peel food technology
facility in the member for Mandurah and member for Murray–Wellington's
electorates. The list goes on and on about initiatives to support farming,
support markets, support processing of agricultural products and research in
Western Australia, and actually support the people working in the industry,
particularly in the public sector.