Five minutes with Sam Birrell MP - Member for Nicholls

Q. Horticulture provides $17 billion to Australia’s GDP and Nichols plays a hefty role in that. To this end, food is a big deal in our region. How are you supporting local horticulturists as the federal member?

"The most critical thing for horticulture in the region is irrigation water. Without irrigation water we don't grow.

I've been fighting back against some proposals and legislation by labour that removes more irrigation water from the consumptive pool in their new version of the Murray Darling basin plan.

There is enough environmental water owned by the government. There needs to be no more water bought back and that water needs to be for growers to use and trade amongst themselves at reasonable prices for the next time there's a dry period.

In my discussions with the trade minister and the shadow trade minister, I want to ensure market access is there for Australian horticultural producers and that people get access to grants for infrastructure. An example of that is grants for hail netting for fruit growers. We will work with the industry to see what is needed to thrive and prosper.

Another thing is a workable approach to industrial relations, including the PALM scheme but also a proposal we had prior to the last election was for a dedicated Ag Visa which would've provided a solid workforce for agriculture attracting people from overseas and a potential pathway to permanency."

Q. With a degree in ag from Melbourne University’s Dookie College and a background in agronomy, would you ever consider leaving politics and planting food?

"At the moment I'm committed to politics. But yeah, I would like to grow something in the future whether it be some sort of food, crop or livestock."

Some really tough years have transpired in horticulture from damaging storms to poor supermarket prices. What could we expect from a coalition government to protect growers through the tough years?

"Tough years are going to happen from time to time, it's about how resilient we are. The tools we need are around approaches to irrigation water availability, further grant money into hail netting is one thing I would like to see.

As far as supermarkets go, one of our signature policies is to put supermarkets on notice that any unconscionable behaviour towards consumers or producers will be met with the threat of a potential divestiture.

We want to make it so that unconscionable behaviour is met with a significant penalty. It will be a penalty that would make supermarkets think twice about wanting to do that and by forcing them to divest some of their assets is what we see would  be a policy around that. I hope it never gets used like I hope nobody goes to jail because they don’t commit a crime. But you need a significant disincentive and we believe that this would provide one.

An example of this may be that if a supermarket was found to have engaged in unconscionable conduct towards consumers or suppliers, they might receive a penalty where they have to divest some of their assets like, having to sell a liquor store that they own in certain places.

From our analysis of the industry, this is one thing supermarkets fear much more than the current regime of fines. We hope it’s never used because we don’t want to see that behaviour.

The broad policy sweep is that they might own a liquor outlet or a number of liquor outlets that they might be forced to sell. This is a new policy that the coalition government, driven by the nationals has created as a policy and we will take this to the next election."

What's your relationship like with the federal ag minister? How much input do you have as a regional federal member into agricultural issues?

"I had a pretty good relationship with Murray Watt who was the agriculture and emergency services minister. So we worked together significantly during the flooding events of 2022. There was a ministerial reshuffle and Julie Collins from Tasmania got the Ag portfolio. I haven’t had as much to do with her because of the short period she has been in the role.

Our shadow ag minister is David Littleproud who's got a good track record of delivering for industry and I have a very close working relationship with David. I expect that will be the case if we form government.

Around water policy, I do feed in my experience around horticulture, irrigation and understanding water markets into the general discussions we have around policy particularly on the Murray Darling Basin but also biosecurity and agriculture going forward."