Won’t Somebody Please Think of the Food Security

Australians know the first verse of the anthem. We sing it at school assemblies, grand finals, Anzac services. Most of the time we do not stop to think about what it is actually claiming.

“Australians all let us rejoice…We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil…Our home is girt by sea…Our land abounds in nature’s gifts…”

Those lines are not just poetry. They are a summary of capability. They describe a country that should be able to feed itself, from paddock to plate and from sea to serving.

That is why the question matters. If we are this well-endowed, why does Australia feel increasingly exposed on Food Security?

Golden soil, shrinking capacity

“Golden soil” points to productive land, the kind that grows food and supports regional towns. Australia still has it, but we are steadily eroding the conditions that keep people farming.

Costs rise, rules multiply, and uncertainty becomes the norm. Ownership consolidates. Productive land shifts into structures far removed from local communities. Barriers to entry increase, and younger farmers struggle to take the reins.

When the people who produce food are squeezed out, the soil does not stop being golden. We just stop turning that potential into real local supply. Food Security is not the land alone. It is the ability to keep producing.

Wealth for toil, until toil is pushed aside

“Wealth for toil” assumes a fair bargain. If you do the work, the nation benefits and the producer can keep going.

But too often, modern policy settings deliver the opposite. Instead of building resilient domestic supply, we pay for exits. We force buyouts. We remove capacity. Then we act surprised when shelves are filled with imported alternatives.

Outsourcing food production might look efficient on a spreadsheet. It is not efficient when freight spikes, supply chains break, geopolitics turns, or quality standards differ.

Food Security is what remains when the system is under stress.

Girt by sea, but locked out of it

Australia being “girt by sea” should be one of our greatest strategic advantages. We are surrounded by protein.

Yet access to that advantage is being narrowed.

In Western Australia, commercial fishing has faced permanent bans and forced buyouts in significant areas. Whatever view someone holds about fishing policy, the practical outcome is clear: less domestic seafood coming off local boats and more reliance on imports.

Once commercial access and infrastructure are removed, it does not bounce back quickly. Skills fade. processing options disappear. Supply chains thin out. That is not a theoretical issue. It is a direct hit to Food Security.

Nature’s gifts, and a growing dependence

“Our land abounds in nature’s gifts” is often treated as a conservation slogan. It is also a responsibility.

Renewable resources can be harvested carefully, sustainably, and locally. That requires people on the ground, and on the water, with the knowledge to do it properly.

In NSW, Region 1 and 2 prawn trawl and estuary prawn share fishers were forced into buyouts following a biosecurity scare. The deeper details are complex, but the outcome is simple: local supply drops and imports fill the gap.

When we repeatedly remove Australian producers from Australian resources, we do not eliminate demand. We just hand that demand to overseas suppliers, under rules and standards we do not control.

That is the opposite of Food Security.

Food security is not a slogan, it is capacity

It is easy to assume food will always be there. Australia is wealthy, remote, and stable. We tell ourselves we are safe.

But resilience is not a feeling. It is a system. And systems depend on capacity.

Capacity is working boats, local processing, regional transport, skilled crews, viable farms, and pathways for young people to enter the industries that feed us.

Every forced exit reduces that capacity. Every added barrier reduces it again. Over time, we become dependent, and dependency increases sovereign risk.

That is the quiet truth behind the anthem’s first verse. The gifts are real. The question is whether we still intend to use them.

Because if “advance Australia fair” means anything in 2026, it should include a simple promise:

Australia should be able to feed itself.

For the sake of our Food Security, we should start acting like it.