Gavan O'Connor (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries) Share this | Hansard source

The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry could not help himself towards the end of that speech and I think, quite frankly, that the minister prostituted the MPI before the House today with his cheap defence of the government’s untenable position.

I commend the member for New England for bringing this MPI before the parliament today. I know he is highly regarded by wheat growers and other constituents in his electorate. I note that the honourable member for Wakefield and the honourable member for Mallee are in the House today, as was the honourable member for O’Connor. All of these members have a deep and abiding interest across the political spectrum in the future of this industry. My interest in this is a fairly personal one. I have relatives who earn their living in this industry and in my youth I spent many holidays on the headers. They were nothing like the headers that are driven today, of course, but they produced the fond memories I have of working in this industry. I have an interest because of my shadow ministerial responsibilities, and of course the port of Geelong in my electorate is a major bulk-handling port for this product.

I disagree with one contention of the member for New England in today’s debate. We simply cannot move this industry forward until those who are politically responsible for its devastation are brought to account. The minister argued that in its response the government must be mindful of any additional costs that it puts on wheat growers, but what about the costs of its incompetence and negligence? Those particular matters have not been addressed and, until they are, this matter will not be resolved in either the political context or the economic context.

Today in rural Australia, a wheat farmer will look across the parched landscape of his or her drought devastated farm and a real sense of despair and betrayal will creep across that wheat grower’s soul. In the Australian parliament the Minister for Foreign Affairs arrogantly giggled and laughed away his responsibility in what has been termed the worst corporate scandal in the history of rural Australia. Today in rural Australia, wheat farmers despair that their crops have shrivelled in the hot sun. They have suffered the drought day after day to the point where they have incurred massive costs but there is simply no crop or no point in harvesting the crop and with it goes the hope of a reasonable season. In this House, the Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of The Nationals, Mark Vaile, denies any knowledge of or responsibility for the scandal that has devastated the incomes of wheat growers in Australia. Today many wheat farmers will walk across their drought devastated farms and ponder the devastation visited on their great industry. They will ask why it is so and how it has happened. And in this House the former Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Warren Truss, scurries for cover behind the findings of the Cole commission.

We are all concerned about the future of this industry, but to construct that future we have to deal adequately now with its recent past. How did it happen that the single desk marketing authority for this great industry and great rural product got itself into the position where it is now the subject of ridicule in the international and domestic marketplace and the wheat growers’ incomes have been so devastated? Cole gives us a clue to that. Cole gave us a clue when, on the second page of the prologue of his report, he said it was the ‘closed culture of superiority and impregnability, of dominance and self-importance’ that caused this mess.

I think those particular lines apply to the government, because if ministers had been doing their job this scandal would not have happened. The Prime Minister yesterday in this House really did mock the wheat growers of Australia, because he stated in question time that the Liberal and National parties were the best friends the wheat growers of Australia had ever had. That is the statement that had them white-hot with rage, because they know the devastation that has been visited upon their industry.

When we ponder the future of this industry we need a mechanism to take account of the costs. If we change the failed structures that have been put in place by the Howard government in this industry, we have to take into account the ever-present costs of this debacle to AWB and through it to the wheat growers. We know that the cost of this scandal has halved the value of the investment of shareholders in AWB. A conservative estimate would put that at $600 million to $800 million. We have lost trade with Iraq of more than $500 million. There are lawsuits threatened. We heard of one of those in the United States today of some $1 billion. There is a potential tax liability associated with the scandal that could run between $150 million and $200 million. So before we talk about the future we have to ponder the present costs of this debacle. That has to be factored into any suggestion that anybody in the industry or on either side of this House will make about the future wheat-marketing arrangements and what might be put in place in the wake of Cole.

I doubt that we are going to get serious debate in the government on the options that are available to the industry for its future. This issue has so poisoned relationships in the coalition that I fear for the industry. I fear that decisions are going to be made about it and about its structure by a government that is racked with division. We only have to look at the comments in the papers today on an entirely different matter. The rural Liberal, the honourable member for Hume, who I and the member for New England serve with on the agriculture committee, fronted the National Party senator in the party room and warned:

I have cut the throats of animals worth more than you.

Are those people, who have responsibility both for this industry and for wheat growers and their families in rural areas, going to sit down in the cool light of day with that sort of relationship? The honourable member for O’Connor had this to say:

A number of people, who were not Liberals, were constantly out in the marketplace saying it was the way you did business in the Middle East. If our side of politics is guilty of anything, it’s of trusting a mob of agri-politicians—all of which have close connections to the National Party.

I want the National Party ministers to really accept responsibility for this debacle and resign. Warren Truss should resign, Mark Vaile should resign and Alexander Downer should resign, because—

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