Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Being an old meatworker, over the years I have scrutinised the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service, especially under Liberal governments. I once studied meat inspection so I know a bit about lymph nodes and other things. But I did not go on because other things intervened, especially politics. I believe there is a need for change, and change is certainly coming around. There were inherent inefficiencies in the system that the previous government had not addressed in 2001. I will come to those later. However, since this government has been in there has been considerable change. Maybe the honourable member opposite has not been keeping up with those changes. There has been an investment of $127.5 million over three years in the development of a modern export certificate scheme that maintains Australia's reputation as a producer of high quality safe food products; $85 million was in export certificate rebates and the remainder was a project and AQIS staff redundancies, which had to occur. We have also finalised a review of the fee structures and the overhead allocations that have set new fees and charges, which we will be able to see on the department's website, and which will cover all the industries that the member for Calare has sought. I would like to table the independent review of AQIS fees and charges in the meat program. This was tabled on 8 May 2010. I seek leave to table it.

Leave granted.

The government has approved a cost recovery impact statement and it is available on the department's website. I see that in 2001 the then government took 40 per cent off the export fees and put it on to the budget. That was real efficiency! It is probably why the constituents of Lyons lost out on some of their health budget coming through to Tasmania—because some of it was taken off by that sort of process. It was not about making industry more efficient et cetera—I concede that the member for Calare was not the minister at the time.

There has been extensive consultation with the Australian Meat Industry Council, in particular, the budget for the meat program in 2011-12 and that will be $56 million. For last financial year the budget was about $78 million, and the previous budget for that was closer to $85 million. So this will allow not only costs to be reduced but also more meat to be processed in Australia. It brings down the cost of processing. The budgets for respective programs are all subject to a process of consultation and ultimately become part of the public record. The government has been working hard to ensure our major trading partners, including United States, understand that proposed reforms to the meat inspection system will provide at least equivalent outcomes and greater transparency than the scheme under which we operate now.

The US has the most complex regulatory requirements, as I remember from my days in the meat industry, followed by the EU and some northern Asian markets. Meat exports exceed $5 billion per year, so it is a considerable industry for our country. Therefore, we should get these reforms right. I am told the US formally accepted the proposed export meat inspection service model in March this year and we are moving towards a full roll-out of the AEMIS across all red meat processing establishments to reduce government program costs from around $80 million per year to approximately $56 million per year. So the government and industry have been working hard to find efficiencies in each of the export certified programs. The member for Calare might note that it has been a collective effort. We could reduce costs even further but the government and the meat industry are not interested in efficiencies if they compromise market access.

On 5 September the minister announced that the government would implement the Australian export meat inspection scheme from 1 October and provide $25.8 million in transitional assistance. I understand that the opposition has begrudgingly—I heard the members say this—come to the party, announcing it would support the regulations underpinning the reform. I am pleased that they have done that. The minister has told me that he has arranged a briefing for Mr Cobb on the status of the meat program and advised Mr Cobb and Senator Colbeck that the government is continuing to work on a sector by sector basis on reform. Government is continuing its reform process but there is no one-size-fits-all approach to these matters. The minister says he will continue to liaise with the export sectors to discuss their proposals.

So this motion from the member for Calare is rather behind the times in as much as what he is asking for has already been covered and he has not recognised the amount of work already undertaken in this area. Perhaps he has not been briefed by his own side. Maybe he needs to talk more with his own people. I think the opposition is trying to give the impression that something is wrong when the government and the industry are getting on with the business of supporting regional jobs and reducing red tape, making our industry more efficient and more effective, as we need to do. I think that new technology is being drawn down to help reduce these costs. Of course, that will add to productivity and improve our export prices and our overall position. Australian processing and our manufacturing sectors do have to be price sensitive, especially with the price of Australia's dollar.

We need to keep this industry up on its training, to engage people to enter the trade, enter the work and work in the meat industry. I am sure you, Madam Deputy Speaker Livermore, who have quite a works in your electorate, would always be thinking about where labour is required to get into our regional works. There are lots of regional jobs in Australia. My local works, which is pretty much a large one from Tasmania's perspective, employs hundreds of people and this works, where I worked many years ago, has been employing people for 50 to 60 years. It is tremendous to see that that is still occurring. We need to continue making our industries more effective and more efficient, but it is not about government carrying costs for industry. Industry has to carry its own costs. We need high-performance meat inspection and a certification model which is at the forefront of international expectations to carry us into the future. This industry is worth many billions of dollars to us. We have to make sure that it is efficient and effective and we need to always make sure that we do that. We have started that across several of the sectors which are important to us, but it is no good trying to say that you can do this half-heartedly. You have to go in, negotiate right across the industries and achieve an efficient outcome. The international market access across all commodities through this will help us regain more market access, I believe, over the next 18 months. I oppose the motion.

See this speech in context