Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a really important bill, not so much standing alone, but the issues it goes to are of critical importance to the agriculture sector in particular. Yes, I'm a bit surprised when I have a look at the speakers list to see so little interest from those on the other side—indeed, no interest from those who represent the National Party in this place. I have my own theories about why they are not in here to defend or advocate for this bill. In fact, I have a number of theories, but one of them is the broad recognition on the other side of the chamber of the folly that is the forced relocation of the regulator responsible for implementing and enforcing these regulations, the APVMA, to Armidale in the electorate of New England.

Because this bill not only goes to farm productivity and profitability, as important as they are, it goes to the heart of our prospects on export markets; it goes to the interests of every owner of a companion animal in this country; and, indeed, it goes all the way to human health. I'll be interested to hear from the member for Macarthur, Dr Mike Freelander, during his contribution to this debate, because he has a strong interest, given his profession, in human health and all the technicalities that go with that. This regulator, amongst other things, regulates the crop sprays that are used on the food we eventually consume. Few areas of public policy can be more important than that but, alas, the National Party are on the run because they know that the forced relocation of the APVMA is a boondoggle, a pork-barrelling exercise that will probably ultimately fail and will cost the taxpayer a very significant amount of money.

This bill, the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Operational Efficiency) Bill 2017, seeks to make minor technical amendments to the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals (Administration) Act 1992, the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code Act 1994 and the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemical Products (Collection of Levy) Act 1994. The explanatory memorandum states that the amendments will realise operational efficiencies, reduce unnecessary regulation, clarify ambiguities and remove redundant provisions.

The government argues that the bill:

I can indicate to the House that the opposition will be supporting the bill but notes that this legislation should have been implemented three years ago. The government has been slow to implement necessary reforms which were expected by industry stakeholders following the introduction of significant legislative reforms introduced by the former Labor government in 2013 to improve the efficiency of the APVMA. Labor's reforms saw promising signs of increased performance by the regulator emerge in 2016. Time frame performance for assessing pesticides applications within statutory time frames reached 83 per cent in the 2016 September quarter. That was a significant improvement.

However, with the ongoing negative impact of the APVMA relocation by the Turnbull government, these promising signs have been rapidly deteriorating. The APVMA reached only 30 per cent of its work within the statutory time frames for crop protection in the March 2017 quarter, 24 per cent in the June quarter and 36 per cent in the September quarter of 2017. This fall in performance can only be attributed to the member for New England's forced relocation of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority. The recent performance figures have improved slightly but are still not at the high of the time frames reached in the 2016 September quarter. I suggest that that slight improvement has been due to a scramble by the minister and the very hardworking team under pressure working under him to try to lift those figures in the face of the widespread criticism of the forced relocation of the APVMA. Industry stakeholders are seeking to have this bill passed as soon as possible, yet the bill could have been put forward much earlier than 25 October 2017 and certainly could have been debated earlier than now, February 2018.

Further, since its election the Turnbull government has failed to identify or deliver any legislative reform options that would result in any quantifiable ongoing efficiency dividend for the regulator. The former agriculture minister, the member for New England, has been all talk and no action on this front. Further legislative operational efficacies need to be implemented. An example of the all talk no action is the 2015 failed agricultural white paper, which indicated that the government would further streamline the approvals of ag and veterinary chemicals by reducing industry and user costs by around $68 million to improve timely access to productivity-enhancing chemicals whilst still ensuring appropriate safeguards. Three years on and we are only just debating this legislation in the House.

The bill consists of necessary minor technical amendments to assist in streamlining APVMA operations. Such amendments are to be expected following the introduction of the significant legislative reforms introduced by the former Labor government. The legislative amendments presented in the bill by the current government are three years later than they are required. This unnecessary delay highlights the lack of urgency, seen again by members on the other side today, and a lack of focus by the Deputy Prime Minister and the former minister in this portfolio.

However, criticisms of the department of late are absolutely not warranted. We have a government constantly seeking to blame others. They have been working in the most difficult of circumstances, and I should say both those in the parliament and those working within the APVMA. They have been doing their very best in this very, very difficult situation, working under a completely distracted minister of the day. Since deciding to relocate the regulator to Armidale in his own electorate, the former minister has failed to identify or deliver any legislative reform that would result in any quantifying ongoing efficiency dividend, as I've said.

