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

I'm a great supporter of the hemp industry. We have many friendship groups in this place—I'd argue probably too many—but we don't have a parliamentary friendship group for hemp. I suggest we have one one day, but before I pursue that issue I'd like to start a campaign to change the name of hemp because I had reinforced in my mind again today that, whenever you talk about hemp, people automatically think about marijuana. Of course, low-THC hemp is not marijuana. You can't smoke it and it will give you no hit. Hemp as a product is too often misrepresented and misunderstood. I think we should reflect on the name of hemp and think about something which would be more marketable to the Australian people and, indeed, those who live beyond our shores. Back in the 1930s the industry was knocked around because church groups started a campaign against hemp, mainly because of a misunderstanding of low-THC hemp. Humans have been cultivating and using hemp for industrial and clothing purposes for 50,000 years. Of course, today we are still using it for medicinal purposes, which is very important. I, like many others in this place, remain a great supporter of medicinal cannabis. Hemp is also used for oil, clothing and personal protection equipment, which is very topical throughout the time of this COVID-19 crisis. It's even a superfood. You can have it in your smoothie or on your weeties, although, sadly, not always legally everywhere, which is another issue. It should be legal to ingest in all states of Australia.

Hemp is an environmentally friendly crop. It's relatively good for our soils and uses relatively low levels of water, so it is an ecofriendly product. As a parliament we should do all we can to encourage the further development of the hemp industry, in terms of the crop and the yield; in terms of exporting, which is what we will be talking about this evening; and, just as importantly, in terms of value adding here in Australia. The bill we're talking about tonight is one that is considered will facilitate the export of hemp seed, which will then be turned into a crop in Kentucky in the United States, and, in turn, be turned into industrial fibre to manufacture products, clothing and PPE products in the United States. That is a good thing, but I'd also like to see us growing and manufacturing the product here in Australia.

The Export Control Legislation Amendment (Certification of Narcotic Exports) Bill 2020, which we're dealing with tonight, makes an important amendment to the definition of 'goods' under the Export Control Act. To export a plant product or an animal product to another country, that country, to protect its biosecurity system, expects the product to be certified as free of pests and disease. We issue the importing country with a phytosanitary certificate to assure that country that it is free of pests and disease. But curiously, and for some time, the act has defined 'goods' as those not including narcotics. Even though this hemp is low THC, by any definition it could be described as a narcotic. Therefore, the certificate we issue, in this case to the United States, is questionable in terms of its legal validity because the hemp is technically a narcotic. What the government is proposing to do is change that definition so that this narcotic can be exported with a certificate that the importing country can be confident is valid.

There was a fuss here this morning because the government was trying to facilitate all stages of this bill through the House in one day. We were given notice of this only last week. We've been trying to procure from government ministers a good reason as to why the bill should be dealt with in one day, because we're always concerned about precedent. Rushing these things through this parliament can never be a good thing in any case, but it does require the Labor Party to truncate its usual processes. We don't like doing that, and, when we do it, it's about precedent, so, we prefer not to do it if we don't have to. We're still struggling to get the reasons from the government, but we absolutely support this bill. We think it's a good thing and we stand ready to support it. I do have a second reading amendment, though, and I take this opportunity to move the second reading amendment as circulated in my name:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

“whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes the Government’s failure to provide a strategic plan for the agriculture industry, including fisheries and forestry, and rural and regional communities who continue to be impacted by drought, bushfires and COVID-19”.

We are more than happy to support this bill, and we stand absolutely ready to support it. As I said, one of the things that's been missing in our conversations with the government, and something I've taken upon myself to clarify today, is exactly why this bill is being rushed through the parliament now.

There is no doubt that the initial beneficiary of this amendment is one particular company. I think that the trade name for this purpose is Hemp Black. Hemp Black is the brainchild of a fellow by the name of Barry Lambert. Barry Lambert is a successful Australian. He is a regional boy. He grew up on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales. He made his name and fortune in the financial service sector. But, to his great credit, he has used his wealth to make very generous donations to further research on medicinal cannabis. He has a granddaughter who had a very grave illness, a rare illness, so he has devoted his life to assisting his son and his partner and the grandchild, so full credit goes to him. I was speaking to Barry today, and, happily, I'm able to report that she's done quite well. So, I don't in any way question Barry tonight, or his intentions. I had a good conversation with him today, and he's doing amazing things in overseas markets with these various hemp projects. I just want to make that clear.

