Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, there is a package of documents that I have shown the opposition.

Leave granted.

People need to understand the detail, not the politics, of this. If I do not finish this today I will finish it at another time, perhaps in the adjournment debate. Australian beef growers understand this issue. There are huge multinationals that process the meat. There is a global boom in the beef price. Australians are getting just a bit over half in the saleyards of what they are getting in America, Ireland and everywhere else. We are on about $1.70 for an export-quality bullock on the hoof in the saleyards, which relates to about 340, depending on the yield dead. That is about the hoof price in the United States and Ireland. That is what happens when companies like JBS Australia get hold of your industry. The same thing will happen in the grain industry.

Going back to the Thallon problem: this is a group of farmers who between them grow 200,000 acres of wheat. They said: 'Let's get together because it will cost us $60 a tonne to take the grain to port by truck, so let's do a rail facility. I'm sure GrainCorp won't mind and we can do it for $30 a tonne.' What happened is in the tabled documents. The biggest objector is GrainCorp. They do not want any competition. These are the sorts of issues we have to deal with in a future inquiry.

I go to GrainCorp's preliminary final report for the year ended 30 September 2013. On the final page, page 24, I read—even though I am not very good at reading and writing—the following in talking about the extension of the Archer Daniels Midland bid:

Other than reported above, no other matter or circumstance has arisen since 30 September 2013 which has significantly affected or may significantly affect:

a) the Group's operations in future financial years; or

b) the results of those operations in future financial years; or

c) the Group’s state of affairs in future financial years.

A couple of weeks later, why would those people come to Canberra to push the case, along with a whole lot of other lobbyists from the hedge funds—the hedge funds were going to be the big winners—and say to a group of politicians, 'Unless this sale goes ahead, next year we're going to shut over 100 sites, which would mean we would not be able to raise the couple of hundred million dollars we promised for infrastructure'? Who is telling the lie? This is in their financial statement: 'Nothing we know of will affect it.' It is a lie, and I think the chairman should resign.

These are difficult issues that Australian wheat growers deserve to have the wider public and politicians in this place understand. They are intricate issues. They might care to read the Senate inquiry's quizzing of Mr Pinner—Senator Nash, I think you prompted the answer. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission have no power over this—do not let anyone kid you otherwise. They mucked this up. They did not know that Toepfer was in the market—sadly, I will not finish this speech today; I will finish another time. They did not know the Toepfer finance people. They had not looked at the Allied Mills operation—I will talk about Allied Mills employing a private investigator to snoop on someone. I will also talk about what I think is skating to the edge of criminal conduct by one of the players in this bid—I will not discuss that here.

This is a series of serious issues. As you would recall, Senator Nash, we took the testimony of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and the Foreign Investment Review Board in camera. The Foreign Investment Review Board did not know that GrainCorp owned 60 per cent of Allied Mills, that Allied Mills had a 100 per cent relationship with Goodman Fielder, that Wilmar International had a 15 per cent share of Goodman Fielder or that Archer Daniels Midland had a 16.3 per cent share of Wilmar. The young guy supposed to investigate the infrastructure did not know what a subterminal was, for God's sake. These are the people we gave the responsibility to look at the thing.

Can I just say we have got a lot of work to do. I intend to justify, if I have to, in a further speech, the calling of a new inquiry which will sensibly look at how we can assist the process. CBH would like to have acquired some assets on the eastern seaboard. There are a whole range of things we need to do. I would like to think that those boys have now got their approval to build that site in Thallon despite GrainCorp's objections.

Finally, I would like to note that Mr Paul Howes ought to grow up if he thinks that ma-and-pa farmers are the essence of all this. (Time expired)