Jan Davis: The Campaign That Never Was …

The Campaign That Never Was is all but over. One is left with the firm impression that even some of the candidates themselves have had little interest in it – let alone the poor punters who have to make a choice on Saturday week.

As has been our practice in the past, the TFGA wrote to all parties asking for a detailed rundown on their agricultural policies when the election date was formally announced. As has been their practice, the parties either did not reply or left it to the last minute to do so. At the time of writing, we had only received the Liberals’ policy.

We don’t tell people how to vote. However, we do try to ascertain the facts about the parties’ policies, lay them out in a readable, comprehensible form and let people draw their own conclusions.

Having said that, I went back through the issues we raised before the 2010 election. Guess what? Not much has changed. Irrigation development is bounding ahead; but farmers still face many of the same or similar issues with government.

We launched our election platform earlier this week. It sets out details of the issues that will be front of mind for farmers when they cast their votes on March 15th. We will also be providing our appraisal of the respective parties’ policies (if we get them in time) next week.

In the meantime, here is an idea of what is still front of mind on the farm four years after the last election.

First and foremost, we want an incoming government to actually read our annual Budget submissions and take some notice of them. We put a lot of effort each year into advising the government where it might allocate taxpayers’ money to maximise the economic contribution of farming. At each Budget presentation, we look to see how successful or persuasive we have been. Guess what? The dog may as well have eaten our homework. So what we want is a commitment to genuine engagement with farmers.

There is also a piece of legislation called the Primary Industry Activities Protection Act 1995. It is rarely seen, and even more rarely heard; but, to us, it is one of the most important statutes that we have on the books. It is supposed to protect the rights of farmers to farm, but it has been undermined by the passage of time and by the adoption of other conflicting legislation. In particular, it is meant to provide protection to farmers when non-farmer tree-changers move into a farming area and have different lifestyle and environmental expectations to the farmer next door who has been working the land for generations. The legislation stipulates that such a primary industry does not constitute a nuisance if the area of land has been used for primary industry for a continuous period longer than a year and there have been no recent change to landuse conditions.

We want that law strengthened.

We also still want due recognition (that is, financial consideration), for our role as environmental stewards.

What we said back in 2010 was:
“If farmers are to be appropriately engaged and paid for delivering on the community’s aspirations for the conservation of natural assets on private land, the state government needs to commit to introducing more appropriate stewardship arrangements for farmers.”

That still stands. If farmers are to lose access to their own land on conservation grounds in the public interest, then they should be compensated.

We are also concerned about the lack of consideration shown to landowners by government departments and instrumentalities that are responsible for managing more than half of Tasmania’s land. We continue to have a major problem with pests and game, weeds, boundary fences and fire spreading from public lands onto private farm land.

There are a range of other areas outlined in our election platform. I’m not going to go through them in detail, but here is a summary of the things our elected representatives need to do to support our important farming sector.

We’ll expect an incoming government to:
• Support a range of initiatives that will encourage investment in improved on-farm efficiency and innovation.
• Develop a whole of government food policy that involves a strategic long-term approach to ensuring our food sector remains sustainable into the future.
• Review and rationalise unnecessary regulatory burdens that are hampering growth and expansion of farm businesses.
• Legislate to protect high value agricultural land and reinforce right to farm legislation.
• Invest in programs that support and develop regional communities.
• Recognise and resource freight-related issues of strategic importance to the farming sector.
• Invest in initiatives that will promote the values of Tasmanian food and fibre products.
• Work with farmers to deliver projects that address key on-farm issues inhibiting growth and expansion of the industry.
• Join in a partnership approach on issues of strategic importance to the farming sector.

If you’re interested in finding out more, you can read the platform on our webpage, www.tfga.com.au or ask for a hard copy from our office by phoning 6332 1800.
TFGA CEO Jan Davis’ Tasmanian Country column today