Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Agriculture, Resources, Fisheries and Forestry, I present the committee's advisory report, incorporating a dissenting report, on the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment Bill 2012, together with the minutes of proceedings.

In accordance with standing order 39(f) the report was made a parliamentary paper.

by leave—The Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment Bill was referred to the Standing Committee on Agriculture, Resources, Fisheries and Forestry by the Selection Committee on 29 November 2012. The committee subsequently called for written submissions and a public hearing was held in Canberra on 4 February 2013 with a range of stakeholders. The bill seeks to make reforms to the approval, registration and reconsideration of agricultural and veterinary chemicals, commonly referred to as 'agvet' chemicals. The bill aims to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the national registration scheme for agvet chemicals and products overseen by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority.

The committee heard a range of views from stakeholders. Most stakeholders supported the need to modernise the regulation of the sector and in doing so increase regulatory efficiency and effectiveness. However, several stakeholders also expressed their concern that some aspects of the bill would negatively impact the agvet chemicals sector. Stakeholders highlighted areas including the proposal for a preliminary assessment process and also the proposal for a system of mandatory re-registration and re-approval for agvet chemicals and products.

The committee found that the proposed preliminary assessment process has been designed to increase the quality of applications provided to the APVMA. The committee acknowledges the concerns that this process may create some costs for applicants for re-registration of agvet chemical and products. However, the committee felt that overall the process would allow the APVMA to concentrate its resources on providing more timely assessments of applications and reduce delays in evaluating deficient applications.

Over the course of the inquiry, the committee heard that some agvet chemicals and products had been in use in Australia for well over 40 years. The committee was concerned that many of these chemicals and products had not been tested against contemporary standards for human, animal and plant health and safety. This underscores the importance of modernising the agvet regulation scheme, and the need for regular but balanced requirements for re-registration and re-approval based on the risk profiles of each chemical or product. Australia needs to have a robust, systematic and efficient system of agvet chemical and product regulation. This is important not only domestically, but also to ensure Australia retains its international competitiveness in the agvet sector.

In presenting the report, I am grateful to staff at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority who appeared at the public hearing and also provided valuable clarification on a range of complex issues in the report. I am also extremely grateful of the time and effort spent by industry and environmental stakeholders who participated in the inquiry. I commend the report to the House.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I rise to give a perspective from the coalition members of this committee. Those members were: Mr Alby Schultz, the member for Hume; Mr Rowan Ramsey, the member for Grey, who is here beside me; Mr George Christensen, the member for Dawson, and me. We issued a dissenting report and I would like to briefly summarise why. As we saw it, the bill as drafted provides a substantial increase in regulatory burden and costs that will have a negative impact on the industry without significantly improving the efficiency of regulation and the re-registration process will slow down, rather than increase, the review of suspect chemicals. Of particular note, we were extremely concerned that there was not a proper cost benefit analysis done on the financial impact that this could have on the industry. We would call on the government to do this cost benefit analysis properly so that we have a real idea of the impact and red tape burden that this will have on industry. We have two recommendations, which we have put in our dissenting report: remove the re-registration process from the bill and set up a troika taskforce of industry, the department and the APVMA to urgently evaluate and improve the internal systems of the APVMA to increase its efficiency, effectiveness and the speed of review of at risk chemicals.