Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Minchin, the Minister representing the Prime Minister, and follows the answer from Senator Abetz that was just given. In relation to the government’s decision today on wheat export arrangements, can he confirm that AWB will retain its single-desk monopoly? Hasn’t the government just shifted AWB’s veto power to a National Party minister who has been a defender of AWB’s monopoly? Will the minister for agriculture be consulting with AWB in deciding whether to exercise the veto power? Doesn’t this arrangement confirm the concerns of the member for O’Connor that the government is ‘guilty of trusting a mob of agropoliticians with close ties to the National Party’? Did the minister and others in cabinet who support the end of the single desk get rolled to placate The Nationals, who have ensured that they remain in control of AWB’s monopoly?