Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

On this issue, I am guided by and appreciative of the assistance I get from my Liberal Party colleagues—in particular, Mr Ian Macfarlane, from my home state of Queensland, who, as everyone knows, is very involved in the grains industry and is a wheat grower himself. I also appreciate the assistance of my Liberal colleagues Senator Judith Adams, Senator Grant Chapman and Senator Alan Ferguson, all of whom are wheat growers and have a very close and important interest in this. I also pay tribute to my colleagues Senator Johnston and Senator Adams for putting forward a private member’s bill which has encouraged our government to address this matter urgently, because obviously something had to be done in the very near future.

Time is against us all—which, I agree, is something of a shame—so I will confine my remarks very directly to the Wheat Marketing Amendment Bill 2006. People have spoken in this chamber about everything being done in the interests of wheat growers. I like to think that bills and things done in this chamber and by the government are done in the national interest of Australia. In this issue, that will mean, I think, the interests of wheat growers, but, at times, it is broader. I will not be taking part in the committee stage of this bill but I would like to raise publicly a matter I raised with the minister. In section 63 of the bill, the minister, for the purposes of deciding the things that he does, is required to have regard to the public interest. In understanding how things around this place work, I have a concern—perhaps as a lawyer—that ‘the public interest’ is a very broad term and it is nowhere defined. I certainly hope that, because the whole process of this bill is a narrow six months, it will not involve litigious action by the various interested parties on what exactly the public interest means.

Another issue I want to touch on briefly, which I have raised with many of my colleagues, is my concern that this bill is only for a very limited period of time and that, once this bill concludes—once the sunset clause is reached—if nothing further is done, the initiative will return to AWB. I think everyone agrees that should not happen.