Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

I, too, stand here to support the member for Mallee and her motion in this House. I acknowledge that the members opposite, in the Labor Party, are in fierce agreement, but they can't resist the temptation to throw a political spin onto what's a very common sense motion.

I speak with practical experience in the use of paraquat. In my previous role as a grain farmer, we would use that in what's known as a double knock. The glyphosate would take out a lot of the weeds. The harder to kill ones would need another application, this time of paraquat, to finish them up.

People would go, 'Oh, you're using chemicals.' The reason that at the moment, as we speak, right across western New South Wales we have the biggest wheat crops on record ever harvested is the technique of growing wheat in western New South Wales, and that's using no till, zero till. We're not ploughing or cultivating; we're just preserving the trash from the previous crop on top of the ground. It reflects the light and the heat, and it conserves the moisture. We hear a lot of talk in this place about carbon farming and funky phrases about what's all the go. The farmers in my electorate have been doing this for decades. They pioneered this process.

The ABC didn't just play this once. I must be in the car—I think it was last week—driving around my electorate, and I heard the first report on this, with the same gentleman quoted, between six and 6.30 in the morning. Then, it was on between 12 and 1, and it was on the afternoon show, at about four in the afternoon. So three times in the one day they read this. I've got great sympathy for the gentleman they reviewed, who has Parkinson's and who believes the use of this chemical might have led to it. But he also said he was soaked in this chemical. Look, if you soaked yourself every day in petrol, you probably wouldn't be all that healthy, but we're not banning petrol. If mechanics tipped battery acid over their heads while installing batteries into cars, it probably would do them much good either, but we're not banning battery. This is the same. When I used paraquat, I wore rubber gloves and a long-sleeved shirt. It was towed by a tractor with a carbon filtered cab—everything as per the recommendation. If you follow those recommendations, it is a safe chemical to use. It's an essential one. We need to make sure we don't have these knee-jerk reactions from people on the fringes of things that tend to want to do things to make others change what they're doing.

There has been a lot of defence for the APVMA and a lot of discussion about their history. I can say the APVMA can lift their act. This is not the only issue that has been bubbling along for some time. For the last 12 months or so, I've been talking with some farmers and suppliers in my electorate about a seed treatment called Victrato. The significant trials of Victrato that have been done by Syngenta with the local firm McGregor Gourlay over five years have shown considerable improvement in yield potential by controlling crown rot. Crown rot is a very, very insidious issue with wheat, which remains largely unknown until the crops mature, and then the yield just falls away. They have been waiting for an outcome from the APVMA, hoping that this year they could use Victrato, but that's not happening. They thought next year, in the 2025 season, but it looks like that has been pushed out because the APVMA are concerned about the lack of efficacy, not about potential environmental impacts. My point is: why not let the market decide whether this chemical works or not? If it won't have any ill effects and it's only about the efficacy, that's an issue that should be dealt with. The APVMA does have an issue of dragging its feet in places where it's not necessary. I'm not saying we take shortcuts. I'm not saying that chemicals shouldn't be properly scrutinised. But there is no need to drag things out unnecessarily when it's affecting the viability and potential profitability of farmers in Australia.

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