Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Before speaking to the general thrust of the matter of public importance, I want to note my interest in some of the comments that the member for Sturt made, particularly in relation to the reasons for entry into the war in Iraq. I think, using the logic that he expressed, one would have to ask why military forces from Australia are not currently in Zimbabwe. The atrocities that are happening in Zimbabwe at the moment—the deaths and the inhumanity—surely have to be regarded by this government as being of some significance. There are similar circumstances: a despot and a lack of food in that nation, but regrettably there is no oil. I think that says something in itself.

My major reason for rising today is not to try and pre-empt the Cole inquiry. I agree with a number of speakers who have said that the Cole inquiry should take its course and that, if there are some political adjudications to take place, they should take place then. But there are a number of issues that I think people are raising to try and create illusions in relation to the wheat industry. I do not think there has been a member of parliament who actually grows wheat or has been associated with the wheat industry at an agropolitical level who has spoken in this debate. There are a lot of people making decisions in relation to what they believe the wheat industry is saying.

I am a grain grower myself, a former member of the Grains Council of Australia and the grains committee of the New South Wales Farmers Association, and one who does have wheat growers within his electorate. Wheat growers are not saying to me what a number of members of the opposition have been saying, particularly during question time today—that is, that they are happy to see access to these markets through any means at all. Wheat growers are not happy to see bribes being used to access markets. Wheat growers do not want this sort of behaviour to continue, because it is very obvious that, if we are in negotiations in relation to free trade, as our trade minister is, and we give an image that our grain growers are comfortable with access at any price, we put not only them in a position that they do not hold but also any future negotiations in relation to trade, the level playing field, those against subsidisation and those who want open access to marketplaces at risk.

The wheat growers who have spoken to me are most concerned about the conduct of the Australian Wheat Board—in fact they are shocked. They do not know whether the government did or did not know of certain circumstances that occurred. But the Prime Minister made the point a few days ago—and I would hope that all members of the government and anybody who knows anything about this take heed of what he said; I hope he himself takes heed of it—people should tell the truth in relation to this issue. Because if we do not and the information is hidden there will be an impact on our trading credibility, and the very wheat growers that everybody is trying to make a position for are the ones who will suffer.

The future of the wheat industry has been raised. There is conjecture within the coalition about the future of the Australian Wheat Board and the single desk arrangements. Wheat growers who have spoken to me, and I am sure to other country members of the parliament, are most concerned that this issue is being used within the government, outside the government and internationally as a reason to destroy the single desk export arrangements. I made it very plain that I support Mark Vaile in his stand to maintain the single desk arrangements for wheat exports from this nation. If people in the coalition are going to plead, ‘Let’s wait until the Cole inquiry is over before we make judgments on the outcome of the inquiry and on who did what in terms of the corruption process and who knew what,’ they must also hold back from using the Cole inquiry as the very excuse to destroy the single desk arrangements that currently exist.

If there are people within the Australian Wheat Board, and it seems there are, who have been involved in corrupt activity they should be rooted out and should face the full penalty of the law. If there are ministers of this government who may through that inquiry or other inquiries be found wanting in terms of what they told parliament and the truth of the matter, they should be made accountable for their actions as well. To all sides I make this plea: don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Do not use old political rivalries as a platform to remove the single desk at this point in time.

The broader issue that we are dealing with here, and the assumption that some have used, is that we have a problem in terms of trade. Just putting aside the United Nations sanctions at the moment and this peculiar problem with Iraq, we have a problem with trade. We export 80 per cent of what we grow, so we need to export. Therefore, access to export markets is paramount. We know we are dealing in a corrupt world market. If you are going to deal in a corrupt world market there is almost an acceptance amongst some—Senator Joyce made some appalling statements the other day, implying that bribes are acceptable to gain access to the market. There are people who say, ‘If you don’t do that it’s a zero gain. You do not sell any of the product.’ I do not agree with that, and I am surprised that the National Farmers Federation has not condemned those very words. When a nation that has been at the forefront of trying to free up trade and has been antisubsidisation is silent—in the case of Senator Joyce, a member of the government, and others who are implying quietly that the wheat growers would accept such behaviour—it is implying that a bribe not a subsidy is okay. That in itself is corruption. We should not stand by and allow that sort of activity to happen.

Assuming that we do have problems with the surplus that we produce within agriculture, what are we going to do about that? I made some comments in relation to that this morning. We export 16 million tonnes of grain, on average, from this nation. If this government removed itself from dealing in two corrupt markets—everybody is saying that the wheat market is corrupt, and everybody has always said that the oil market is corrupt—and looked at the policy initiatives that it could put in place for renewable energy, for instance, and some of that grain could be transferred out of food production into energy production, which is right on the issue that this MPI is about, national security—energy is a very important part of national security. The Americans have woken up; President Bush has woken up to that and is moving down a different line, so maybe our own Prime Minister will follow the president on this issue.

For this parliament to say that, in terms of renewable energy targets, 0.83 of one per cent of our energy needs is going to be achieved by renewable energy—not a mandatory target but a voluntary target—over the 10 years from 2001 to 2010 and that that is an acceptable path to take is to me a demeaning statement for those involved not only in the energy industry but also in the farming industry. If this government mandated a 10 per cent use of ethanol in our cars, that would remove half the amount of grain that we currently export, some eight million tonnes. So rather than endorsing corrupt behaviour as part of the world market and something that we just have to accept, surely we have to start looking at other ways and means. If people do not want to pay anything for our food, let us look at producing our own energy, because we have to pay their price for energy. An ethanol level of 20 per cent, and there are other permutations and combinations, would remove the need to export grain at all or to enter those corrupt world markets. I make this plea: let us look at some of the alternatives for grain before we look at destroying the single desk arrangements.

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