New NFF boss pro-farm, not anti-mining

Ms Simson told Fairfax Agricultural Media she was “very excited, honoured and humbled” to be the National Farmers’ Federation’s (NFF) first ever female President, having served in the vice-president’s role since 2014 and a board director from 2011.

Her ascent to the NFF’s top job started when she was jolted into grass-roots action and became heavily involved in lobbying to prevent the go-ahead of government issued mining licenses covering high earning farm-land on her home turf on the Liverpool Plains in NSW, without community consultation.

The licenses were placed over land situated about 50 kilometres east of her family’s mixed cattle and cropping farm where she shares responsibilities with her husband Ed - a fourth generation farmer - and her son who has now returned home to become the fifth generation of Simsons who’ve worked that same land.

Ms Simson said her home community was “outraged” that valuable agricultural land was going to be mined, at the risk of causing irreversible environmental damage, based on licenses that were approved without any prior, community consultation.

“It seemed like agriculture was left out of the discussion altogether,” she said.

Ms Simson said while she’d been labelled anti-mining or anti-coal, “that’s actually not what I feel at all”.

“My focus is pro-agriculture and pro-the inclusion of agriculture in land-use policy,” she said.

“Agriculture is something that we’ve done as a country over many generations and we’ve just always done it.

“We’ve never needed enabling legislation like other industries have, to enable our industry to function.

“It was very frustrating at the time to find that we were overlooked in favour of other legislation that guaranteed mining had rights to land etc.”

Ms Simson said she was “very cranky” and thought the process of issuing the licenses needed to change, to protect farmers’ interests, so she joined the Liverpool Plains Shire Council and served a four year term.

She said her family had also been members of NSWFarmers “forever” but weren’t very active.

However, her involvement in agri-politics intensified, as the mining debate escalated, leading to her becoming the first female president of NSWFarmers in 2011 and going on to serve a four-year term.

But Ms Simson said her credibility suffered by only being a “single issue” farm representative so she broadened her horizons, presenting evidence at several Senate inquiries, including transparency in cattle prices and competition in grain port ownership.

She has also taken a leading role in trying to achieve a multi-peril crop insurance scheme in Australia, to help mitigate production risks that may also be expended to include other commodities.

“The land-use issue is still a pet topic of mine but it’s also one that other people have also taken on,” she said.

Ms Simson down-played questions about whether her presidency hindered the NFF’s ongoing relationship with the mining sector, or derailed any joint lobbying efforts on national issues, like protecting the diesel fuel rebate.

“The mining companies I deal with know that I want balanced outcomes and outcomes that reflect the needs of agriculture which they are generally quite happy to accede to,” she said.

“Everybody has to work together and it’s about me being a spokesperson for agriculture and being very proactive about agriculture rather than being a hater or anti-anything and that’s something I’m very strong about.

“We need to turn the conversations around and be positive rather than being a hater or anti stuff and be positive about what we’re promoting and in my case that’s agriculture.

“I’ve worked alongside mining and gas companies for many years now and I’m sure I’ll continue to do that.”

Ms Simson said mining’s big challenge was the regulatory environment that it operated in and having an effective land use policy that didn’t conflict with agriculture and respected community concerns.

She said there had been some improvement on that front in NSW in the past five years but more needed to be done nationally.

Ms Simson also defended her professional relationship with Nationals leader and Agriculture and Water Resources Minister Barnaby Joyce, saying it was “as good as we’ve ever had” despite being involved in lobbying activities, against mining, in his New England electorate causing him ongoing political headaches.

She appeared in a tense panel discussion alongside Mr Joyce and his arch political rival and New England challenger Tony Windsor on the ABC’s Q&A program during the recent federal election campaign.

While the Nationals leader was ambushed on mining issues and clarified that it was a state, and not a federal legal responsibility, Ms Simson agreed with the questioning and concerns posed by anti-mining activists.

“We are living here in a democracy where the people have such strong feelings about this, such strong feelings about agricultural land and water, yet we still see politicians passing the buck and blaming each other,” Ms Simson said on Q&Q.

“I know that it's difficult when you have a situation where you're dealing with licences from another administration, but somebody has to take responsibility at some stage

“Somebody has to stand up for our land and our water.

“What we're hearing tonight - that it's the state government's responsibility or it's somebody else's responsibility for actually putting those licences in place - it's just not good enough.

“In the Liverpool Plains, we've been doing this for 10 years now.

“We've actually been standing up and saying, ‘enough is enough’.

“We're told consistently by politicians that we shouldn't have to be dealing with these licences and that somebody else will deal with them - but nobody ever does.”

Speaking to Fairfax Agricultural Media, Ms Simson stressed the NFF was an apolitical advocacy group and her main job now was to represent members’ interests, to all politicians in Canberra.

“Now what that means is that sometimes I will agree with politicians, including Barnaby Joyce, and at other times most likely we won’t (agree),” she said.

“I’m always up front about telling people - including politicians - when I agree with them or don’t agree with them and Barnaby is (like that) as well and I think we have that sort of a relationship.

“These days in parliament obviously it’s about working with a whole range of parties and crossbenchers and a wide ranging political debate and discussion rather than just one party.

“It’s very important we have bipartisan support or try and seek bipartisan support with most of our policies.

“I don’t have an issue with Barnaby Joyce and I don’t think he has an issue with me but that doesn’t mean we don’t agree and disagree on different things.”

Mr Joyce told Fairfax Agricultural Media he looked forward to working with Ms Simson and had shared a close working relationship with her in the past.

“If you’re seen as a partisan political player that’s no good but I’m certain she won’t do that,” he said of the new NFF president.

“You can’t be partisan - you have to provide policy - and I’m sure Fiona will do that.”

Asked about his expectations for the NFF in the new term of government, Mr Joyce said he expected them to “work closely with us to drive positive policies we can take forward”.

“The NFF have an important role to play and we need open door communication so that they clearly understand our problems and we clearly understand theirs and we fight for what we can deliver and we have been doing that,” he said while highlighting the $4 billion Agricultural Competitiveness White Paper delivered in the previous parliament.

He also pointed to the mobile black spots being repaired opening nine new market destinations for live animal exports, free trade agreements and tax measures like fencing and water write-offs and improved arrangements for Farm Management Deposit schemes.

“We’ve had more delivered under this government than we have for a very long time for the farm sector,” he said.

“Agriculture has been elevated to the second highest office in the land – we take it very, very seriously and this is a great opportunity for the NFF to work with us in this space, even on our dams’ policy and the Murray Darling Basin which are also vitally important.”

Ms Simson said she wasn’t against gas or coal “per se” but was “very interested” in renewable energy discussions which she believes must be included more in the NFF’s talks about climate change that have been bolstered by a recent, proactive policy shift.

“Mining has been a very proud part of our history but we do need to be actually transitioning to renewable energy,” she said.