Guy Barnett,Minister for Primary Industries and Water
When will Shane Broad stop his unfounded scaremongering and consistent attacks on Tasmania’s meat industry?
Labor is all hat and no cattle, pretending to understand rural Tasmania, despite having no plan, no policies and no solutions to grow the agricultural sector.
We responded decisively to the JBS closure, establishing the Tasmanian Meat Industry Working Group and accepting all 26 of their recommendations to provide a long-term strategy for Tasmania’s $400 million red meat sector.
We are getting on with the business of supporting Tasmanian producers, investing $1 million to drive development in the red meat industry and to deliver the Working Group’s recommendations and providing more than $800,000 to help smaller processors increase Tasmanian-based capacity.
Our practical investments in the meat industry totals more than $2.4 million across two Budgets, including the $648,000 Pastures and Livestock Productivity Project to increase production and supply of red meat.
The Working Group’s recommendations, together with the commercial proposal to more than double sheep and lamb capacity at TQM Cressy, will ensure that our state is served by a diversified processing sector heavily-focused on Tasmanian based value-adding and local jobs.
The Hodgman majority Liberal Government is the strongest supporter of Tasmania’s red meat industry, a vital sector working towards achieving our target of growing the farm gate value of Tasmanian agriculture to $10 billion by 2050.
More than $100 million was invested in the 2019-20 Budget into our comprehensive AgriFood plan for a range of initiatives to help grow rural businesses and create local jobs.
