DON’T expect to see retiring Queensland MP Ian Macfarlane accepting a plush job in a foreign embassy post-politics but a career in the agribusiness or food manufacturing world is more likely.
In February, Mr Macfarlane announced he would retire from federal politics after deciding not to recontest his seat of Groom at this year’s election.
The former farmer was first elected in 1998 and spent nine years in federal cabinet serving the ministry in areas of business enhancement that he now wants to utilise post-politics.
However, after 32 years in public life, including representing the Queensland Grain Growers Association before being elected, he’s not interested in returning to agri-politics.
That man who earned the nickname “Chainsaw” due to his distinct raspy voice stressed there were three jobs he wouldn’t be doing at any-time in retirement.
“I won’t get involved in party politics, so I’m not going to be the nest president of the LNP or anything,” he said.
“I’m not going to go back to active farming and I am not going to get involved in agri-politics.
“I’ll never stop watching it from a distance but I’ve got at least 10 years more to contribute.
“I met a bloke the other day who is 82 and he’s still active in the auto industry so I’m keen to keep going too.”
Mr Macfarlane said unlike his former Liberal colleague Joe Hockey, who accepted a role as Australia’s ambassador to the US in Washington after retiring from politics last year, he had no interest in leaving his home town to pursue another career.
“I’m not moving out of Toowoomba,” he said.
“I’m not going to say whether or not there are opportunities to represent Australia overseas somewhere - I have no comment to make about that.
“But were there opportunities to represent Australia overseas, a-la Joe Hockey, I’d turn them down - I’ve got no intention of leaving Toowoomba.”
But Mr Macfarlane said he wanted to remain active in future which included extending efforts to continue improving the well-being of regional Australians and “obviously a big chunk of those are farmers”.
“I’m in the enviable position where I don’t have to work but I am looking to keep myself occupied and in no way am I ready to retire,” he said.
“I don’t think there’s any one dream job.
“I think the resources envoy job was an ideal job for me because it gave me the opportunity to attract more investment in the resources sector.
“The downside was that it was a full time job and only in the resources sector.
“But I’d like to do some work in the science and innovation space, I’d like to do some work in the agribusiness space, I’d like to do some work in the resources space and I want to do some work in the industry space.”
Mr Macfarlane said the biggest challenge Australia currently faced was not in agribusiness but in industry and related areas like food processing.
“Agribusiness has just got a wonderful future but industry is going through a massive transition,” he said.
“If you look at SPC and the way they’ve repositioned their business.
“They’re one of the last processors left in Australia and Australia has an opportunity there, so it’s more the industry space I’m looking at, but agribusiness is my passion.
“My ideal job is something that lets me spread my experience across all of those areas in multiple jobs and hopefully enough spare time to play golf once a week.”
In packing up his office this week for the last time in Canberra, Mr Macfarlane took home a framed photograph of him sitting on a peanut thrasher, on the family farm.
The picture was taken in the mid-1990’s and first appeared in the Grain Grower newspaper, taken by former journalist Lyle Shelton who is now with the Australian Christian Lobby.
The image served as a constant reminder of his farming roots and political motivations along with another classic hand-painted image of early explorer Charles Sturt and fellow explorers on horseback, traversing Australia’s unforgiving rural landscape.
“I’ll always be a farmer,” he said.
“That picture of me on the peanut thrasher has been with me in this parliament since day one.”
Mr Macfarlane said he felt he’d given his political career his “best shot”.
“It’s no secret I wasn’t ready to leave the ministry but that’s all history now,” he said of his attempts late last year to try and join the federal Nationals.
“I’m going to try and use that 15 years of experience on the front bench (in next career) and I want to stay involved in agribusiness.
“I was involved in food manufacturing in a direct sense for the last two years and before that, in my first six years as industry minister, we sort of overlapped with the Nationals party minister so agribusiness is very much in my heart.”
Mr Macfarlane was Science and Industry Minister under Tony Abbott but was not chosen in Malcolm Turnbull’s first ministry, after he became Liberal leader and Prime Minister late last year.
The Queensland MP was Industry, Tourism and Resources Minister from 2001 to 2007 in the Howard government and turned 61 last month.
He was one of several rural and agriculturally focussed members of parliament to retire at this election including; NSW Liberal Senator and Junee farmer Bill Heffernan; former shadow agriculture minister John Cobb; former Nationals leader Warren Truss; Queensland Maranoa MP Bruce Scott; and Victorian rural Liberal MP Sharman Stone.
