Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

You should be ashamed to criticise what the coalition is doing when your decision was to send it to the Productivity Commission. The alternative, as stated in the ITS Global report, is:

Market share in valuable markets could be easily lost and would be difficult to regain once lost. Sudden removal of the Single Desk would expose growers to greater volatility in prices than they currently face and they would effectively be competing at the same level as major international competitors whose trading terms are strongly supported by significant government assistance.

That is, subsidies. The report goes on:

Unless changes to the market system are carefully managed, some Australian wheat producers may be exposed to some degree of market failure.

Those are not my words. One of the features of the government’s wheat export marketing plan is that the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry will retain a tight and powerful veto on wheat export licences until June 2008. This is a power that will continue to be exercised in the public interest on a case-by-case basis, but there is no intention of it being used to undermine the intent of the single desk. Importantly, the interests of growers who deliver to the national pool, and the impact on them from allowing other bulk export consents, will be part of the public interest consideration. By 1 March, growers have to choose between two options for a grower owned and controlled not-for-profit single desk: either a demerged AWB or a totally new identity. The new body could be a new company or a completely demerged AWBI, and it would take over the management of the single desk. The holder of the single desk will have to have complete legal separation from AWB Ltd.

The government acknowledges that the challenge it has set the industry is a significant one that requires strong leadership and unity within the industry. Under recent amendments to the bill, the proposed power of the minister to change the designated company that commences in March would have a sunset date of 30 June 2008. The government needs to be satisfied as to the financial viability and capacity of any new entity to be the single desk holder.

The industry supports beefing up the Wheat Export Authority. The bill makes a number of changes to the operation of the WEA. It will be given additional auditing and reporting powers to increase its ability to ensure transparency and compliance with international and domestic law by the single desk operator. The Wheat Export Authority’s increased powers include the power to issue an export permit to an organisation other than the single desk holder—but only in exceptional circumstances, including situations where the single desk operator has been precluded from a market for legal reasons and where the single desk operator has failed to develop a specialty market. But that is no open go. The authority will be provided with a power to request information from parties other than AWBI where it believes this relates to the performance of its functions. This is a significant broadening of the scope of the authority’s existing information-gathering powers. It reflects the government’s clear intention that efforts to undermine the interests of Australian wheat growers and to damage Australia’s international trading reputation will not be tolerated.

Further, the bill provides the minister with the power to direct the authority to investigate a broad range of issues relevant to its functions where he considers it is in the public interest to do so. The authority will also be provided with the ability to pass information to relevant law enforcement and regulatory bodies where it has received or uncovered information that warrants further investigation.

The export of wheat in bags and containers will no longer require consent from the Wheat Export Authority. However, the quality of each shipment will need to be certified in order to protect the international reputation of Australia’s wheat. Exports in bags and containers are likely to remain a small part of the market in comparison to the bulk export share of the market. Growers have raised concerns that wheat exports outside the current arrangements could allow the potential for rogue traders to undermine the good reputation of Australian wheat. That is why this bill makes it a requirement that all wheat exports in bags and boxes have to comply with a quality assurance scheme which will be developed by the WEA in consultation with industry. Under new amendments, the deregulation of exports in bags and containers will come into effect 60 days from the date of royal assent.

As the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, The Nationals Peter McGauran, said in his second reading speech:

It has been an immensely difficult 18 months for Australia’s wheat growers. Last year they faced a devastating growing season as winter and spring rains failed and the drought continued to tighten its grip across the country.

Growers have also had to deal with continued pressure to dismantle their wheat single desk due to strong, but justified, criticism of the corporate behaviour of AWB Ltd stemming from the findings of the Cole commission of inquiry.

In spite of these difficulties and challenges of an almost unprecedented kind, growers continue to voice their desire to take control of their industry. This bill is a direct response to that call.

The Wheat Marketing Amendment Bill 2007 retains Australia’s single desk for export wheat.

With that sentence, the minister delivered the future of the wheat industry back into the hands of the growers themselves. That is why The Nationals exist. That is why we have a past, a present and a future. I put that very comprehensive statement down on behalf of the coalition and challenge the Labor Party to come up with their comprehensive plan, other than a one-page press release saying, ‘We are going to put this back; the single desk will be reviewed by the Productivity Commission.’