Barnaby Joyce has been asked by Cathy McGowan to change his language when it comes to talking about “farmers” struggling with the drought.
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The image of a farmer on that land is easy to picture, but the Indi MP pointed out in Parliament on Monday that there are many people who contribute to farming and suffer when things are tough.
“Could we talk about language?” she said.
“I’m a single woman farmer, I run my own farm.
“Most of the people who work in agriculture have farming businesses, they’re farm families.”
Ms McGowan was responding to a speech by former agriculture minister Mr Joyce who pressed the need to grow the agriculture industry.
“Could we talk about farm families and all the units if the farm family business – the production side, the business side, the family side and the caring side – and come up with policies that encompass us all together?” she said.
Mr Joyce’s motion was to “commend the hard-working men and women of Australia’s farms and rural industry” and “stand with farmers across Australia facing severe hardship”.
“We have to get them through this drought. We have to make sure these family farms stay on the land, that this drought is not the reason they go broke,” he said.
Mr Joyce also took aim at Farrer MP Sussan Ley’s desire to ban live sheep exports, saying it was necessary to support farmers and producers.
“The agriculture industry does have some threats though,” Mr Joyce said.
“The threats are are a government that does not have the same passion to keep the live sheep trade, to keep the live cattle trade.”
Ms Ley has been unable to continue supporting her own private member’s bill since her promotion to the ministry, and the Coalition voted down attempts last week to bring it on for debate.
She said the proposed bill was already making an impact on stopping live sheep exports, even if it has not passed the House of Representatives.
“That marker on the road to reform has been very strong and very important,” she said.
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