But at no time has the government been prepared to be forthcoming with us about Barry or his company. It's been more about, 'Well, these are important markets, and we need to ensure that we can have access to them.' I've had quite vague responses from the government about how much is going to which market et cetera. I would have been very much happier if the government had just said to us, 'Well, this is about Barry Lambert's company, actually; he needs to get these hemp seeds on a plane to Kentucky in time for the season so that they can grow mature and be used in his industrial processes.' For some strange reason the government chose not to disclose that. If they'd disclosed that earlier then we would have felt far more comfortable about facilitating this bill through the House.

But we want to make sure that Barry's company gets that certificate to export—that phytosanitary approval—as quickly as possible so that he can meet his commercial needs, and we'll certainly be doing our very best to do so. We absolutely support what the government's trying to do, and the government has assured the opposition that, while narcotics will be removed from the Export Control Act, all the other bills that people might be concerned about with respect to narcotics being exported will maintain the definition. This applies only to the validity of that phytosanitary certificate, and on government advice I am more than relaxed about that. I think that's a good thing.

I talked about hemp as a crop, which brings us to agriculture more generally, and the importance of agriculture to our regions—something that is also topical today and this week, because of the decision of the government of China to cause some problems for Australian exporters of barley and of course in the red meat sector. Regional Australia is doing it tough and has been doing it tough now for some time. It's been through probably the worst drought in our history, a drought that continues in a significant number of regions in our country. A lot of people believe that the drought has broken. For some, yes, happily it has, but not for everyone. Then of course there were the bushfires, probably the worst bushfires in our history, which have ravaged regional communities at the same time that they were still suffering drought, and now of course there is COVID-19. For regional areas it's been a triple whammy. COVID-19 has affected all of us, everywhere—city, country, north, south, east and west. But it's the regional areas that had the triple whammy of drought, bushfire and COVID-19. All of us together need to fully appreciate that, to think about it on a regular basis and talk regularly about how we're going to help regional Australia recover and rebuild.

I remind the House that in some ways COVID-19 has been even tougher on regional communities than it has on our city cousins—and I am not in any way understating the impact on our city cousins; of course denser populations have caused higher rates of infection. But in the regions we've lost much of our workforce. Agriculture, particularly horticulture, are very heavily dependent on backpacker labour, for example, and a number of other temporary visa holders. That workforce has in large part collapsed. We've lost our business. I'm the member for Hunter, where we make the best wines in the world, without doubt. I know that the member for Nicholls will not challenge me on that! I will take this opportunity to say that I will try to facilitate his contribution this evening; I think that's what he's asking me.

We are so largely dependent on the visitor economy—all those Sydney people coming to drink our wine, attend our concerts, take a balloon ride, get married, or whatever it might be. They come in very large numbers, and of course for many, many weeks now they have not been coming. When I was a young bloke and we wanted to see a band, for example, we all went to Sydney. Happily, Sydney now comes to us, and we're very, very happy about that. But our visitor economy is bleeding; it's hurting very, very badly. We've lost our regional media. Our newspapers are gone—12 newspapers in the Hunter region just don't exist today. We hope they'll be back, but that's having an impact on regional towns and communities as well. The list is really long, actually. The impacts on regional Australia, in very many ways, are exacerbated.

The agriculture sector—I suppose that's what this bill is all about, given we're talking about seedlings for industrial hemp. This government's had seven years to do something for the agriculture sector. God, we've had some debates in here about it over the course of the last seven years. But the agriculture sector is still a vibrant one, an innovative one, an efficient one and one still heavily engaged with export markets. That's a very good thing. But it's also a sector that's not without its problems, of course, and a sector which, I believe, is begging for a significant structural reform. It's well known to many in this place that about 80 per cent of agriculture product comes from 20 per cent of the firms. I'm looking at Dr Leigh now, because I thought he might be interested in that. Dr Leigh would be thinking, 'That sounds like a sector that might be in need of some attention and some structural reform.' Is your seat Fenner?

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