Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This bill, the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Operational Efficiency) Bill 2017, may seem an innocuous, minor and technical piece of legislation, but it is, in fact, very important, as it deals with an organisation, the APVMA, which is involved at its very heart with the fundamentals of Australian agriculture and which at present is undergoing an extremely traumatic and damaging process—that is, the move of the APVMA from Canberra to Armidale—at the whim of a minister, the member for New England, so besotted with his own power that he's prepared to fundamentally damage a major Australian scientific institution at his own behest for no particular good reason.

The APVMA was established in 1993 as a uniform authority and testing organisation for the multitude of chemicals, pesticides, antibiotics and other veterinary medicines used in agriculture and in veterinary medicine. This was required because of the rapid expansion in the number of chemicals, pesticides and antibiotics becoming available, the ongoing concerns about insect and weed resistance to common chemicals and the damaging environmental effects these chemicals can cause. There's also been—and this is very important to me—rapidly emerging antibiotic resistance to common pathological bacteria, such as staphylococcus, streptococcus and some of the Gram-negative bacteria responsible for many human illnesses, and the effect that antibiotics used in agriculture and veterinary medicine may have on this. This affects clinical practice by our doctors and our hospitals and is an ongoing and increasing concern as our world becomes more and more globalised and these organisms quickly spread from country to country. In fact, the Australian Veterinary Association calls antimicrobial resistance a global animal and human health emergency. For example, we are already seeing multidrug-resistant human diseases such as tuberculosis spreading from South-East Asia to Australia. Antimicrobial resistance is now seen as a health emergency by many scientific organisations, such as the Australian Veterinary Association.

What is little known, however, is that over 70 per cent of antibiotics used in Australia are used in agricultural and veterinary medicine—much more than is used in human medicine. The use of these antibiotics may have significant environmental effects and significant effects on human health. You need to be very careful about introducing new groups of antibiotics into our environment because of the development of antimicrobial resistance. The Australian Veterinary Association has recently produced significant data about the use and abuse of antibiotics in veterinary and agricultural practice.

The APVMA is responsible for approving and testing these chemicals and antibiotics and has always had bipartisan support. There has been some concern about the slow approval process, but under the previous CEO, Kareena Arthy, there was rapidly improving efficiency since she started in 2013, with record efficiencies and record numbers of chemicals and pesticides approved in 2016.

With the move of the APVMA from Canberra to Armidale, there has been much comment. None of the scientific organisations that I've spoken to feel that this has been an appropriate and transparent process. Lately, much has been written about the Deputy Prime Minister, and I don't want to add to his recent difficulties. Of much more significance to me is the forced transfer of the APVMA to Armidale because of its enormous cost, its devastating effect on operational efficiency and the enormous loss of scientific expertise and the ability of the APVMA to interact with other scientific institutions, such as the Australian National University. The cost estimate has been variously said to be between $30 and $40 million and, more recently, over $60 million. It's estimated that about half of the staff will not make the transition to Armidale, including some of the most senior scientists, in spite of massive financial inducements for staff to move.

No adequate reasons for the move have been given. The government's response has been to hire a public relations firm—I believe by the name of Seftons—to deal with media inquiries and to not provide any information about the suggestions of other scientific organisations about the move. In fact, many in the scientific community have condemned the move, including the Australian Veterinary Association. The only person I can find on record defending Mr Joyce's decision to suddenly come up with this idea to move the APVMA to his own electorate is TV personality Don Burke. That's right! The only person who's approved this move in public is TV personality Don Burke.

It's recently been suggested that the APVMA may have to hire staff from overseas on 457 visas to fill the vacancies. There has been absolutely no transparency even in the numbers or type of staff who are making the transfer or into the inducements offered. We know that no preparation has been made for an appropriate office for the staff. There has been little transparency in preparing the legislation. There are still multiple reviews of the present legislation to come in the next few weeks. The time for public comment was severely limited. Multiple measures, including those relating to the APVMA's handling of confidential commercial information, have not been given to us. And, most importantly, the consideration of anti-microbial resistance has been omitted from the final bill prior to its presentation to parliament.

This bill has also been significantly delayed in its presentation to parliament for reasons that we do not understand. We get very little from the Deputy Prime Minister, the previous minister for agriculture, when questioned about the move. He blusters and yells about completely irrelevant topics. It is very hard to hold him to account as he doesn't seem to understand the science behind the APVMA and its importance to not only Australian agriculture but also Australian human health. This has been an exercise in pork-barrelling for no particularly good reason. I would ask the new minister for agriculture, Mr Littleproud, to seriously reconsider this unscientific, damaging and particularly poor understanding of the importance—

Mr Littleproud interjecting—

I'm glad that he has some comment, because he doesn't seem to have any understanding of the importance of the APVMA. This is a further example of the government's terrible attacks on science and scientific thought, and of governmental transparency of this government. I wish the new minister for agriculture well. I have no reason not to want him to perform well.

Agriculture is still part of my electorate and a significant contributor, but this particular move has been so damaging, so opaque, so poorly thought out and so poorly understood by members of the government that it is time for a review. I would counsel the new minister to seriously consider that. We've had enough of the polycythaemic proconsul—his predecessor—blustering about this, but we do need some answers and some transparency. This is a very important scientific institution and one that is at risk of being destroyed by a member of the government who is too preoccupied with his own self rather than the best interests of Australian agriculture.

As I've said, it is very important for human health that the APVMA functions to the best of its ability. It's important to note the APVMA's new CEO, Chris Parker, has confirmed a big slump in the rate of approvals and has ordered a root-cause analysis and review of the reasons why. Mr Joyce, the Deputy Prime Minister, has acted with colossal arrogance in the forced removal of the APVMA to Armidale with very little stakeholder consultation and without really understanding the importance of a scientific organisation built up over decades. The great shame that we have is that that body of thought, that body of scientific knowledge, is being destroyed in a very short period of time and will take decades to redevelop. It's anti-science, not in the best interests of Australian agriculture, not in the best interests of Australian veterinary medicine and not in the best interests of human health.

This money, the $40 million or so, could have been much better spent. In fact, the Australian Veterinary Association, in its pre-budget submissions, mentioned some very important areas where this money could have been better spent, such as developing proper guidelines for antibiotic use in agriculture and veterinary medicine; better surveillance systems for disease investigation in agriculture and veterinary medicine; making available adequate funds for emergency response training for veterinary practitioners and agricultural scientists; and improved veterinary student training in the use of agricultural and veterinary chemicals. All these efforts would cost far less than the amount of money that is being used for this destructive and inappropriate transfer of the APVMA to Armidale. The government has been asked to work with stakeholders, such as the Australian Veterinary Association and some of the bigger chemical companies, to try to develop proper guidelines and other efficiencies in the work of the APVMA. Surely the effort and time would have been much better spent on developing these proper practices rather than on this very destructive move.

Labor supports the bill, but we note that there are many other things that could be done to improve the operating practices of the APVMA. There has been very little transparency, I would reiterate, in what is happening with the APVMA and even with this legislation. There are a number of issues that still need to be addressed, such as the development of antimicrobial resistance in some of these antibiotics.

The Deputy Prime Minister has ignored advice in what he has done and has treated the APVMA and its staff, and indeed the parliament, contemptuously. There has been little understanding of the science. The move is quite clearly anti-science. The move has been lacking in understanding of the importance of our scientific institutions. So, whilst we support this legislation, we implore the new minister for agriculture to take some time to review the situation—to review it coldly, in the cold light of day—and strongly consider changing the very destructive practice of his predecessor.

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