Peter McGauran (Gippsland, National Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

This is more than a worthwhile debate for the parliament to occupy its time with; it is a necessary debate. I thank the honourable member for New England for submitting this matter of public importance and, in doing so, displacing the Labor Party’s own submitted matter for debate, which I understand was on Work Choices or industrial relations—not on the Cole inquiry or the wheat industry but instead on industrial relations. This matter of public importance, the future of the Australian wheat industry, needs to be addressed.

Taking up from the contribution of the member for New England, I wish to put this debate on the way forward for this great primary industry in more of a context following the Cole inquiry. Bear in mind that the failures at AWB were of ethics. As Cole reports in his prologue on page xii:

The conduct of AWB and its officers was due to a failure in corporate culture.

The single desk was not to blame for the failures at AWB. Therefore, in considering future arrangements, great care has to be taken so as not to inadvertently punish the innocent. Any response that is disproportionate and imposes costs on wheat growers is holding them liable for and even guilty of offences they had no knowledge of, let alone participation in. The failure was of corporate governance within AWB, and that is the problem that needs to be addressed. AWB has a number of internal reforms well underway, so much so that the 12 persons named for further investigation by Commissioner Cole are no longer employees of the organisation. Failures of corporate governance were also at the heart of the Bond, Skase and HIH collapses. Any government response has to address the causes of the problem, and that is being undertaken, obviously, by investigative bodies.

While some people are arguing that the export monopoly contributed to the arrogant corporate culture that led to the payment of bribes, at best, in my view, it was a minor part. Volcker, on behalf of the United Nations, identified thousands of companies that paid the same fees to Iraq, and those companies did not have export monopolies. So it can hardly be said that the mere holding of an export monopoly is the cause of the problem. Revelations by the Cole inquiry have understandably and naturally increased calls from parts of industry for changes to the single desk arrangements. The member for New England has canvassed these and outlined in general terms his current thinking on the issue. The Cole inquiry report also highlighted the problems of oversighting a monopoly exporter.

As the Prime Minister announced, the report of the inquiry has clear implications for the operation of the single desk system for wheat exports and, in particular, for the role of AWBL and AWBI and the WEA in relation to wheat marketing. Indeed, all through the past 12 to 18 months, I and members of the government have consistently said that, on the receipt of the Cole commission’s report, we would consider the marketing and oversight of the single desk arrangements. However, the Prime Minister at the same time has emphasised that, in formulating its response, the government’s dominant concern will be for the interests of the Australian wheat growers. For that reason, the Deputy Prime Minister has stated that there will be consultation with growers.

The reason for consultation with growers is obviously the importance of the industry to individuals, to farm families and to local and regional economies as well as the national economy. This is a giant export earner for all Australians. But we are also considering changes to essentially a 65-year-old system against a backdrop of the worst drought in 100 years, which has decimated the winter harvest. Production of the three major winter crops of wheat, barley and canola in 2006-07 is forecast to decline to around 13½ million tonnes, which is down 63 per cent from last season’s harvest of 36½ million tonnes for those three crops. A harvest of this size would be the smallest for these crops since the drought of 1994-95, when 12 million tonnes were harvested. Wheat, especially, is forecast to be 9.5 million tonnes in the coming financial year, down 15½ million tonnes or 62 per cent from last season. The weight of responsibility not only on all members of the House and the government but also on industry leaders is heavy. We must get this right, and there is no particular repository of wisdom on this issue. But we must involve and consult wheat growers collectively to draw on their experience and their views.

The government also holds serious concerns about the potential for an improved situation for farmers during the current summer cropping period. The continued dry and hot conditions, coupled with unprecedented low irrigation entitlements, are making growing conditions over summer very difficult across the country. I should say, however, that improved management practices and the development of improved grain varieties over the past 20 years mean that farmers are generally able to achieve relatively better production outcomes from limited rainfall, which is a testimony not only to their human spirit and resilience but also to their skill and innovation. Practices such as direct drilling have improved soil structure and stability and, more importantly, have improved the ability of growers to conserve limited soil moisture. Many of these productivity improvements have also been due to the research and development in which the industry so heavily invests, principally through the Grains Research and Development Corporation. The GRDC is funded by growers and government in a partnership that accumulates about $120 million a year for investment in research and development.

