Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to comment on a matter of concern to my constituents in the grain industry. Silo Bags is an innovative and successful technology which is revolutionising the way that grain is handled, stored and traded around the world. From its humble beginnings in Springhurst, just north of Wangaratta in my electorate, Silo Bags has come as something of a revolution in the grain industry by effecting considerable savings in freight and handling costs for grain growers across Australia and, indeed more recently, overseas.

The Silo Bags technology is of enormous benefit to grain growers. If at harvest time there is no storage capacity on their farms, farmers can utilise Silo Bags to ensure the optimal preservation of grain in a convenient and flexible manner through Silo Bags’ airtight, large storage capacity on their farms.

Its very success as a godsend for wheat growers at harvest time has, however, been seen by the large grain traders and bulk handlers as representing a real commercial threat—this is where the Australian Wheat Board comes into the equation. Under the guise of a joint venture, AWB approached Silo Bags. Under the process of due diligence undertaken at AWB’s request, an offer was made to my constituents which would have given the AWB full and total control of the Silo Bags technology, leaving my constituents no income or control in this joint venture, despite it being their business and them owning 75 per cent of the shares—in other words, a total acquisition of a possible threat to AWB’s market share.

The AWB saw an emerging threat to their lucrative market that was being taken up by a fast-growing number of grain growers, and they immediately sought control of it through a boorish takeover. This, however, was the tip of the iceberg in terms of what was to come.

Silo Bags, which has had success in many overseas markets, looked to India for trade. My constituents were approached by AWB India in this regard and given an assurance by AWB that Silo Bags’s foreign market rights and commissions would be respected. This was blatantly not the case. Silo Bags sent machinery and bags to India, only to be left in the lurch by the AWB who, after initially agreeing to the shipment, then engaged in taking commissions and sales belonging to Silo Bags.

AWB India claimed that, for Silo Bags to retain ownership of their shipment, Silo Bags would have to allow AWB to pay them for the shipment and then Silo Bags would have to buy it back from AWB. Silo Bags were then informed that they would have to alter an invoice and change the amount if they wanted payment for this transaction. This potentially illegal request from AWB remains active because my constituents did not alter the invoice as it was a breach of international trading law, as they understood it. As such, they still await payment from the AWB.

When quizzed on this matter, the AWB hide behind their legal teams and provide an elaborate subterfuge in any way possible to hide their responsibilities to local grain growers. Through their behaviour in this whole tawdry episode, the AWB have been shown to be the very authoritarian bullies that Commissioner Cole alluded to in his report last year. Silo Bags has unfortunately been a pawn in the game of AWB brinkmanship.

Unfortunately, time tonight does not allow me to delve more deeply into the matter here, but it is a story of fear, intimidation, blackmail and collusion. It is a sorry tale of a local Australian innovation being sidelined by the unethical vultures at the AWB. As Commissioner Cole stated in his report:

A government grant, by legislation, of a monopoly power confers on the recipient a great privilege. It carries with it a commensurate obligation. The starting point is an ethical base. At AWB the Board and management failed to create, instil or maintain a culture of ethical dealing.

Indefinitely keeping the AWB’s monopoly powers over Australia’s single desk wheat marketing system is akin to making Dougie Cameron the shadow minister for small business. That is why I look forward to the changes the government has foreshadowed in the wheat marketing industry. In written correspondence to the AWB, my constituents sum it up when they say:

You cannot hurt myself or my team any more than you lot have. We believed in what we were told, and we believed in the AWB. We are now paying the consequences.

Against the odds of the powerful AWB, my constituents have displayed the tenacity and determination that exemplifies the Australian farming spirit. I pay tribute to them and I ask that the AWB remember the very people they are said to have represented—the grain growers themselves.

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