Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Select Committee on the Australia Fund Establishment, I present the committee's report entitled Joint Select Committee on the Australia Fund Establishment and seek leave to make brief statement.

Leave granted.

I want to thank the members of the committee, those being Senator Glen Lazarus and fellow colleagues Butler, Carr, Husic, Pitt, Porter, Reynolds, Seselja and Wilkie and also the groups that made substantial contributions to this report, which looked into assisting rural and manufacturing industries in crisis and supporting communities that are affected by natural disasters—in particular, the National Farmers' Federation, the Australian Prawn Farmers Association, Oysters Australia, Queensland Farmers Federation, AusVeg Limited, Regional Development Australia, Australian Dairy Farmers, GrainGrowers, AMWU, the Federation of Automotive Products Manufacturers and the Rural Business Development Corporation.

I want to thank the secretariat for their exemplary assistance—Mark Fitt and Gerry McInally—and congratulate all of them for a new high bar in streamlined and efficient report compilation and preparation.