Barry Wakelin (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is part of it, Member for New England, but I also think many of them have decided that wheat growing is more important than share trading. In respect of the issue of the single desk and the debate about the premium, now is not the time to talk about it, but there is also going to be a debate about where the single desk premium lies.

Wheat will always be a product with a value. From my own personal experience, I have sold a lot of other agricultural products—wool, meat and other grains—and have always been able to have those payments honoured. I guess I have been fortunate. I have always valued the AWB for its surety in payment. To sum up, the single desk for export wheat in the season of 2006-07 really is about Western Australia and a small part of South Australia. There may be other very small parcels of wheat throughout the rest of Australia. The ownership of AWBI has now passed pretty much in the majority sense from the wheat growing industry to other hands.

We have a financial system now which, thank goodness, in my experience in agriculture—I have been a wheat grower since 1970—has been able to honour all payments. To the minister, I say: you have a very tough task. I cannot see any other way that the government could have got through this, because of the circumstances that we all know about. It is important to remember that the marketing of wheat is actually a lot simpler than the growing of it, in my experience, and therefore, as tough as it looks, I am confident that we will ride this out. I have every confidence in you, Minister McGauran, and in the government that we will find the solutions and that the wheat growers, particularly the export wheat growers, and Australia’s best interest are represented in this bill.

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