Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move the following motion:

That this house move that a Parliamentary Inquiry be immediately undertaken into the Productivity Commission and its reports, questioning its wider functions as well as reviewing a series of reports that have been prima facie culpably erroneous and misleading.

And that this:

1. Inquires into:

a. Whether the Productivity Commission has misled the Parliament of Australia.

Whether the Commission's advice has continuously failed to achieve even the most minimal standards of objectivity.

Whether in fact it has repeatedly worked within an ideological framework that has led to continuously and culpably biased outcomes. And that such outcomes have done serious structural damage to the Australian economy.

b. The Productivity Commission's recommendations have resulted in serious destruction to a number of Australia's major strategic industries, namely the motor vehicle, white goods and clothing industries.

c. That the inquiry inter alia evaluates the extent of the misleading and erroneous information and the necessity for abolishing the Productivity Commission and the recommendation of parameters for instituting a new commission that is:

i. Non Canberra based

ii. More widely representative of the Australian Community

iii. Made up of Commissioners that are properly qualified and with 'hands-on' experience in the field of production and commerce

2. And that the house takes note that the Commission's most recent report on Agriculture prima facie, contains the most patent and demonstrable errors of facts, says that Ethanol will add to the cost structures of farmers and will not reduce Co2. Clearly when a hectare of sugar cane absorbs each year 73 tonnes of Co2 from the atmosphere and puts around 20 tonnes of burnt ethanol Co2 back into the atmosphere. And whereas Co2 from the burning of the residual sugar cane fibre will into the future feed ponded algae then clearly this report is at worse erroneous, at best fatuous. Its remarks on the sugar industry are quite extraordinary since their proposed "Free Market" regime imposes a monopoly buyer upon almost every sugar cane farmer in Australia. A recommendation that clearly could not come from anyone but the most ignorant and irresponsible of commentators.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Kennedy from moving the following motion forthwith:

That this house move that a Parliamentary Inquiry be immediately undertaken into the Productivity Commission and its reports, questioning its wider functions as well as reviewing a series of reports that have been prima facie culpably erroneous and misleading.

And that this:

1. Inquires into:

a. Whether the Productivity Commission has misled the Parliament of Australia.

Whether the Commission's advice has continuously failed to achieve even the most minimal standards of objectivity.

Whether in fact it has repeatedly worked within an ideological framework that has led to continuously and culpably biased outcomes. And that such outcomes have done serious structural damage to the Australian economy.

b. The Productivity Commission's recommendations have resulted in serious destruction to a number of Australia's major strategic industries, namely the motor vehicle, white goods and clothing industries.

c. That the inquiry inter alia evaluates the extent of the misleading and erroneous information and the necessity for abolishing the Productivity Commission and the recommendation of parameters for instituting a new commission that is:

i. Non Canberra based

ii. More widely representative of the Australian Community

iii. Made up of Commissioners that are properly qualified and with 'hands-on' experience in the field of production and commerce

2. And that the house takes note that the Commission's most recent report on Agriculture prima facie, contains the most patent and demonstrable errors of facts, says that Ethanol will add to the cost structures of farmers and will not reduce Co2. Clearly when a hectare of sugar cane absorbs each year 73 tonnes of Co2 from the atmosphere and puts around 20 tonnes of burnt ethanol Co2 back into the atmosphere. And whereas Co2 from the burning of the residual sugar cane fibre will into the future feed ponded algae then clearly this report is at worse erroneous, at best fatuous. Its remarks on the sugar industry are quite extraordinary since their proposed "Free Market" regime imposes a monopoly buyer upon almost every sugar cane farmer in Australia. A recommendation that clearly could not come from anyone but the most ignorant and irresponsible of commentators.

The first serious commission report was on the motor vehicle industry, and it was a report to the Hawke government, if my memory serves me correctly. The Hawke-Keating government proceeded to abolish quotas and to cut motor vehicle tariffs from 57.5 per cent in 1983 to 22.5 per cent by 1996. The Productivity Commission called it the ORANI model. It was named after one of their wives. The Productivity Commission projected that a decrease in motor vehicle prices would take place because the cheap imports would be allowed in with no tariffs. Well, just the opposite occurred. The average price of a standard Holden and Ford rose from $13,268 in 1983 to $26,000 in 1996. It was a 100 per cent error factor. That was their first foray—a 100 per cent error.