It hardly needs to be said that wheat is the largest broadacre crop grown in Australia. Over the past three years, wheat comprised around 56 per cent of total grains and oilseeds production. In dollar terms, the average annual gross value of wheat is just over $5 billion. It is well ahead of barley, which is $1½ billion, and canola, which is half a billion dollars. That gives you some idea of the size and reach of this industry in both economic and, by extension, human terms. Of Australia’s total production, Western Australia accounts for around 40 per cent and New South Wales, 30 per cent. South Australia is the third-largest producer at 13 per cent; Victoria, 11 per cent; and Queensland, five per cent. Interestingly, Australia is not a major wheat producer but it is a major wheat exporter. Five countries, including Australia, account for about 80 per cent of world wheat exports. The United States accounts for a third of total exports; Australia and Canada, 15 per cent each; the European Union, 10 per cent; and Argentina, 10 per cent.

We do, as the member for New England stressed, have to be extremely mindful of the particular circumstance of Western Australia, where its industry is predominantly—bordering on exclusively—export orientated. There the great debate is whether or not to keep the single desk. The single desk has the veto attached to it and is not held by a third party such as the Wheat Export Authority or a similar entity and it brings about longer term price stability compared to particularly higher prices somewhere through the cycle. In other words, I am far from convinced that the majority of Western Australian farmers would opt for a different system and the uncertainties it may bring to the one which they generally understand at present. However, I am advised by my Western Australian colleagues that, on the whole, Western Australian farmers do want the opportunity of selling on a competitive basis, and that will be part of the consultation and the debate.

Today’s question time was remarkable from a couple of aspects. One of them was the disintegration of the Labor Party’s tactics and the disarray within their ranks which saw one shadow minister in a fit of temper derail question time and curtail their capacity and opportunity to ask questions of government ministers. It was quite extraordinary that one person at the dispatch box, without consultation or reference to his leaders or to the other tactical geniuses within the Labor Party, would be able to proceed on that basis. Even more important was the fact that, after the third question to the foreign minister about the Cole commission, the Labor Party moved to an environmental question and thereafter to Work Choice questions.

After the biggest scandal—allegedly—that the Leader of the Opposition has seen in his 26 years in parliament, the opposition has asked a sum total of 13 questions—10 yesterday, Tuesday; and three today, Wednesday. For more than 12 months there has been the blustering, the accusations and the farrago of slurs against government ministers, including the Prime Minister. And what has it come to? It has come to 13 questions in the parliament following the release of the Cole inquiry report compared to the several hundred questions over the course of the last 18 months. I have not done the sums—I did not think that I would need to draw a contrast between pre-Cole and post-Cole report questions—but the number would be no fewer than 300, all of which accused various ministers day in, day out of lying and deceiving and of outright negligence.

There have been three stages to the Labor Party’s strategy against the government for which they must be held accountable. The first, in the early part of this year, was that ministers within the government knew of the bribes and were culpable and involved in the bribes. These are the most serious accusations—allegations of corruption against ministers. As that began to fade through the first half of this year, the opposition changed tact and began to accuse ministers of a cover-up—that is, ministers later became aware of the AWB’s bribes but ignored them, then hid them and took no action even though they had full knowledge retrospectively of the bribes. The Labor Party have now moved on from that to the accusation of incompetence.

Yet, for all of the extravagance and hype of the Leader of the Opposition, there has been no apology. There has been no recognition that the Cole inquiry made no adverse findings against the government or against any minister. Commissioner Cole found that no minister acted improperly, that no minister had knowledge of the fees paid in breach of the United Nations sanctions at the time they were occurring and that the government and its ministers were misled by AWB just as AWB misled the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the United Nations and the Wheat Export Authority. The report highlights the extent of AWB’s efforts to keep hidden its payments of those fees and its after-sales service fees. The inescapable fact is that it took the powers and the resources of the commission of inquiry to uncover the extent of the AWB’s deception—an inquiry established by the government—a government that wanted to get to the truth of the matter wherever that may have led.

The Labor Party, of course, will claim that the terms of reference were too narrow and inadequate, but let me quote from paragraph 31 of Commissioner Cole’s inquiry with regard to this very issue of the terms of reference and their adequacy:

It was made clear, however, that if during the conduct of the inquiry it appeared there might have been a breach of any Commonwealth, State or Territory law by the Commonwealth or any officer of the Commonwealth related to the subject matter of the terms of reference, I would approach the Attorney-General, seeking a widening of the terms of reference. That situation did not arise.

It is clear from Commissioner Cole’s report that any claims of inadequate terms of reference in relation to ministers and public servants are a nonsense. The hardest thing for the Labor Party to overcome is the public’s recognition that the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs attended the inquiry. There is not a single person in Australia outside the Labor Party who believes that the Cole commission was anything other than completely unfettered and utterly rigorous in its consideration of the issues. The fact that the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs came before the commissioner lends great credibility to his findings. (Time expired)

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