John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, it may come as a shock to you, or perhaps it would not, that everything that is said in this chamber is not necessarily true or correct. It would not be a shock to you. I heard your explanation today about how you were being misquoted again. I just want to refer to Senator Lazarus: on Wednesday, 19 August, during statements by senators, he used his time to criticise the government for not doing anything for the sugar industry.

Following the 2013 election, I became Nationals duty senator for the electorate of Richmond. On one of my visits to the electorate in August last year it was suggested by the President of the Tweed Heads Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Matthew Fraser, that I needed to talk to the Tweed River Canegrowers Association about some looming problems they and their Queensland counterparts were facing. So that meeting was arranged, and I met with Dave Bartlett and other growers at the Condong Mill office at Murwillumbah and they explained how their industry works. It was clear their future was uncertain because of the looming dominance of big companies like Wilmar and the likely effect on grower returns. As I listened, I was wondering where the Labor member for Richmond, Justine Elliott, was. Surely she should have been in there fighting for this industry, but she was nowhere to be seen.

On return to parliament, I spoke with my Queensland Nationals colleague, Senator O'Sullivan, and he too was aware of the issues in his state, so we co-sponsored a Senate inquiry into the sugar industry that handed down its report on 24 June. I do not propose to go into the details of that report here because it is all on Hansard, but the committee recommended a mandatory code of conduct be adopted and that millers need to come to the table in good faith in negotiations with the growers.

At the same time as that inquiry was going on, an LNP committee headed by the member for Dawson, Mr George Christensen, handed down a code of conduct for the sugar industry. The purpose of that code is to regulate the conduct of sugar millers, sugar port owners and cane producers to ensure fair and transparent access to sugar-milling services, to ensure choice regarding marketing services and to provide for mechanisms to negotiate disputes. The code states that a sugar miller must enter into a cane supply agreement, or enter into negotiations about the terms of a cane supply agreement, with a cane producer if the cane producer has applied to the sugar miller to enter into a cane supply agreement. It makes clear that a sugar miller and a cane producer must at all times deal with each other in good faith, and if there is a dispute it would go to an independent arbitrator. I congratulate the member for Dawson and his colleagues on the enormous amount of work they put into developing this code.

On 19 August, Senator Lazarus came in here grandstanding, saying he was going to be the champion of the Queensland sugar industry—right!—despite playing no part in the inquiry which was trying to find a solution. Did Senator Lazarus make a submission to the inquiry?

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not at all. Did he attend any of the three hearings?

Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He did not.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, he did not, Senator O'Sullivan. Why hasn't he spoken on the Senate committee report? He has had plenty of opportunity to do so. The self-declared champion of the sugar industry has not fired a shot. Senators Sterle and Bullock travelled all the way from Western Australia for the hearings in February. I travelled from northern New South Wales. Senators O'Sullivan, Canavan and Macdonald came from various parts of Queensland. But Senator Lazarus could not even step out his front door! I am sure the senators who took part in the inquiry are, like me, disgusted by his comments after all the hard work we put in over the weeks of the hearings. A check of Hansard reveals that, before Senator Lazarus's speech on 19 August, he had only mentioned the sugar industry once in his 15 months here. That was in his maiden speech. That is how much of a champion he is of the Queensland sugar industry! We met with the cane growers. I had them in my office. We took evidence from them at Murwillumbah, Mackay and Townsville. We heard about their problems, we questioned the millers and so on.

Between the time Senator Lazarus became an independent on 15 March this year and these sittings, he has voted in divisions 21 times with the government, 40 times with the opposition and 51 times with the Greens. As for his opening remarks in his speech on 19 August that the Abbott government has no regard for industry or jobs, we know where he stands on the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement because he was one of the speakers trotted out by the Electrical Trades Union at a rally in Brisbane in July. Maybe Senator Lazarus is interested in learning that the signing of the Japan-Australia Free Trade Agreement has resulted in the doubling of exports of mangoes in the first three months of the year. Tell the growers around Mareeba, Burdekin, Rockhampton and Bundaberg that that is not good news!

The truth has to be spoken here. Senator Lazarus has not stuck up for the people who elected him. He was elected as a conservative, not as a left-wing socialist Green—which is what his votes in this place are showing—and he ought to look at the people who voted him in. (Time expired)