Agricultural chemicals are a cost-effective, efficient, essential and sustainable option for farmers to use to control pests, weeds and diseases, and as such they represent a core input for modern farming systems. A streamlined, effective regulator capable of delivering more timely risk assessment approvals and registrations in a safe way is absolutely essential. This is why I will be moving a second reading amendment to further broaden this debate to allow members to reflect more broadly on the impacts of that relocation. I look forward to the member for Grey making a contribution at that level and on that topic.

If we go back to the beginning, when the Deputy Prime Minister first announced his forced relocation of the APVMA to his own electorate, he did so without any understanding, in my view, as to what the impact on the sector, or sectors plural, would be. In fact I have a theory that the Deputy Prime Minister didn't really understand what the APVMA did when he first announced the relocation of the APVMA, because if he'd had an understanding of what the APVMA did and how it interfaced with its clients and stakeholders—industry and to a much lesser extent farmers—he would never have proceeded with his shocking boondoggle.

On 10 February 2016 Minister Joyce actually said:

Moving the APVMA would allow it to have a closer interaction with the people who actually use agricultural and veterinary chemicals, as well as build a centre of excellence in the research of agricultural issues.

The APVMA rarely interfaces with farmers. This is another spin line from the Deputy Prime Minister in a blatant attempt to both justify this relocation and to appeal to his base, to appeal to votes in rural and regional Australia. The main clients and the people who mainly interface with the APVMA are the big industrial manufacturers that produce the chemical sprays, for example, and the animal health medicines—another good example—for farmers and owners of companion animals alike. These are companies which operate in global markets. For them, Australia is a relatively small market, and we are very fortunate, as a country and as a farm sector, that they maintain an interest in the Australian market because, without their ongoing involvement, farm productivity would rapidly decline further, as would, of course, sustainable profitability.

In the future, of course, if the Deputy Prime Minister is successful in driving this relocation to Armidale, people coming from Washington, or any overseas global centre, to Canberra to talk to the regulator will now have to fly to a capital city and then to Armidale. As the opposition spokesperson on agriculture, I regularly interface with the APVMA when there's a concern in the community about the efficacy of a product, the safety of a product or there's an issue about how the regulator has dealt with the product. I like to get a briefing from the APVMA, and they come up to the hill and meet in my office—I always appreciate that—and take me through the issues, put to rest some of the community concerns, explain the situation and maybe tell me how they intend to respond to the current controversy. In future, they'll be coming to visit me in Canberra from Armidale if the Deputy Prime Minister has his way. But I will return to that because I suspect he won't have his way in the end. I've certainly come to the conclusion that this forced relocation will not work because it can't work, and the minister was scrambling before he left the portfolio.

Here's my challenge to the new minister: ignore the member for New England, you owe nothing to the member for New England and you gain no advantage in the APVMA going to New England. Please—and it's a genuine appeal—have another look at this boondoggle, have another look at this pork-barrelling exercise and make your own assessment about the adverse impact it's having on the agricultural sector. Because what the member for New England was doing before he left the portfolio—and I always said that he'd wreck the show and then walk away, and I think I've been proven to be quite prophetic in that sense—was putting in alternative arrangements so that he could say he had moved the APVMA to Armidale when he hadn't moved the APVMA to Armidale at all. For example, a new digital strategy was put in to allow staff to work remotely, and there was an allocation of space in the Department of Agriculture so APVMA could sit there and undertake the work of the APVMA. I don't know how that's going to fit with his general policy order, because it seems to be in conflict with it. But there is no doubt that the then minister was scrambling to do things to make it work in the face of controversy, criticism and an inability to make it work.

He talks about the centre of excellence. There are two things: I thought I would visit the APVMA while I was in Armidale campaigning in the New England by-election.

Dr Freelander interjecting—

I thank the member for Macarthur for his interjection, and I look forward to his contribution again. They were only in McDonald's for a short time, I accept, but since then they've been in the Centrelink office in Armidale. I thought while I was there I would go and check this out to see how it's all going because I'd heard rumours there was a piece of paper on the front window saying that the APVMA had relocated to Armidale but there wasn't much activity going on in there.

