George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Removing Re-approval and Re-registration) Bill 2014. Controlling pests is an essential ingredient of agriculture. Deloitte Access Economics recently attributed 68 per cent of crop production to the use of agvet chemicals. That is an important point, because if we were to remove these chemicals from use on farms, we would be increasing the price of food on the grocery store shelf. It is a simple equation: any increase in time or money taken to produce crops translates to dollars at the checkout for households. Any reduction in the amount a farmer can produce also translates into extra dollars at the checkout. When we do not see those costs flow through to consumers, we see farmers go out of business and, one way or the other, families end up paying more.

This amendment is about ensuring farmers spend more time producing our food and less time bound up in red tape. With this amendment we are implementing our election commitment to remove the requirement for agricultural chemicals and veterinary medicines re-registration by removing end dates for approvals and last renewal dates for registrations so that approvals will no longer end after a particular period. By allowing registrations to be renewed perpetually, this amendment is the reform that is needed to: reduce red tape by providing for less frequent registration renewals; improve the APVMA's ability to secure information about the safety of chemicals supplied in the market; introduce further simple reforms to agvet chemicals regulation to reduce red tape and improve efficiency, once again; oblige the APVMA to provide access to information about approvals and registrations in its files to persons eligible to receive it; and address some minor implementation issues identified in the existing reform legislation. This a good amendment that will keep farmers farming and free up the APVMA to get on with its job.

Before the Greens start wringing their hands and making their wild claims about the world exploding in a puff of fairy dust, let me make this point. Removing the regular registration requirement does not mean there will be any less oversight of chemical use in the industry. In fact, no longer faced with the onerous task of constant re-registration, the APVMA will have more time to work on creating and analysing real scientific information to better inform their processes. The APVMA will retain its existing powers to ensure any newly identified risks about the safety, efficacy or trade impact of a chemical are examined. The APVMA also retains the power to recall unsafe chemical products or suspend or cancel the registration of a product if they may no longer meet criteria for registration.

These powers were actually strengthened and streamlined by a recent amendment to the act, which makes me wonder why the provision for regular re-registration was created in the first place. It achieves absolutely nothing. If the APVMA discovers through credible scientific evidence that there is a particular problem with a chemical, it has the power to act. It already had that power to act—it always did and it still does.

Let us just imagine for a moment, though, the process that the green influence is suggesting would happen if a problem was discovered with the use of a particular chemical. Let us assume there was a pesticide that farmers used to remove green stains from their property. What is the APVMA going to do if they discover that this 'Greenaway' pesticide comes with a dangerous side effect? Are they going to wait until it is time to re-register it to say, 'No. We discovered a couple of years ago that using this pesticide makes your arms fall off'—or results in a social media meltdown or whatever comes of it—'so we aren't going to re-register it.' That would not be a protection. It is just another gate that the green movement can use to attack farmers and any productive enterprise that uses such chemicals.

We have already seen the faux environmental movement employ similar gatekeeper tactics to sabotage the sugar industry with an effective ban on diuron, which I will come to in a minute. The interesting thing about the re-registration provision when it was introduced by Labor and the Greens, was the rhetoric around the issue before that legislation was introduced into this place. In 2010, Labor's then agriculture minister, Senator Joe Ludwig—the genius behind hamstringing the cattle industry—and Labor's minister assisting on deregulation, Nick Sherry, issued a press release spruiking the Gillard government:

… continuing to reform the regulation and use of farm chemicals and veterinary drugs to help improve productivity and international competitiveness in the agricultural sector.

That is a quote right out of their press release.

The following year, on 4 March 2011, then Minister Ludwig outlined the reasons why reform is necessary. Ineffective and inefficient chemical regulation, he said:

… can lead to problems such as higher cost to businesses, higher costs and reduced choice for chemical users, and the potential for reduced community confidence in the system as a whole.

I will tell you what happened, Mr Deputy Speaker—the Greens happened. The Greens happened, they influenced the Labor Party in this place to come up with this ridiculous legislation.

It seems that the APVMA, sadly to say, is also overly susceptible to Green campaigns, whether or not they are backed by credible science or just emotional claptrap. Such was the case with diuron. The chemical diuron is actually an essential part of the sugar industry. It is an extremely effective form of weed control and it has been responsible for increased efficiencies and production within that industry.

It has also been the subject of a very sloppy scientific review and a consequent lack of consultation on that review. At no point did the APVMA consider the impact on agriculture and what decisions meant in the real world when it came to the banning of diuron.

If the Greens thought that a chemical might be suspect, then Labor, when they were in government, were simply happy to let the APVMA ban it—or at least regulate it to the point of it effectively being banned. No proper scientific studies were carried out on the use of diuron in the North Queensland sugar industry. No-one consulted with the North Queensland sugar industry and no-one thought about what would happen to the industry if that chemical were banned. No-one bothered to consider if there were viable alternatives and no-one thought about what the North Queensland sugar industry farmers would have to do if the product were off the shelves. And no-one can definitively show that there will be any overall benefit from the ban on the product.

