David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to talk about the Export Control Legislation Amendment (Certification of Narcotic Exports) Bill 2020. This is a very important bill because it is going to enhance our agricultural export facility and get rid of a lot of the current regulatory obstacles to facilitating the export of medicinal cannabis and also nutritional cannabis—non-hallucinogenic-variety seeds, which are a very nutritious product. Over the past 15 years we've seen significant global innovation and a lot of research into some of the therapeutic benefits of high-CBD and low-THC cannabis. These high-performance cannabis products aren't the hallucinogenic variety. It's really important to know that they are healthy and nutritious and are now included in a lot of foodstuffs. As with other beneficial oils, the seed of CBD-containing marijuana, or hemp, is actually a nutritious product. There is a huge opportunity for Australia to capture this emerging market and export overseas to areas in North America, South America, Europe and Asia. Canada has stolen a march on us, and America has stolen a march on us. We need to facilitate changes to the legislation to make it a lot easier and quicker for us to export into the North American and European markets. AgriFutures have noted that the potential future growth of the hemp market worldwide is absolutely massive. They think that by 2025 the whole market could be worth $270 million.

In the beautiful Lyne electorate, we have had industrial hemp growing for some time. When I was working in the health ministry, through the meeting of all the food ministers we facilitated change in the regulations to include industrial hempseeds—the non-hallucinogenic variety—as a safe foodstuff, and you now see it on the shelves in Australia. But to get this wonderful product overseas requires considerable changes to the legislation. There are many levels of legislation that will have to be adjusted to facilitate that. Under the current legislation, the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment can't issue government certificates to support the export legitimacy, so they have to do quite complex workarounds to get the approvals to export the product into other countries. The department can only regulate products for export if they are goods for the purposes of the Export Control Act 1982, and the definition of 'goods' in that act doesn't include narcotic goods under the Customs Act. This bill will amend the act in order to provide the department with the legislative authority to issue government certificates for narcotic goods.

The bill will also amend the Export Control Act 2020, which will replace the 1982 act, once it commences in March 2021, so that the legislative authority changeover will be quite smooth. The bill doesn't entirely deregulate the export of narcotic goods from Australia. It does provide for the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment to support and regulate this emerging market. It won't change regulatory controls in other legislation in relation to narcotic goods, including the Customs (Prohibited Exports) Regulation 1958 and the Narcotic Drugs Act 1967. So the good people of Australia should be reassured that we are controlling these goods; it's not willy-nilly free export of illicit narcotic goods. It's just that that's where industrial hemp fits in the lexicon of definitions of products. We do want to grow our agricultural production from the current $60 billion up to $100 billion. This is one of the suite of issues on which we need to clear the decks to make it easy for us to export our fine-quality goods overseas.

It's interesting how industrial hemp has come full circle. There was concern amongst many regulators, police departments and the justice system that freeing up the definition of industrial hemp for seeds for nutrition would be a surrogate for widespread deregulation and legalisation of marijuana with high THC, the hallucinogenic portion of the drug. That has not been the case, because of good regulation.

That aside, a lot of people are keen on the medicinal variety, with the CBD oils, which are great for epilepsy, refractory epilepsy and other conditions; they bring a lot of solace to people suffering a lot of conditions. But we have seen in other countries that the so-called medicinal use of cannabis, or hemp or marijuana, has been a free ticket to widespread abuse of marijuana, through smoking and consumption. I might add, as a medical practitioner who practised for 33 years: people have got to understand that THC and smoking marijuana is just as bad, in terms of your lungs and the risk of cancer, asthma and emphysema, as smoking nicotine cigarettes. This idea that it is a safe drug is absolutely bonkers, with due respect. All the things that we've done over the last 45 years to cut the smoking of nicotine, to improve the health of the nation, will literally go up in smoke if everyone thinks that smoking dope or marijuana is safe. We all know about the risk of initiating depressive and schizophrenia-like illnesses if you're consuming a lot of marijuana. That is an understated risk. But the general community is starting to become aware of the downsides of marijuana.

It all goes back to a very famous court case in the seventies where a judge in America said: 'Why are we banning this drug when it's a safe thing?' Well, I hate to disappoint the judge, but it's not safe. Sure, it's not as sinister as something like ice or heroine or cocaine abuse, but certainly all the illnesses from smoking and inhaling stuff into your lungs are just the same. In fact, smoking one self-made joint is the equivalent of putting four tailor-made filtered cigarettes in your mouth and breathing the smoke from them all at once. So go figure that. It's not safe. Trust me.

That aside, this bill is a really good bill because it will help the export of goods from Australia, grow the agricultural output of the nation and provide nutrition to many people here and overseas. The other thing that's interesting about this is that one of the reasons our nation was formed, and one of the earliest products of this nation in agriculture, was industrial hemp for the British Navy. All the ropes and sails were made out of hemp. Industrial hemp that has low hallucinogenic properties is used for clothing, as a replacement for cotton. It can be grown widely throughout Australia. So it has huge untapped potential, both for clothing and for this other end of the spectrum where it is classed as a narcotic, but it needs to be exported to be used in food and for medicinal purposes. So I commend this bill and all the amendments to the House and look forward to people in the Lyne electorate having a much bigger market to sell their products overseas.

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