Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The Sugar Research and Development Services (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2013, is the companion bill to the Sugar Research and Development Services Bill 2013.

These bills provide the mechanism to implement key elements of reform to sugar research and development (R&D) arrangements.

The Sugar Research and Development Services Bill 2013, which comes into effect the day after it receives royal assent, provides the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry with the power to enter into a funding contract with an eligible company to enable it to receive and administer levies collected by the Commonwealth for research and development. It will also allow it to receive the Commonwealth's matching funding for eligible research and development expenditure. Once the company has entered into the contract, and the minister is satisfied that the company will comply with its contractual and statutory obligations, the minister can declare the company to be the industry services body.

This bill makes consequential amendments to a number of acts and regulations to ensure the new arrangements operate, as intended, in respect of the imposition and collection of the levy, including the increase in the levy rate.

It also covers matters arising from the transition to a new industry services body such as the transfer of assets and liabilities from the Sugar Research and Development Corporation to the industry services body and the wind-up of SRDC on 30 September 2013.

The SRDC will continue to operate until this date to finalise wind-up activities such as its annual report, but its R&D activities will be transferred to the new industry services body from the date it is declared as such.

This bill also amends the imposition of the levy to ensure that all future uses of processed sugar cane will be captured by the levy and the possibility of avoiding payment of the levy will be eliminated. The bill also introduces an instalment system for payment of the levy to correspond more closely with how sugar cane payments are made in the industry.

These amendments will start taking effect from 1 July 2013 with the increase in the levy rate. Industry has requested Sugar Research Australia Limited be declared as the industry services body by 1 July 2013 which is dependent on a funding contract between the Commonwealth and Sugar Research Australia Limited being in place.

The research and development activities of the Sugar Research and Development Corporation, and 75 per cent of its assets, will be transferred to Sugar Research Australia Limited on the date it is declared as the industry services body. This will ensure there is no break in existing research projects. The remaining assets will be held by the Sugar Research and Development Corporation to cover wind-up costs until it is abolished on 30 September 2013. Any remaining Sugar Research and Development Corporation assets and liabilities will be transferred to the industry services body on 1 October 2013.

Debate adjourned.