The sugar farmers in North Queensland are acutely aware of their impact on the environment—the land and the waterways—and the quality that they need to maintain in the environment of the land and the waterways. Their entire business—their livelihoods—are based on the quality of the environment, the quality of the land and the quality of the waterways.

In recent generations, we have seen an increasing focus in the sugar industry on sustainable practice. Cane farmers right throughout North Queensland have adopted a range of environmental practices that provide very good outcomes for both the environment and the industry. These new environmental practices, such as green trash blanketing, and in conjunction with the use of chemicals like diuron have proved to be very effective. If diuron is removed from the process, the environmental practices are no longer effective for the industry. Is that the result the Greens, who are pushing for this product to be banned, were hoping to see?

Did they want to see a return to those old practices, such as the burning of cane trash? Did the APVMA, the Greens, or those opposite for one minute consider what the alternative practice would actually be and what impact that would have on the environment? Did they bother to ask anyone in the sugar industry what would happen if diuron were no longer available for use? There is no economically viable alternative to diuron. The regulator has placed restrictions on diuron use to concentrations that actually render it ineffective, or they have banned its use during the precise time when the farmers actually need to use it for weed management. No consideration was given to the development of an economically viable alternative before banning what was, essentially, an industry standard weed management tool.

Representing the largest sugar-growing electorate in this country, I am acutely aware of the impact that such rash decisions can have on this key industry. But I also represent the Bowen-Gumlu Region, which is the largest winter-growing region for capsicums and tomatoes in Australia. The region produces 47,000 tonnes of capsicums and chillies, worth an estimated $100 million. This small region in North Queensland produces 95 per cent of our capsicums during September and October. It also produces $124 million worth of tomatoes every year. It accounts for 90 per cent of the nation's production of tomatoes between September and October.

The Bowen-Gumlu region also produces many other sorts of horticultural products. What was important for all of them was an organophosphate insecticide called dimethoate for controlling fruit fly. The APVMA conducted a review on the use of dimethoate and found that it could pose a potential dietary risk to consumers.

In 2011, they lowered the maximum residue limit for dimethoate pesticide from 0.02 milligrams per kilogram per day to 0.001 milligrams per kilogram per day. Not content with strangling agricultural production in the domestic market, the APVMA, by default with that decision, forced their new restrictive standards onto the New Zealand market as well. A lot of these tomatoes go over to New Zealand. And despite the fact that New Zealand has its own regulatory regime for agricultural chemicals—and in fact actually allows the use of dimethoate to the levels that we have now banned in Australia—the APVMA chose effectively to make this decision which blocks the export of Australian tomatoes to New Zealand. There is no alternative for the control of the fruit fly, even though the tomatoes and the dimethoate used met the standards for New Zealand. They no longer meet Australian standards because Australian standards, I have to say, have been abducted by extremists.

They met the standards for New Zealand—this bastion of environmentalism right on our doorstep. By effectively blocking the export of these tomatoes to New Zealand, the APVMA cost Australian growers important market share. The industry had developed alternative means of fruit fly control—they have gone through this rigorous process and they have finally got there—but because it has taken an extraordinary amount of effort and an extraordinary amount of time to process all the applications through all the different states to get this new method accepted—and they still have not got there in terms of getting New Zealand to accept it. And two years of export and market access has been lost.

When farmers from my electorate could not export into New Zealand, alternatives were sought in New Zealand. When the door was slammed to Australian farmers, a door was opened for the Netherlands, on the other side of the world, to take our place. And now New Zealand farmers, encouraged by the increased price opportunity—obviously, there high transport costs coming from the Netherlands—left by our undersupply, or our non-supply, have started building greenhouses to enable them to take over permanently the market share that we once had. That is what happens.

The agriculture industry in Australia today faces a framework of reasons not to succeed. We have organisations, regulators, and ecoterrorists looking for opportunities to interfere, to frustrate, to block and to exert their influence. What agriculture needs is a proactive framework that celebrates its strength, encourages success, and seeks resolutions and positive outcomes.

We have seen enough of Labor and the Greens asking, 'How can we slow this down?' It is time for the government to ask, 'How can we grow?' The Liberal-National government meets an important election commitment with this amendment. We made a specific commitment to the agricultural sector to repeal these counterproductive measures from chemical regulation—and I have to say that I think we need to go further than that. I think the radical Greens got this foot in the door with the APVMA; there now needs to be a barrier put up against that. What I propose, and I hope it will eventually be put in place, is that we give a right of veto to the minister on some of the decisions that the APVMA makes—but that may be legislation for another day. The bill we have before us today will remove the senseless red tape that was introduced last year and allow a viable agricultural industry to get on with the job. For all of these reasons I commend the bill to the House.

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