Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, representing the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Will the minister update the House on the progress of the government's reforms to deregulate the wheat market? Why did the government start this process? What arguments for and against deregulation has the government considered in developing its reforms?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Fremantle for the question. The member for Fremantle, as one of the Western Australian members on this side of the House, is clearly in a position where she is intending to vote and support the interests of wheat farmers in Western Australia. This process began some years ago, and we should never forget the context in which this process began—a process where the corrupted AWB 'wheat for weapons' scandal needed to be undone. Back then, with the same position that the National Party adopts today, Brendan Nelson, as Leader of the Opposition, was willing to show a level of leadership and separate the way the National Party voted from the way the Liberal Party voted on a fundamental economic reform to restore probity to the wheat-marketing system. It is a grave shame that the level of leadership that was shown by Brendan Nelson back then—

Mr McCormack interjecting—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Riverina!

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

is completely absent from the chamber now. We should not make any mistake about what this is about—

Mr McCormack interjecting—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Riverina will leave the chamber under the provisions of standing order 94(a).

The member for Riverina then left the chamber.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The defenders of AWB who want to go back to the glory days can continue to call out. They can continue to pine for the days when AWB was involved in scandal, but this government wants to get back to a very simple principle that a WA wheat farmer by the name of Mark Hyde said to me some years ago, when he said: 'It's my wheat; why can't I decide who I sell it to?'

Mr Windsor interjecting—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for New England is not assisting!

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At its core, that is all this debate is about. Those opposite are actually wanting to go back to a period where farmers are not allowed to choose who they sell their own wheat to. What has happened to the economic policies of those opposite if we are in a situation now where the simplicity of being able to sell your own product to whoever you want to is something they will stand in the way of? Imagine if instead the argument was a farmer saying, 'I want to treat my workers however I want to.' They would be clambering over themselves to say, 'It's your business; do what you want.' They will provide a level of respect to wheat that they would never dare apply to workers, and that, at its heart, goes to what has happened here. Once again, when there is a divide between the economic principles that the Liberal Party used to always stand for and the demands that are put down by Barnaby Joyce and those from the National Party, those opposite, on every economic principle, will let the Nationals run the show, even at the expense of farmers being allowed to do what they want with their own wheat.