Damian Drum (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is good to see that the Labor Party will be supporting the government on this bill, the Export Control Legislation Amendment (Certification of Narcotic Exports) Bill 2020, to facilitate this new market. It is a new market that has a future we are finding it very difficult to put a limit on. Medicinal cannabis has a short history and a very small cohort that we were targeting to help. However, it would be fair to say that, over the last half-a-dozen years, the potential for medicinal cannabis has become far greater, and there is certainly real scope that medicinal cannabis could in fact be used in mainstream pain relief going forward, in a very strong commercial manner.

This bill is trying to solve a problem we have with the legislation whereby, under the current legislative settings, the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment cannot issue government certificates to support the legitimate export of narcotic goods. At the moment, medicinal cannabis and low-THC hemp products fall into the category of narcotic goods. Without the amendment in this bill to enable government certification, the department must negotiate with trading partners for their acceptance of alternative forms of assurance. This negotiation is extremely time-consuming and expensive and can lead to a loss of opportunity for our exporters.

The department can only regulate the export of products if they are 'goods' for the purposes of the Export Control Act, and the definition of goods under the Customs Act 1901 does not include narcotic goods. This bill will amend the 1982 act to provide the department with the legislative authority to issue government certificates for narcotic goods and effectively give the opportunity for companies around Australia who have invested and are still investing in medicinal cannabis the opportunity to grow their business, grow their hothouses around Australia, get into this market and create their markets around the world.

This is something that is dear to me, because there is a significant development happening in my electorate, just on the outskirts of Shepparton, with a company by the name of Cannatrek. They have got plans in place. They have been listed on the Australian government's major project site, so they have been given 'major project' status, which effectively will facilitate them when they go through the various regulatory controls that they need to go through to take their investment and their business forward.

It's great to see the support that the Australian government is giving the companies who are investing in this technology, this new drug. It's consistent with the work that we have done previously. It's consistent with the fact that we have been there to support our farmers and our regional communities in drought. You see it with the recent drought edition of the Building Better Regions Fund, regions fund 4, where again there is a complete regional fund designed to help those communities that have been through the drought. We are there to help. We have implemented a fund that's going to generate $100 million, even in good years. We are hopeful we will have a very strong year this year, because we had a fantastic start to the season, but, irrespective of whether we have a good year or a bad year, we are still going to have $100 million coming into a drought assistance package that will be there for when it is needed.

We are also there in relation to the bushfires, to support those communities that were incredibly damaged by the bushfires. Those decisions are getting made right now. We are working in conjunction with the states to make sure that that support is ongoing. We've been there for our communities through COVID-19, to make sure that our assistance and our programs that are put in place are fit and suitable for the respective communities that we understand need our assistance. And we were there during the dairy crisis, going back to 2016, when all of a sudden the major suppliers wanted to crash the prices of our dairy farmers and effectively dropped the price and then demanded a clawback of moneys that had already been paid in advance and dragged those claims for repayments of, in many cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars. We were there to support those farmers in those times, and it's good to see us supporting those farmers here.

Medicinal cannabis is something that will be a very high production crop. It's a crop that can produce many hundreds of millions of dollars of produce using very little water, so it will be highly efficient in relation to the environment in regional Victoria and elsewhere in regional Australia. We're very, very conscious of the types of investment that we encourage into our regions in relation to the demand that they will have on our water supply.

It's interesting that the shadow minister for agriculture in his contribution, which he has just finished, spoke in not so glowing terms about the work that we are doing to support our farmers. But the Labor Party still believes in buybacks, which is the most destructive water policy that has ever been introduced into any parliament. Buybacks are effectively damaging, they are destructive and they are lazy. They fracture entire communities. Yet they are still at the forefront of the Labor Party's water policy. It's beyond me how those opposite can stand in this House and be negative and be critical of a government that is trying to find a way through to a water policy that is both suitable for our irrigators and understands that our environment has claims on water that they have and are not likely to give up. But to try and make things worse by effectively saying, as they did 12 or 13 months ago, that if they were going to come into government they would come into this place and reintroduce buybacks is the most destructive policy that any government could ever possibly have. They still have that policy right now, to take more water out of agriculture and return it to the environment than what has already been taken.

So with all of the destruction, with all of the damage and the cost and the hurt and the pain that exist with water policy at the moment and that have been heaped upon our farmers by state governments and from the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, here is the Labor Party, which wants to put more pain, more destruction and more damage on what is likely to take place right up and down the Murray-Darling Basin and right throughout our communities. We just need to understand the pain and detriment that has taken place with water leaving agriculture for the environment before we can be too critical and introduce policies that will make even that pain worse.

Medicinal cannabis is an industry that is right at its start. We're not quite sure how far this is going to go, because we are yet to see medicinal cannabis be fully introduced into the various drugs that it may end up being used in, but the upside of this industry is incredibly strong, with the plan being to employ hundreds of people just in the Shepparton location, with hundreds of millions of dollars being invested in the region, many hundreds of millions of dollars being produced annually and markets all around the world. The upside of this industry is much greater now than it was when we started talking about medicinal cannabis, five or six years ago.

It's good that we have been able to find a way to alter the legislation to enable this industry to move forward. I hope that this bill goes through seamlessly. It will enable this industry to gain further confidence so that many of the companies that are out there in this sector will be able to secure overseas markets and their supply out and make sure that, into the future, there will be more and more investment in medicinal cannabis, with all the safeguards and restrictions, obviously, in place to ensure that this is well controlled and restricted. However, with the money that we are looking at and the investment in our regions this is a very, very positive story. We hope that this legislation passes the House sooner rather than later.

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