Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the Prime Minister’s answer to the opposition’s previous question. Is it a fact that the Prime Minister has ruled out the deregulation of Australia’s wheat exporting arrangements before the election but he has now explicitly ruled in the possibility of the deregulation of those arrangements after the next election?

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

What I have ruled in and what I have stated is in the answer I gave. We are saying to the Australian wheat industry that they will have until 1 March next year to put together a grower controlled organisation, completely separate and divorced from AWB Ltd, which, if it is put together and meets the criterion of being completely divorced and separate from AWB Ltd, can be either a new organisation or a demerged AWB International. If that occurs by 1 March next year the government will clothe, subject to legislation being passed through the parliament, that body with single desk status. The government will also give to the Wheat Export Authority increased powers of auditing in order to achieve greater transparency and the power to issue licences for export outside the pool in exceptional circumstances—and I stress ‘in exceptional cases or circumstances’. I indicated in my previous answer what some of those are.

As to what might happen if the body is not put together by 1 March, I made that very clear in my answer and I will repeat it for the benefit of the Leader of the Opposition and those opposite. If the industry does not achieve the new entity, either through the demerger route or through another route, by 1 March next year the government reserves the right to propose alternative arrangements, including further deregulation to deal with the wheat industry. I could not be plainer, and I think that is an outcome that the industry will welcome.