Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

It is with pleasure that I support the findings of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources in terms of the honey bee industry. I endorse the congratulations that the member for Moreton just made to our committee chair, the member for Lyons, and I congratulate the member for Hume, who is now the deputy chair but who was the chair prior to the election. One of the interesting things about this committee is that it has made a seamless change, irrespective of who is in government. The committee is ploughing on with the work, and I think that reflects well not only on the committee and the secretariat but particularly on the two chairs that we have had. I congratulate the member for Lyons and the member for Hume for the excellent way in which they have both conducted the chairmanship of the committee.

The member for Hume made some interesting comments about the varroa mite and the impact that that can have on the honey bee industry. There is an extraordinary amount to be learnt, I think, from reading the report More than honey: the future of the Australian honey bee and pollination industries and from people doing a little bit of homework on the contribution that the honey bee makes, not only in terms of pollination. We have heard that it makes an indirect contribution to our economy of about $6 billion, even though it is only a $70 million industry. It is that indirect effect that I do not think people fully understand, and I take on board the question that was asked a moment ago in terms of access to national parks and public lands.

The honey bee is very important to agriculture, and it is very important to human life in the way it pollinates various plants et cetera. It also produces a very healthy product. On two occasions now, once during this inquiry and once during the inquiry into feral animals, where we originally came into contact with beekeepers, the committee came across some of the health-giving attributes of honey in curing certain illnesses and particularly skin disorders et cetera. I think it is important when we see a beehive that we actually pay regard to what is going on there. Honey bees are small critters, as the member for Hume indicated, but they are very important workers in our environment, and I think the issue of the varroa mite, or the Varroa destructor, that has been mentioned by both the previous speakers—and I am sure the chair will mention it as well—is one that the minister really does have to pay regard to because of the biosecurity issues for this nation. We are blessed to be an island nation, but that does not prevent some of these diseases and mites et cetera coming into our country. If the Varroa destructor gets going in Australia, it could do an enormous amount of damage. The name is well understood—it is an absolute destructor, not only of that industry but also of the contribution that that industry makes to other agricultural and natural industries.

I support the comments of the member for Hume about this report not being left on the shelf. Too many reports where an enormous amount of work has been done by committee members and the secretariat et cetera never see the light of day in policy. If we are serious about driving policy on a bipartisan level—and we all get up from time to time and make that plea—the committee process in a committee like this, where people do not play games with one another in terms of the politics, is the way we should be driving that bipartisan approach. The easy way for that to be achieved is for the minister who originally gives the instructions for these reports to be done—and I do not necessarily mean Tony Burke in this case but the minister in a generic sense—to pay far more attention to what those committee people are doing.

I think too often in politics we go to the things that we disagree on rather than focus on achieving the things that we all agree on. I hold the media partly responsible for that, and politicians ourselves are partly responsible for it, but we are always hearing this plea from the general public, who say, ‘I wish they’d just get on with it and get together and organise themselves.’ I think that is what the general public wants. Committee processes are the vehicle to drive that—particularly, as I said, the committee that I have been involved in for a number of years now under the previous government and under the existing government. I have very, very rarely seen—I do not think I could instance a time where I have seen—partisan politics come into the committee room.

I have praised the member for Hume. I have just spoken about the bipartisan approach that we should have on various issues. I hope that the member for Hume is out there watching. I think he probably is. The member for Hume is a personal friend of mine. We were in the New South Wales parliament together for a number of years. He was a member of the Liberal Party and I was an Independent, but I remember that on a couple of occasions the member for Hume—or the member for Burrinjuck, as he was called then—actually crossed the floor and voted with me, an Independent. He obviously suffered a whole range of threats from his party at that time. So I have a high personal regard for the member for Hume and his wife and family. But I would take issue, if I could, with the member for Hume on one particular issue that is raised in the document More than honey: the future of the Australian honey bee and pollination industries. I refer him to page 143, section 5.36. I will read from the report:

A ‘single desk’ approach to marketing and exports was advocated in several submissions.

I would like the member for Lyons—and other members who recently voted against a single-desk approach—to take account of this as well. I say again:

A ‘single desk’ approach to marketing and exports was advocated in several submissions.

In its submission, the Forests and Forest Industry Council of Tasmania noted:

The establishment of a ‘single desk’ selling system has been advocated together with work to strengthen the brand and more effort to capture value for the iconic value and rarity of leatherwood honey.

However, these structural and marketing changes need to come from a small association without a paid secretariat and require considerable change from the traditional approach and speed in implementation once adopted. An incremental approach will not work. Sophisticated business management is required to bring it off.

There is a little bit more. This has come from an organisation that, except for its top echelon, is largely hobby farmers. Obviously there is a plea out there, in terms of the export of honey, in this case, that a single-desk arrangement would be preferred. I will go on—and I hope the member for Hume is still paying attention to the monitor in his office. At paragraph 5.37, the report says:

In his submission, Mr Rod Yates, of Australian Honey Exports Pty Ltd, advocated a single desk for exports, but not under the industry’s current leadership—

so there are obviously some issues there. But the important point that I think the member for Hume should understand is in the quote which follows:

Export sales of bulk honey have achieved little for our producers, but have given European packers great profits. The answer is to establish an agreement binding on exporters, particularly in regard to minimum prices and quality, that reflects a fair share of the retail prices for packed product in other markets, in other words, dare I say it, there needs to be a conduit through which exports are facilitated, “a single desk” and it shouldn’t be the existing structure of AHBIC—

the Australian Honey Bee Industry Council—

who are generally mistrusted.

Obviously there are some politics within the industry as well, but there seems to be a plea that a fully deregulated export market of a bulk product is not the best way to market that particular product.

We have just been through the politicisation of the removal of the single desk from the wheat industry. I would also like the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Tony Burke, to pay some heed to what these people are saying—these people who are involved in the industry, who are doing the exporting and who produce the product—as to what is happening on the international stage in relation to the prices they are receiving and where the profits from their hard labours are going. I am sure that, in endorsing these particular phrases, the member for Hume must in fact agree with a single-desk approach in the honey bee industry, but he obviously does not in some other industries.

In closing I will reflect on a few of the major issues that the report goes to. Obviously, research is one. There are certain requests there to the minister and the government in relation to research. The biosecurity issue relates not only to Varroa destructor and other honey bee enemies but also to the other issues that have been raised here, most recently biosecurity issues for the equine industry, for instance. Our biosecurity, our clean, green, island image, is probably the most important natural attribute we have in terms of international trade. We must do everything we can. We all know it is not sexy until something goes wrong, but it is very important that we do have adequate biosecurity measures put in place for our agricultural industries.

Labelling is another issue that the report spent some time on, and once again I will just mention the access to public lands. That is an issue that has been out there for a long time. I remember that when I was in the state parliament it was an issue that was debated along with bushfire control and those sorts of issues. But it should not be seen as a threat to public lands. There is no reason why the honey bee industry cannot or should not have access to those lands. Those lands benefit, the industry benefits and, more importantly, it helps establish a critical mass in terms of those off-site contributions that the honey bee industry makes to the broader economy, particularly agriculture.

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