I wandered into the Centrelink office and, as I walked in the door, I noticed—it wasn't a piece of paper, I must admit; it was far more sophisticated—a bit of plastic, maybe a foot square, with 'Commonwealth Government, Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority' on it. I thought there's a pretty good start, maybe I was wrong; it looks pretty official. I walked into what was a very, very significant Centrelink office with people everywhere. I scanned the room, looking for some sign of the existence of an APVMA officer but there were none to be seen. I approached the woman at the front counter, hoping she wouldn't recognise me, by the way—obviously my star hasn't hit dizzy heights. She did not, and I asked, 'Could you tell me how I'd go about making contact with someone from the APVMA?'

She just gave me a blank look. I said, 'You know, the pesticides authority.' She said, 'Excuse me?' 'I said, 'I just want to know how I go about making contact with someone from the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority.' After a long pause, she said, with a distressed face, 'I think there's a phone number on the front window.' I thought: 'A phone number on the front window? I must have missed that.' I observed there was a sign posted on the window, so I went out. I said, 'There's no phone number.' There's not much happening at Centrelink in Armidale, I can tell you.

I also engaged with a number of people about the idea of an agriculture centre of excellence. The member for New England was trying to say that this doesn't have to be in Canberra; Armidale was going to be the interface with farmers. We know that doesn't happen. They're going to be part of a bigger plan, but, no matter whom I asked up there—and I spoke to leaders in the community of all sorts, such as from industry and local government—no-one had seen any sign of a plan for an agriculture centre of excellence. So all that can be discarded.

We said at the beginning, when we opposed the crazy idea of the relocation, that at least there would have to be a cost-benefit analysis. Surely, if you're going into this, you have to economically assess this thing and try to model and calibrate the impact? The Deputy Prime Minister refused. My advice is that the Prime Minister's office intervened eventually and said: 'You can't just keep winging this. You'll have to do a cost-benefit analysis.' So a cost-benefit analysis was commissioned and what do you think happened? There was a damning criticism at great expense. I won't quote the number because I might get it wrong, but the cost-benefit analysis was that it was an expensive exercise. Initially, they wouldn't release it. Again, under political pressure they were left with no choice. The cost-benefit analysis said the economic cost was $23.19 million, having excluded any potential cost to industry arising from the risk to the agricultural sector. The Deputy Prime Minister hadn't made any attempt to take the cost of the exercise into account: the cost to the chemical industry or, indeed—and this is not me talking—the cost to Australia's trading reputation. The people in our export markets want to know that we have a regime in place that protects human health. That was one thing. They said:

To effectively undertake the move of the APVMA and adopt relevant risk mitigation strategies, the cash cost to the government could be significantly higher than the estimated economic cost of $23.19 million.

One of the additional costs was the digital strategy that they were forced to admit. I note that a digital strategy may have been needed, in part, as we moved further into the 21st century, so you'd expect that, but there is no doubt that this was largely embraced as a way of trying to demonstrate that the relocation had been successful. Again, the government refused, despite our best attempts, to tell us what the cost of the digital strategy is and were unable to tell the consultant who undertook the CBA what the cost would be. I've heard $20 million, I've heard $40 million and I've heard $60 million—nearly three times the initial cost estimated. How much are we going to spend on this relocation that's going to so challenge our agricultural sector—maybe $100 million of taxpayers' money to shore up the member for New England's vote in Armidale? That's what this exercise is about—no more and no less.

The most significant risk identified through the analysis relates to the ability of the APVMA to relocate—that is, to recruit and move staff. Highly qualified, professional scientists and regulatory lawyers have been leaving the APVMA. This is why the performance has fallen so dramatically. It is all right for the member for New England to boast about housing prices in Armidale, but, if your spouse is another working professional in Canberra or you have kids in Canberra schools, it is very, very difficult to make that move. The last I heard was that they were offering big dollars—I've forgotten the amount. There were substantive relocation offers and I think there's been limited uptake. Again, these are additional costs.

Another key concern of the various stakeholders was the effect the relocation may have on the approval of new chemicals for use. Stakeholders are concerned that delays to the approval of new chemicals will arise as a result of the loss of staff, the disruption to business and/or the impact of the APVMA's current reform agenda. And I'd point out here that timing is everything with some of these chemical products for our farmers. To remain competitive they need to secure these chemicals in a timely way. Based on conservative estimates for a one-year delay in the approval of new products, the potential impact on the agriculture sector for crops alone could be between $64 million and $193 million per annum—not my assessment, not my words, but the words of those undertaking the government commissioned cost-benefit analysis of this relocation.

