Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Can I deal with the issues raised by the shadow minister first. I suspect I am going to want a few goes at my five minutes to work through the different issues that have been raised. I will deal first with the non-apple issues raised by the shadow minister, then deal with apples and then deal with the different issues that have been raised.

First of all, the shadow minister raised the issue of the Productivity Commission review into the research and development corporations. I believe I can actually give him all the assurances he seeks by simply referring to the National Press Club speech I gave when the Productivity Commission inquiry was launched. There is no desire by government to use this as a mechanism to reduce funding. What we are trying to do is find ways for the money that is made available for research and development through the RDCs to be used far more effectively and efficiently than it has been.

The research and development corporations by and large do a very good job. I do not want to mince words on that; generally they do. For each of them I do believe there are examples where they could use their money more efficiently than they do, which would result in more money being made available for research and development, not less. The key examples that I think you can focus on fairly easily are: first of all, there were a handful of them where executive salaries became completely out of control. I believe that whoever is the CEO of a research body is doing an incredibly important job. When their salaries got beyond the salary of the Prime Minister of Australia, and they were doing that off the back of farmers’ and taxpayers’ money, I think it was not a reasonable call. I spoke to them for a long time, asking them to do something about it. One of them moved a tiny bit but very few of them moved at all, and I do believe it is an appropriate issue for the Productivity Commission to have a look at.

Secondly, there is the issue of co-location. We have more than half-a-dozen of the research and development corporations based here in Canberra, but they all have their own building, they all have their own conference room, they have their own payroll systems under different enterprise agreements and they have their own receptionist. I do not believe for a minute that there are not opportunities to co-locate, streamline and outsource some functions, even if the RDCs all want to keep their separate identities and not amalgamate. I really believe that at the moment there is money that could go to research and development—that farmers believe they are paying for the purpose of research and development and that taxpayers are pretty happy to contribute to in the matched funds—that, though it is not being thrown up against a wall, by any means, is not being used as efficiently as it could be. The intention of the Productivity Commission review is to find a way for the money that is provided to be used more effectively and efficiently than it has been.

There are some people, including some in the electorate of New England, for example, who oppose the levies outright. It is a common view as well among beef producers in that part of the member for New England’s electorate. It is also a common view among a number of grain growers in Western Australia. It is not a view I hold. I am not opposed to the levy system. I actually think it works and works well for these reasons: firstly, if you believe that there should be an Australian government contribution to research and development—and I do—then the people who get the financial benefit from the research and development should pay a higher contribution than the general taxpayer does, and the levy system does exactly that; secondly, research and development is only of any use at all if it makes it from the lab to the farm and if farmers have been involved on the boards. If the farming organisations have had a direct stake in what is being chosen for the purposes of research, I believe that is the best way you can have of ensuring the extension part works—that the research actually makes it from the lab to the farm.

My commitment to the current system is one where the more I have looked at it, the more I think it works. I think it is a smart structure. There are individual issues. Some of them have got more tied up in agri-political activity than I think is warranted for a research body. There are different areas where the money can be used more efficiently than it has been. But as a general rule the model itself is one I support and I have said so publicly previously.

The next issue raised by the shadow minister concerns whether I am receiving information, advice and complaints from other departments on the work of the research and development corporations. The advice that comes to me on the RDCs comes from two sources: it comes from my department and it comes from farmers. That is it; that is the only advice that comes to me. The extent to which other departments have chosen to engage in the Productivity Commission process, for example, I do not know the answer to, but I suspect the Productivity Commission would be able to provide very quickly which departments have made submissions to it. The advice that comes to me comes is from my department and from farmers, and I am not sure that advice on research and development corporations from any other department would be as useful to me as those two sources of information.

We then go to the issues surrounding apples. I will deal with the issue of China and the issue of New Zealand separately because they are very different issues in terms of biosecurity. I first of all thank all members who participated in that discussion on apples for the fact that, without exception, everybody was arguing from a biosecurity perspective. No-one was arguing—in the questions that I heard and the way they were framed—from a protectionist perspective. I think that is a very important message not just for us to relay to each other but for the rest of the world to hear Australian politicians argue.

Australia’s approach to biosecurity and quarantine has always been within the context of us being largely a free-trading nation. But we are also an island nation. There are pests and diseases which do not exist here, and Australia has every right to protect itself from those pests and diseases using the formula of the appropriate level of protection which has been used by both sides of politics for a very long time, which is that the level of protection should be for very low but not zero risk. If we sought zero risk, we know that that would mean that you would take no imports of anything, you would allow no tourists in or out of the nation and you would shoot all migratory birds as they approached the border. The approach of zero risk is one that no-one can deliver in any sensible public policy approach, but to minimise the risk is good and appropriate public policy, and that has had bipartisan support within Australian politics for a long time. I think the discussion we just had, the questions and the way they were framed affirmed that very strongly.

I now go to the biosecurity issues which we are dealing with. With respect to New Zealand, we are talking principally but not solely about fire blight, in terms of the issues which have been raised. Drosophila suzukiiI always have to check that name—is the pest that we are talking about with China.

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