Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister confirm that the coalition went to the last election with an ironclad commitment to maintain Australia’s single-desk marketing arrangements for wheat? Doesn’t the Prime Minister’s statement today that he has mixed views on the future of the single desk mean that this clear-cut election commitment may now be about to be ditched? Prime Minister, hasn’t the failure of the succession of National Party agriculture ministers to provide proper oversight of AWB’s use of this legislative monopoly, especially during the $300 million wheat for weapons scandal, thrown the whole future of the single desk and this industry into doubt?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me say that I have had every confidence in the ministers responsible for agriculture who have served in my government. It is no accident that all of the agricultural areas of Australia and all of the great wheat-growing areas of Australia are represented by either members of the Liberal Party or members of the National Party. That says something about the attitude of the people who count.

I am aware of the policy that we took to the last election. I am also aware, as I have said repeatedly, of the need, especially in the wake of the Cole inquiry, to look again at our marketing arrangements. I am intrigued if implicit in the Leader of the Opposition’s question is the idea that the status quo should be absolutely maintained without any change. That is a very, very interesting proposition. No doubt we will hear a little bit more.

But, as the Deputy Prime Minister and I announced this morning after the joint party meeting had approved the government’s proposals, there will be a period of very extensive consultation. All of the options will be on the table and, after we have consulted people, we will make a decision. In the meantime we are going to legislate—and I would assume that the Labor Party will support this legislation—to transfer the veto, which now is held by the AWB(I), for a period of six months to the minister. He will exercise that power, that discretion, as appropriate in consultation with senior ministers. This, in fact, is to put the government in a proper position to deal with the situation of Western Australian wheat growers and the concerns they have about current export arrangements.

I assume that the Labor Party will vote in favour of this change, because this change will facilitate a resolution of the issue which is of concern to Western Australian wheat growers but in a manner that is fair to other wheat growers in other parts of Australia who have delivered their bulk wheat into the pool under current arrangements. I am fascinated, because implied in that question from the Leader of the Opposition is his belief that we should not even look at the existing arrangements, even in the wake of the Cole inquiry. I am staggered that that should be the view of the Leader of the Opposition.