The Nationals are currently planning their next raid on the taxpayer purse and it could be the biggest ever.
After staking his return to the Nationals leadership on resisting the adoption of a net zero emissions target by 2050 (which, as the IPCC has shown this week, is ludicrously inadequate), Barnaby Joyce insists he can’t agree to such a target without a plan on how to get there and a knowledge of the costs.
This led to much mockery of Joyce and others like Bridget McKenzie yesterday, given they’re actually in government, a position that traditionally gives you the power to come up with plans and implement them. “It’s not up to us to come up with the plan,” said McKenzie.
Perhaps Joyce and McKenzie thought they were still on the backbench. Or perhaps they missed Scott Morrison’s notorious memo to the public service: it is governments that come up with policies and plans, and it is the public service that implements them. Public servants are to keep their mouths shut about policy in the Morrison government. Yet here was the deputy prime minister complaining that no one had bothered to do the policy work for him.
Perhaps Joyce and McKenzie regard policy in the same way that they regard taxpayer subsidies and handouts to farmers — things that just fall from the sky without you having to bother working for them.
Joyce and the Nationals’ fallback position is that their experience with the Howard government’s endorsement of land clearing restrictions under the Kyoto Protocol — which allowed Australia to count reductions in land clearing by farmers that should have never been permitted in the first place — shows that the cost of climate action will be borne by farmers. “We’ve been sucked into this one before,” says Joyce. “Where we’ve agreed with the outcome and later on came the price, and the price was the divestiture of all our vegetation rights.”
In fact Joyce devoted a whole rant in The Australian back in February to whingeing about the impact of Kyoto, and the resulting state land clearing restrictions — on farmers. The idea will be to pre-emptively secure a colossal handout package to the bush in exchange for declining to oppose the 2050 target. And the package of course will be “administered” by the Nationals.
Except, it’s another Nationals rort, based on another Nationals lie. Agricultural data from the Nationals-controlled agriculture portfolio show that the sector has enjoyed amazing growth since 1998, when the Kyoto Protocol was agreed.
For example, is it true, as Joyce claims, that Kyoto-derived clearing restrictions mean “this is not enough to keep our farming land at a constant amount, let alone develop new areas”?
According to the data, there was over 18.2 million hectares of winter crops and over 1.3 million hectares of summer crops in 1997-98. In 2018-19, there was 19.8 million hectares of winter crops and 1.1 million of summer crops. And that was mid-drought; in 2017 there were 23.1 million hectares of winter crops.
But what about production? Surely that’s been affected by all these land clearing restrictions? We produced a mighty 34.2 million tonnes of winter crops in 1998… but 56.7 million tonnes in 2017. Using volume indices, total crop production doubled between 1998 and 2017, before drought hit and took it back to 1998 levels in 2019.
Now, it is true that farm costs have risen during that time. They’ve gone from $27 billion in total in 1998 to $52 billion in 2019. But the gross value of farm production has also increased — from $29.4 billion to $60.9 billion in 2019. As a result, farm incomes have skyrocketed. Here’s real net farm cash income in 2019-20 dollars:
That is, even during a severe drought, farm incomes were significantly higher than in 1998.
And as Crikey has outlined previously, agriculture has been a huge export success story in recent decades: the dollar value of exports has risen from $23.4 billion in 1998 to over $48 billion in 2020 — despite the drought. And it’s done it on the back of an amazing rise in productivity: employment in agriculture has fallen from 413,000 in 1998 to 334,000 in 2020, yet it still produced a massive surge in exports and production.
It may be chance, but Kyoto land clearing restrictions have coincided with a remarkable rise in agricultural production, productivity and incomes. The entire Nationals story simply doesn’t stack up. But of course it doesn’t — the point is the scam, not proper policy.
To pay people or to issue credits for not doing something intrinsically harmful is like expecting an ongoing payment for not beating up your partner. It’s a crazy concept that only the entitled and pampered rural sector backed by the LNP would the gall to come up with. Other countries can see it for the absolute nonsense it is.
I would not say it’s crazy. It’s extortion and it works really well for them. Unethical, certainly, but not crazy.
You’ve just summarised the government’s new domestic violence policy, Emoti!
I move in farming circles and I’ve never heard a farmer ask for that. Maybe Big Ag is in Barnaby’s ear – that’s who he REALLY represents – Big Ag and Mining. It’s all about Barnaby’s power and increasing it. The quicker we get rid of politicians like him (of which there are FAR too many) the better.
You’ve never heard of the decent family man murdered by a farmer who thankfully died in jail and whose son said more would be murdered if the NSW Veg act wasn’t repealed? I have posts elsewhere here with links, both the son and grandson of the murderous bast… have finally been fined for illegal land clearing recently.
Thanks BK. Another great article to add to the list.
The Nationals can come up with subsidies for farmers all they like. If climate change is not fully, comprehensively, effectively addressed and mitigated, farmers won’t be growing anything. Stock will be cooked where it stands and seed cooked where planted. The planet has never been hotter – this week Sicily has recorded its highest ever temperature of 48.5 Celsius – and this Government simply does not get it. We should move the seat of Federal Parliament to Marble Bar and let them feel the full effect – Canberra is way to cushy for them.
With Beetrooter in charge, they should go back to calling themselves the Country Party – emphasis on the first syllable.
When Blackjack McEwan called out “I’m a Country Member!”, Great Gough quipped, “I do remember.”
LOL. They don’t make them like that anymore…
The quick quip is a skill to be envied.
Good quote, but it was Sir Winton Turnbull (no relation to the Fizza) not Black Jack who said that line.
Thanks for the correction – always appreciated.
For years I’ve assumed that he was called Blackjack because of his preferred way of dealing with dissent.
Turns out that Silver Ming called him Black Jack because of his dark eyebrows and not just his grim nature and foul temper.
Gough Whitlam – Wikiquote
I note Crikey doesn’t appreciate quick quotes. I was just asked by a red box not to comment so quickly. “Slow down” I was told, like an overenthusiastic schoolchild.
Get a grip Crikey!
‘
From wiki quote: The Country Party never forgave him for saying that their members sat on the fence with both ears to the ground. It seems, 50 years and millions of cleared acres on, that nothing has changed.
To be fair, it can’t be easy being Barnaby Joyce for question time let alone all the time.
The question should be “Why IS Barnaby?”.
A follow up could be “What for is Barnaby?”
ooh, ooh..I know that one!
“To fill the trough to overflowing”!
A recent analysis revealed a single fracking company cleared so much native vegetation for geological seismic testing in the Kimberley that, if it was assembled in a straight line, it would be a road that stretched from Perth to London.