House debates

Tuesday, 19 June 2007

Wheat Marketing Amendment Bill 2007

Second Reading

8:02 pm

Photo of Gavan O'ConnorGavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Oh, from the south-east. He has joined us in the House tonight for this debate. He would appreciate this comment: there is no point in feeding the minister wheat. He has been running around in policy terms like a chook with his head cut off ever since the wheat for weapons scandal. I ask: where in the minister’s second reading speech is the acceptance by this minister and this government of their responsibility to growers and to the industry? I note in the gallery tonight a visitor from Geelong—a local legend, Mick Robinson. Mick served for some 10 years on the Bellarine Council. He served with distinction on that council as a local legislator who accepted his responsibility to his constituency and to his community. He umpired some 300 games in the local leagues in the Geelong and Western District regions, and he accepted responsibility for the decisions that he made in all of those games. He now serves on the tribunal in the Geelong area, and he accepts responsibility for the decisions that he makes on the future of others. But we do not get any sense of responsibility when we look at the minister’s second reading speech on this piece of legislation. I am going to take you through this speech, because it is a classic example of how this government avoids being accountable and avoids its responsibility to key constituencies in this nation. In his opening remarks, the minister states:

It has been an immensely difficult 18 months for Australia’s wheat growers.

We on this side certainly agree with him. He goes on to say:

Last year they faced a devastating growing season as winter and spring rains failed and the drought continued to tighten its grip across the country.

This is from a government that only recently conceded that global warming is a problem. He goes on:

Growers have also had to deal with continued pressure to dismantle their wheat single desk due to strong, but justified, criticism of the corporate behaviour of AWB Ltd stemming from the findings of the Cole commission of inquiry.

What the minister failed to mention was that this industry and those growers have had to deal with the incompetence of National Party ministers in dealing with the AWB scandal that has cost them hundreds of millions of dollars in lost market—and it is about to cost them many hundreds of millions more as the international wheat community starts looking at the prospect of suing the pants off AWB for its actions in the wheat for weapons scandal.

What he fails to mention is that the Howard government became Saddam Hussein’s bagman. It all happened under the watchful eye of Howard government agriculture, trade and foreign affairs ministers. The cost to growers is in the hundreds of millions, yet not one minister has paid any political price for their incompetence in those portfolios. The minister then goes on with the speech, giving the detail of the legislation and coming to this point:

The government has decided to give growers until 1 March 2008 to establish a new entity to manage the single desk.

What happened to the government’s responsibility to govern? Isn’t that what you were elected to do? Talk about giving a hospital handpass to somebody in a difficult position. The industry is on its knees from drought, is reeling from the wheat for weapons scandal, has had to put up with incompetent ministers whose negligence has almost brought it down, has to put up with a government that has until recently denied the existence of climate change, and, when the going gets tough, the National Party ministers handball the problem to growers and deliver them an ultimatum: it has decided to give growers until 1 March 2008 to establish a new entity. The minister goes on to say:

The government acknowledges that the challenge it has set the industry is a significant one. No-one should be under any illusions as to the difficulty of the task that lies ahead for the industry. It will require strong leadership and unity within the industry to reach a satisfactory outcome in the time allowed. It is now time for the industry to act. The government is giving industry the opportunity to set up what it has asked for; it is now the responsibility of industry to deliver.

Have you ever heard a greater cop-out than that? I have been in this parliament a considerable time and I do not think that I have ever heard a greater cop-out in terms of ministerial and governmental responsibility than that. Of course the challenges are significant and it is a difficult time for the industry. But where is the leadership from and the unity of the government?

Every member of this House—both sides of it—knows exactly the contempt in which these National Party ministers are held in this place. I hear it from members opposite. The senior members of the coalition grizzle in my ear and complain about National Party ministers and their incompetence. We get stuck into them, and it is our right to do so. But when it comes from members opposite, I simply say to them that they should get up in their own party room and wield the axe on them. You should have done it long ago, because they are absolutely incompetent and have betrayed the industry that they pledged themselves to protect. I will go to one more line of the minister’s speech, if I might. He had this to say:

The wheat industry is a major Australian export earner of great social and economic significance. Growers must be given the opportunity to get it right.

It is not the growers but the government who should have got this right. It is the government that should have prevented the wheat for weapons scandal. The only reason that this legislation is in this House tonight is the incompetence of government ministers.

Why do I say that the government is duplicitous? Because one after the other they get up here on the floor of this parliament and beat their breast about defending the single desk. We on this side of the House, the Americans and the whole international community know that they have already sold the single desk in the US FTA and the WTO—they have sold it out to the Americans. As part of the US FTA, the government agreed to work with the United States in the current round for the dismantling of all state trading enterprises, such as the wheat single desk. Everybody knows that when the Americans talk about state trading enterprises they are talking about Australia’s single desk. Article 3.1.1 of the US FTA commits the parties to work together to ‘reach an agreement on agriculture in the WTO that eliminates restrictions on a person’s right to export’. In its report on the FTA to the President and congress, the US Technical Advisory Committee on Grains, Feeds and Oil Seeds made it clear that it expects the administration to hold the Australian government to this commitment—the commitment in relation to the export monopoly single desk here in Australia. The summary of the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement on the website of the US special trade representative contains the following statement, which is dated 2 August 2004:

In response to U.S. concerns about Australia’s agricultural state trading enterprises, Australia committed to working with the U.S. in the ongoing WTO negotiations on agriculture to develop export competition disciplines that eliminate restrictions on the right of entities to export.

There can only be one conclusion from those statements, and that is that the Howard Liberal government agreed in the US FTA in 2004 to work with the United States entities to dismantle the single desk. Pure and simple, this is a duplicitous and incompetent government. Wheat growers have paid a heavy price for that incompetence. The reason we are having this debate tonight is that this government failed to be accountable to the wheat growers, to this nation and to the great governance principles that govern all enterprises in this nation. (Time expired)

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