Peter Andren (Calare, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I take pleasure in resuming my comments on the Wheat Marketing Amendment Bill 2006 after the delay. Could I put on the record my condolences and thankyou to Kim Beazley and his family at this difficult time, before I continue my remarks.

As I was saying, the Prime Minister, when commenting on the move to shift the veto powers to the minister, said in a press conference during the week:

... you couldn’t get a proper outcome while the veto lay with AWBI because AWBI is not only, how shall we put it, a player, but also the holder of the veto ...

One can ask, as I said, by this sort of logic, why did AWB International ever hold the veto power? ‘Why indeed,’ I can hear the Treasurer saying. The Cole inquiry has been a very timely funeral for the single desk for many in this place but not for the majority of Australia’s wheat growers. The NFF said this week we must remember that, while the Cole inquiry was scathing of the AWB, the innocent bystanders throughout this saga have been Australia’s wheat growers. Not so innocent bystanders were the government and its officials—condemned not by Cole but by their ignorance, deliberate or otherwise, of what was going on.

Growers who have contacted me want to know the answers to several key questions. Firstly, what guarantees can be given that this transfer of veto power will not undermine the financial security of the national pool system and will not lower returns to growers, given that the application by CBH of Western Australia to export wheat to Asia was rejected on the grounds of undermining existing markets and jeopardising the national pool? Analysts predict that the CBH application will now be approved by the minister, diminishing the amount of grain available for AWB to export, costing AWB between $15 million and $30 million in lost earnings. AWB’s marketing position and its grower shareholders will be greatly disadvantaged.

Secondly, what are the plans for marketing the current national pool to ensure certainty for growers? Who will market stocks from the remaining 2005-06 pool? How is the government going to protect the equity of the 2005-06 and the 2006-07 national wheat pools? Thirdly, what impact will the changes inherent in this bill have on growers facing severe drought and downturn in income for this and the 2007-08 crop, with the possibility of no seller of last resort underpinning price and confidence and potentially no player in the market with a charter of maximising returns to growers?

These are some of the questions that I have been asked. The only way of addressing these concerns in the short term is to absolutely guarantee full consultation through proper survey and polling of all growers—the sentiment inherent in the proposed amendment from the member for New England, which I strongly support.

I must say, to cover the other side of this debate, that I have received one strong submission from the central west from a wheat trader who criticises the single desk. This operator employs 40 people and the business has grown through the containerisation of grain for export, which is not an unusual feature of the grain industry. Further expansion of this business would be welcome, but the company is hamstrung by the veto power of the AWB. There is concern that the surrender of export details, customer details and so on is a surrender of market advantage to the AWB. This company is concerned, with the all-encompassing power of the current veto arrangements and what appears to be the ad hoc issuing of licences for container export, that this company is severely disadvantaged. The suggestion is that the single desk be at least taken away from AWB International; that comes from this particular supplier. That suggestion has been made elsewhere. I have heard strong arguments from wheat growers why this should not happen. The grower shareholders in the company and the impact that the loss of the single desk would have on that investment is one major reason that is given.

So we have differing views. But I believe we should not throw away a marketing advantage that the majority of growers want—that is a major pool and a single desk. The member for New England’s amendment, giving wheat growers the opportunity to vote on options for change, is necessary to recognise that strong desire from growers struggling with the worst drought on record and most concerned about their pool return for last season, this season—if any—and next season, praying that the drought breaks. We owe our growers that, and this is a test of the government’s bona fides and their true concern for the fortunes of rural Australia. I will also be supporting the opposition amendment in the interests of absolutely fair and open scrutiny of our wheat marketing arrangements, with a view to securing the outcome that the majority of the industry wants.

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