Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Boswell realises that the single desk is under threat. He says it is under threat now and puts the responsibility back on the growers to do something about it, which is absolutely extraordinary. It is not up to the National Party, apparently. It is not up to the Liberal Party, whose Prime Minister John Howard promised in the last election that the single desk would be maintained. No, it is now back to the growers to do something about it, which is an absolute disgrace given that we have known for some time that the single desk was under threat.

In his second reading speech the Minister for Justice and Customs (Senator Ellison) said:

To rush the consideration of these long-term arrangements—

that is, the single desk—

would put at risk the future interests of Australian wheat growers. The government’s dominant concern in the consideration of both long-term and temporary arrangements is the interests of Australian wheat growers.

What happened to looking at the long-term interests of Australian wheat growers over the past four or five years? It had become clear that the single desk was under threat from competitors who were pushing, people like CBH and ABB. The government has known for years that the single desk was under threat.

What did either the government or AWB do about it? The AWB stood where it was, said, ‘We must have the single desk,’ and refused to look at any alternative methods of dealing with all these possible competitors and the push from America and others about the single desk. It stood there and absolutely refused to look at any other ways to deal with it. Now, as a result of the inherent problems within the arrangement, we are looking at a rushed, inadequate method of dealing with this. And now we go out, now we consult and now it is the growers’ responsibility to deal with it and come up with a single model of single desk. It is not the government, it is not the AWB—it is the poor growers whose responsibility it is to come up with a sophisticated marketing model.

This is an absolute failure of this government, whose Prime Minister promised the continuation of the single desk and now acknowledges that the cracks are far too obvious and that, on the government’s watch, the AWB collapsed due to its own inherent structural problems. This is the problem for growers, who are looking at a decrease in the price for their wheat in this drought. Many of them also have shares in AWB, which has been the worst performer in Standard and Poor’s ASX200 index and has seen a 60 per cent drop in its share over the last year. So AWB loses on both fronts. These poor growers out there who now have to get together—

Debate interrupted.