Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party, Minister for Workforce Participation) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Brisbane for his contribution to the debate on the Customs Tariff Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2007. The legislation is receiving bipartisan support. Government does a very significant amount of work in this area to make sure that the country is protected in all ways.

The Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade, which the member for Brisbane referred to, is a multilateral environmental agreement designed to promote shared responsibility and cooperation among parties in international trade of certain hazardous industrial chemicals and pesticides. This government takes the whole business of trading hazardous industrial chemicals and pesticides very seriously indeed. Our agribusiness industry is dependent, as is our manufacturing industry, on the very careful management of these substances and, indeed, the Rotterdam convention is very seriously considered and complied with by this government. The aim of this convention is to protect human health and the environment from potential harm and to contribute to the environmentally sound use of these hazardous products.

The amendment to the classification of the pesticide binapacryl allows for its separate identification. This will allow the Australian Customs Service and other regulatory agencies in Australia and throughout the world to identify and monitor this trade and this pesticide, thereby having greater control over the movement of this good.

The Customs Tariff Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2007 contains minor amendments to the Customs Tariff Act 1995. In this final summary of this debate, let me just repeat that the bill contains amendments to repeal the current subheading for binapacryl and create a new subheading for this chemical. This amendment comes as a result of information received from the World Customs Organisation acknowledging that binapacryl was classified incorrectly in the third review of the harmonised commodity description and coding system which forms the basis of Australia’s custom tariff.

These measures will take effect on the day the act receives the royal ascent. The bill will also amend the text of the subheading for microbiological culture media to remove the reference to culture media for viruses. This amendment will ensure that the rate of customs duty of ‘free’ will continue to apply to prepared culture media for the development or maintenance of viruses.

This measure was implemented via customs tariff notice in December 2006 and then included in Customs Tariff Proposal (No. 1) 2007, which was tabled in the House of Representatives on 15 February 2007. The measure contained in this bill will take effect from 1 January 2007. I commend the bill to the House.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.

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