Interview with Jaynie Seal, Sky News Regional Breakfast

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS REGIONAL BREAKFAST
WEDNESDAY, 13 AUGUST 2025

Subjects: Unlocking Productivity in Australian Agriculture roundtable; opening consultation on Feeding Australia discussion paper.

JAYNIE SEAL, HOST: Well joining us live is the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Julie Collins. Thank you, Minister, so much for joining us.

JULIE COLLINS, MINISTER FOR AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FORESTRY: Good morning to you.

SEAL: Yes, a big day yesterday, welcomed by many. Tell us what were some of the key features that came out of the meeting.

COLLINS: We had a terrific discussion yesterday about productivity of agriculture and the national economy more broadly, and about the impact that agriculture can have on that. This is important, of course, that agriculture continues to be a productive sector of Australian economy. Agriculture in the past has been quite productive and is probably one of the leading sectors in the nation and we want to ensure that that continues. It was a very good discussion. It was a discussion about how we all work together, how industry and governments work together, particularly with our international trading partners considering that 70 per cent of our agriculture product is exported as well.

SEAL: All right. And certainly we had the Grains Producers Australia CEO on this morning, Colin Bettles, and he welcomed it, reading about the NFF, certainly saying it was a vital meeting. And we also had the Dairy Farmers Association on as well, and although they did welcome, they said a lot of the ideas were mainly from your Government, which they said it's your roundtable so they should have, but they wanted to perhaps see a little bit more, you know, of the basic. But we had Nationals leader David Littleproud on as well and he said that he thought that you were hiding some of the details of the meeting and didn't know who was invited. What can you tell us on that?

COLLINS: As you indicated we had over 50 people in the room yesterday. These were leaders from peak bodies and some of the major industry players in agriculture across the entire supply chain as well. We had representatives around logistics and shipping and other things in the room. This was really important to make sure that we could deal with the feedback and have a productive discussion. But importantly we also had an issues paper out for two weeks prior to that and we had submissions from that. Those submissions fed into what was discussed at the roundtable yesterday. Things like right size regulation, things like how we work together with other tiers of government to make sure that we protect what's good about Australia's agriculture and some of the positives, our food safety standards, our biosecurity. How we might work together to reduce some of the compliance issues and some of the regulation around agriculture in Australia and how we continue to work together more broadly in making sure that we continue to have diversified market accesses overseas as well. It was a very productive discussion, and it will be fed into the Treasurer's roundtable meetings next week, and certainly the President of the NFF David Jochinke was there in the room yesterday, and he and I have both undertaken to have that feedback put into the Treasurer's roundtable for next week. Importantly too, there was some detail discussed about specifically some of the things that my Department does, and Assistant Minister Chisholm was also in the room there, and we'll continue to work with the Department on some of the suggestions that were made in the room yesterday. It was a great discussion. One of the other things that was discussed as part of the productivity roundtable yesterday was the nation's need for a food security strategy, and of course this was something we committed to prior to the election and today we are launching the discussion paper in relation to the food security strategy. This is about looking along the entire food system in Australia from inputs into production along the supply chain all the way to the end consumer. We do know that our food security is really important as a nation, but it's also important of course because we do feed the globe with 70 per cent of our agriculture product being exported. So we want to make sure that we can continue to do that too. But importantly, a lot of work was done during COVID on our supply chains and we want to have a look at that whole food system right across and to see what the weaknesses are in the system, what we can do to mitigate the cost of those mitigations, and we're going to have a food council provide advice to government on the strategy and how we might implement one.

SEAL: Yeah, you make some excellent points there in terms of our food security and how much we do export and how much produce we have and how prime it is. We do speak to a lot of farmers here, Minister, on the show who are concerned about their food production and their prime agriculture land and their renewables being placed on this land. What's being done here? Because they're saying that they've got options, they're not against transmissions and renewables in general but they are being built on the prime agriculture land.

COLLINS: There have always been land tensions around the use of land in Australia, whether that be for housing, whether it be for renewable infrastructure, whether it be for forestry, whether it be for prime agricultural production. Our role as government is to work with other tiers of government who manage a lot of the land use, but also to ensure that our farmers have the information that they need to make the best decisions for their land. Farmers are great land managers in Australia, they manage a lot of Australia's land, and they have a very important role to play in all of those things right across the Australian economy. We of course also have our Infrastructure Commissioner in terms of renewables who used to work at the NFF, Tony Mahar, who has been on farm discussing with farmers how we can better have those discussions with farmers about their options. And of course, as you say, many farmers are encouraging renewables on their property and their land, and indeed they are diversifying their income by being able to host some of that infrastructure. But importantly we've also been working on an ag and land sector plan with Minister Bowen, you know, so that we can adapt to climate change so that farmers can be more resilient, and there's been a lot of input into that too.

SEAL: And just quickly getting back to Nationals leader David Littleproud's comments from before when he said that they were hiding details of the meeting, you mentioned that release a couple of weeks ago. So do we know who was invited a couple of weeks ago?

COLLINS: Well obviously, as I said, we wanted to have all the peak bodies there and some of the national players in the room. I'm always up for a discussion with David Littleproud around ensuring that we keep agriculture as productive as possible. This is a bipartisan thing, the productivity of our agriculture sector, and it should be. I'm happy to have discussions with him about that. But certainly, we made sure that we had all the industry players in the room and that the discussion was productive, and we had 100 per cent attendance of the people that were invited. As I'm sure you appreciate with more than 50 in the room it starts to get a bit unwieldy, and that's why we had the discussion paper out there for comment and why there were submissions into the discussion paper from right across the sector.

SEAL: Minister, I've got to cut you off because we're about to end the show, I'm so sorry. But maybe we can get you and Littleproud on together. Thank you very much, Minister, thank you for joining us.