Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade. Can the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that, in March this year, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Mr Peter McGauran, endorsed work by industry group Single Vision, which was investigating alternatives to the single desk for export wheat? Did this work include modelling by the Centre for International Economics, a known opponent of the single desk? Can the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that he only became aware of this work weeks after it commenced and just days before it was revealed in the media? Isn’t it the case that, while the Deputy Prime Minister was out in regional Australia defending the single desk, his National Party colleague was undermining him and the single desk? Deputy Prime Minister, don’t your colleagues tell you anything?

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