Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

It is a great honour to have you in the chair, Mr Speaker, for this very important debate. The Biosecurity Amendment (Ballast Water and Other Measures) Bill 2017 is an uncontroversial bill, but it is an important bill. Any matter in this place that goes to our biosecurity is of critical importance. In agriculture, of course, our greatest competitive advantage relies in our reputation as a provider of clean, green, safe food. The protection of that reputation means everything to our future success in the agriculture sector. Indeed, I think if you were aptly and properly naming the portfolio in title terms you would call it 'agriculture and biosecurity', or maybe 'food and fibre biosecurity'. But, certainly, a primary role for an agriculture minister in this country is to ensure that we have all the resources that the department and its sister departments need to ensure that our biosecurity is as strong as it possibly can be.

Every new minister to the portfolio's first act should be to seek reassurance from his or her department that the resources of government are sufficiently available to make sure that is the case. This is core business, unlike things like sugar disputes in Queensland, where the agriculture minister seems to be spending a disproportionate amount of his time engaging in a matter of commercial negotiation and, if there is a role for government, a matter for the Queensland government. Indeed, in that dispute the Queensland government has been very efficient in guiding the combatants, if you like, in that dispute to a successful resolution through arbitration, through mediation. Here we are at the 11th hour. We are almost there. I fully expect we will get a resolution in the next day or two.

What we do not need is the agriculture minister interfering and sending confused signals to parties to that negotiation. We particularly do not need a Minister for Agriculture now getting involved in the 11th hour in the hope of claiming some credit for the very good work of the Queensland government. We do not need a Minister for Agriculture talking about a code of conduct that does not exist. He says he has it in his drawer, up his sleeve—everywhere but on the table. It defines any rationale or logic to suggest that a code of conduct that cannot be implemented immediately in any case could somehow retrospectively deal with the behaviour of the parties to the commercial process in Queensland. It is a ridiculous suggestion. It does not help this situation for the Minister for Agriculture to be now threatening the parties with some sort of intervention we know will not come, but only sends the wrong signals to the parties in those negotiations.

Minister Joyce should understand that this dispute in Queensland has been dragging on for 18 months for one reason: because of the populist intervention of the LNP in Queensland and its minor party friends with the creation of that legislation 18 months ago—legislation that was always flawed and was always going to fail. The legislation has now been found to be unconstitutional. The Minister for Agriculture told us this morning that he has other advice that it is not unconstitutional. If the Minister for Agriculture has advice that the Queensland legislation is not unconstitutional, he should lay it on the table in this place. He should properly explain it to the growers and he should authenticate that claim. So he has three things in his draw now. He has a mythical code of conduct that would do nothing, he has advice that the Queensland legislation is not unconstitutional and he has one other thing—a report from the Productivity Commission on regulation in the farm sector and its impact on productivity, but he will not release it. I ask the minister at the table: why won't the agriculture minister release the Productivity Commission's report of the inquiry into farm regulation? I will give members of the House the reason: it disagrees with him. It disagrees with the Deputy Prime Minister—well, we cannot have that released! It is in specific disagreement with the Minister for Agriculture on the sugar dispute in Queensland and the status of that legislation passed by the Queensland Parliament with the opposition of the Queensland government. The Queensland Labor government understood the flaws in that bill and understood that the bill would only serve to drag that dispute out in Queensland.

So the Deputy Prime Minister has done enough damage with his LNP colleagues in Queensland. He should get out of the way. He should stop providing false hope to any parties involved in that dispute. He should leave his code of conduct—if it exists. I do not know whether it was the one written by the member for Dawson. Possibly, it was the one written by the member for Dawson at his desk in his office. But whoever wrote it, if it does exist—it does not matter because we know it will have no effect. We know it serves no purpose in bringing this dispute to a successful resolution.

Back to biosecurity: it was the former Labor government which initiated the Beale review of our biosecurity systems, the first serious review in about a century. I do not remember the date of the original quarantine bill, but it was more than 100 years old and it was certainly in need of review. The Labor government did review it. We embraced the Beale review's recommendations in legislation. Unfortunately, that legislation did not pass the parliament before it was prorogued for the purposes of the 2013 election. And, in around 2015, rightly, the then government picked up where the former Labor government had left off and reintroduced the legislation with some changes. My greatest disappointment was the very specific change that Minister Joyce inserted into the bill which basically gutted the Inspector-General for Biosecurity.

I began my contribution by talking about the priority of biosecurity. I am glad that the member for Paterson is with us—we were down visiting the new beehive in the grounds of Parliament House just this morning. The House agriculture committee—of which she is deputy chair and I congratulate all members of the committee, particularly her very innovative work on that committee—has just held an inquiry into the importance of biosecurity as it relates to our bee population. For the minister to gut or attempt to gut the Inspector-General of Biosecurity defies any rationale or logic. Thankfully we had the fight in this place and indeed in the Senate; and we were able to effectively counter the minister's attempts to water down, if not abolish, the role of the Inspector-General. When the government of the day finally revisited what the former Labor government had begun, I was very disappointed that he attempted to water down the independence and the role and the weight of the Inspector-General of Biosecurity, but that has been fixed.

This bill amends Biosecurity Act 2015—the one I just referred to—to make essential changes to the requirements for the management and control of ships ballast water to reduce the risk of invasive marine pests and pathogens entering Australian waters. Again, it does enjoy the support of the opposition. It is interesting to learn that each year around 200 million tonnes of ships ballast water is discharged into Australian ports by some 13,000 ships visiting from some 600 overseas ports. Of course, Australia is particularly vulnerable to biosecurity incursions, because many cargo ships arrive here without cargo, meaning that they require large quantities of ballast water to stabilise the vessel. I had not properly considered in the past the volume of ballast water which, by necessity, comes into our ports but it obviously is a very serious matter.

I did not like the way the minister made reference to the recent white spot outbreak in prawns. The minister cleverly attempted to say that this bill was partly about his genius solution or response to that outbreak—an outbreak which of course has been a debacle in its management under the watch of this minister. Something like the white spot outbreak in prawns is a solid reminder of some of the risk posed by things like ballast water. We are an island continent, and that is the reason we have been able to defend our clean, green image.

I need to say that the government has come to the opposition with some eleventh hour amendments to the bill. They look pretty benign and they do not cause me particular concern but I am disappointed that we still do not have full clarity from the minister's office about what the amendments do. We are assured that they are tidy-ups and not substantial in nature. We have been given a response by the minister's office, but let me give the House an example about the lack of clarity. They say that it 'provides certainty for foreign estates and vessels about their legal obligations when operating in Australian seas which will enable Australia to ratify the Ballast Water Convention'. I should say that this bill is all about bringing us into line with our international obligations. It is obvious to members of the House that this is a matter that is dealt with—rightly—on a global scale. It then goes on to say: 'Subsection 1 and 1(a) do not apply if'—does has been replaced by do—'the condition in section 271, 276, 277, 278(a), 279, 282 or subsection 283(1)(2)(3) is met in relation to the discharge of ballast water.' I am sorry, Mr Speaker, I do not know what that means—I am being very honest about that. I have had a quick look and I do not think that it means very much. It does look like a drafting error and a simple correction to the bill but to come to us at the eleventh hour and expect me to absorb that and interpret what it means for this bill on such an important matter is not appropriate and not acceptable. While restating the opposition's support for the bill, I do put that one caveat on that commitment and that is: before this matter is dealt with by the other place, I would like a fuller explanation and assurance that these complex-looking changes which may not be so complex in the end do not substantially change the purpose and the effect of the bill and certainly do not digress from the main intention of the bill. I thank the House.

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