John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Absolutely: quite a trifecta. Agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries have been lumbered with a party hack from the New South Wales Labor government, and it shows. Having spent $6 million of taxpayers’ funds on just two extremely important areas within his portfolio responsibility, namely drought and quarantine and biosecurity, he has done nothing in over 12 months to implement the Beale recommendations. The $4.7 million Beale report into quarantine and biosecurity has been sitting on his desk since 30 September last year. It has been ignored and very deliberately ignored. The only recommendation enacted has been to axe the 40 per cent AQIS rebate on export inspections. This new tax will cost our exporters dearly. The Austrade submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport inquiry into the removal of the rebate leaves no-one in any doubt as to the stupidity of such an action. Austrade notes that the removal of the 40 per cent fee rebate on the AQIS export certification functions increases costs for Australian exporters and could adversely affect the competitiveness of many of our exporters and ultimately impact trade growth in established markets.

The government’s decision to return to full cost recovery for this service has the potential to significantly impact on the category of exporter and in particular may have an adverse effect on regional exports and business development. The only reform actually introduced by the minister other than to cut his department’s budget by 32 per cent in the last budget is costing jobs and will reduce our competitiveness and have an adverse effect on regional exports and business development. Only last week the minister was forced to admit that AQIS had misled a Senate committee and blamed a data entry mistake for the claim that 8.8 tonnes of hamburger beef had come from New Zealand not China. Another of his reforms. Another day, another review. Perhaps if the minister actually enacted the Beale review recommendation to spend an additional $260 million per annum on our quarantine and biosecurity services, instead of cutting nearly $40 million from the budget and cutting 125 jobs, his department would not make such basic, fundamental mistakes.

What about Senator Penny Wong’s idea of reform? Senator Wong, the Minister for Climate Change and Water, has all but declared war on communities in the Murray-Darling Basin. Her idea of basic reform is to take an axe to the livelihood of the two million people who live in the Murray-Darling Basin. The Oxley column in the Land last week said it all. In a visit to the western Riverina, Senator Wong:

…went one further than the usual political tricks for avoiding or ignoring unpleasant questions—she specified that all queries be supplied ahead of time for vetting, before deigning to offer scripted answers for those regarded as acceptable. Welcome to open and accountable democracy …

The minister for agriculture is obviously junior to Minister Wong and junior to the minister for the environment. His reform is to cut his budget. His reform is to ignore reports which sit on his desk.

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