In 1987, 86 per cent of Australia's motor vehicles were Australian made. By 2009, only 21 per cent of Australia's motor vehicles were Australian made. Again, the Orani model said that over 10 years there would be a 20 per cent intrusion. Over five years, there was a 63 per cent intrusion. They were out 300 per cent. The Orani report was named after the wife of one of the senior departmental officials. She would be well advised to sue for divorce with punitive damages claims for defamation thrown in!

That was the start of the Productivity Commission's advice to Australia. It was 100 per cent wrong on one element and 300 per cent wrong on another. It advised Mr Keating to abolish the wool scheme. I remember vividly when it was introduced. It took the price up 300 per cent. Every year for the next 20 years we saw something we very seldom see in Australia—a nice production line with a nice acceptable price. That enabled us to have 20 years of untold prosperity in inland Australia. We thank the great Doug Anthony and the Country Party for what they achieved.

Mr Keating abolished the wool scheme, and he completely destroyed the wool industry. The Productivity Commission's advice was, 'Deregulate.' There are people on this side of the House who know what happens when you deregulate the labour market. I can inform them that the same happens to a farmer. When the wool industry was deregulated, we dropped to 30 per cent of our income. Wool was bigger than coal. In 1984, Mr Keating abolished the scheme and deregulated us. That was 'Mr Free Market' himself. It was the biggest export item that this nation had and he completely destroyed it. Today we have 72 per cent fewer sheep than we had in those days when the wool industry was earning us $6,000 million a year—in today's money about $20 billion a year.

I will just reel off the great advice the Productivity Commission have given us in the field of agriculture. They advised that there should be a deregulation of the sugar industry. Well, Woolworths and Coles wrote them a letter of thanks because the price went up 20 per cent to the consumers and the price went down to the farmers by 25 per cent. Good ol' Woolworths and Coles, the boys in the middle, picked up $350 million a year in extra profits. Then they deregulated the egg industry. The price went up to the consumers and the price went down to the farmers and good ol' Mr Piggy in the middle got an extra $350 million. Just from two deregulations alone, the benefit did not go to the consumers. The price went up for the consumers. There was terrible detriment to the farmers. Piggy in the middle got an extra $700 million.

Next comes the big one—dairy. They said, 'Let's deregulate the dairy industry.' In this case, the price to the consumers went up considerably and the price to the farmers went down. I carry around this wonderful history of Australia. In this history book it delineates what happened to the dairy industry. It quotes the letter that was sent to the North Queensland dairy farmers that said: 'We are paying you 59c a litre, but tomorrow, after deregulation, we will pay you 42c a litre.' That was a wonderful outcome! Piggy in the middle got $1,200 million a year more and half the dairy farmers in Australia went bankrupt. We had 15,000 and now we are down to about 6,500. I had 240 farmers in probably the most prolific concentrated dairy industry area in Australia—we now have 36, the last time I looked—and a lot of them exited the industry in the most terrible way.

This Productivity Commission has been an absolute disaster for this country. We now have no manufacturing base. The motor vehicle industry is gone. The whitegoods industry is gone. I might add, the last factory was in Orange. The conservatives have held that seat since it has been a seat in parliament, and they have lost it. Two years ago the last factory of one of their major employers closed. It was the last whitegoods factory in Australia and it closed. I feel sorry for the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia because I am sure that he actually agrees with everything I am saying here, and God bless him for it.

We now, this year, have no motor vehicle industry. Thank you, Mr Productivity Commission, for your advice! We now have no whitegoods industry in this country. Thank you, Mr Productivity Commission, for your advice! We have virtually no wool industry left. Thank you, Mr Productivity Commission, for your advice! In the giant sugar industry that rescued Australia from the Great Depression and is still one of our four major agricultural export items, we are down 20 per cent of our production. (Time expired)

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