But it wasn't only the cost-benefit analysis that warned the Deputy Prime Minister of his ill-thought-out pork barrel. The former CEO of the APVMA—the highly regarded and now departed Kareena Arthy—stressed the negative impact that the relocation would have on the authority when she wrote a letter to Minister Joyce on 31 July2015 stating: 'The most significant challenge highlighted by the outcomes of the staff survey'—which she had undertaken—'is that around three-quarters of regulatory scientists would probably not move if the APVMA relocated. Only seven regulatory scientists have indicated a willingness to move. Even if all scientists who have indicated they may consider moving agree to move, there would be only 19 regulatory scientists with knowledge of how to access registration applications and undertake underlying scientific assessments.'

This brings me back to another ruse by the Deputy Prime Minister. He said he was going to train people at UNE in Armidale to do this work. Now, you don't complete your undergrad and go to the APVMA and start dealing with these very complex issues. It take years of postgraduate and in-house training—I think Kareena Arthy might have suggested seven, on average—for a person to secure the technical capability to do this work proficiently. Obviously that's not going to happen as undergraduates leave UNE. And I'm told, by the way, that the UNE course is struggling very substantially because it can't get students, and the government hasn't made any contribution to the university to make this thing work. So they're struggling with course work. They're struggling for students.

I could go on to quote Kareena Arthy, but I'm going to run out of time. I can tell you that she made very significant criticisms of this before she left the organisation—or was effectively forced to leave the organisation, because she knew that the organisation was effectively going to collapse and she wasn't prepared to stand and try to fight the minister any longer and try to make something work that just couldn't possibly work, and all the consequences that come with that. Again, the reality is that the APVMA recently indicated in its business model that:

The construction of the new business models for Armidale should be regarded as a high priority and delivered by a full-time team headed by a senior executive with a direct reporting line to the CEO. In order to insulate the team from the day-to-day and operational pressures of a busy regulator …

These are all indicating the problems that are being encountered. They go on:

The maintenance of a sufficient internal scientific capability will require vigorous efforts to retain and recruit appropriately skilled regulatory scientists. This will require active management of staff relocations including incentives for staff to relocate and an accelerated recruitment program. The APVMA should also consider targeting staff from overseas pesticide and veterinary chemical regulators, either on permanent appointment or on secondment.

So there you go. This is what it's come to. The situation is so bad that they're not going to be employing Australian scientists and regulatory lawyers anymore, because they've all flown the coop—understandably. They're all highly qualified people. They won't have any difficulty at all securing alternative employment. Now we're going overseas to secure the people we need to perform the task of regulator in this country. So up to $100 million of taxpayers' money, a collapse in the capacity of the APVMA, and so many staff have left we're now going to have to employ overseas people to do the jobs of those who are leaving—simply because, as I said earlier, you cannot train people to do these jobs in the time forced upon us by the forced relocation.

The cost to the taxpayer, the cost to the agricultural sector, the potential cost to every person in this country who relies on their vet to administer veterinary medicines to their animals, the cost on our export markets, the potential costs to human health, which I'm sure the member for Macarthur will make significant reference to—they are very, very significant. Again, it's not just me saying it; it's not just the opposition saying it. It's the chemical companies and the peak organisations that represent them. It's the peak organisations that represent veterinary medicines. It's the farmer on the ground and the National Farmers' Federation.

I think I can say this pretty confidently, though I haven't ticked them off: it takes a special sort of talent to have every farm organisation in the country oppose a measure taken by a National Party agriculture minister. What it indicates is the extent to which the member for New England was prepared to go to shore up his political position. Some will say: 'Oh, that's ridiculous. The member for New England won his seat easily in the by-election.' Well, we know that was a slightly different dynamic, a different equation—an unusual situation where the sitting member was running again in a by-election, something we've rarely, if ever, seen before. It was a local member, as we saw in Bennelong too, securing a sympathy vote because of the unfairness, as they saw it, in the constitutional arrangements et cetera. But we know the real truth is that the member for New England did relatively poorly in Armidale and was outgunned by the former member for New England, Tony Windsor, in that election. Of course, he did much better in Tamworth. We know Tamworth is his strong base and Armidale's a more progressive university town, where he doesn't do so well.

The member for New England had a brilliant plan up his sleeve—he'll just move an agency! He must've rolled a few dice, spotted the APVMA and, obviously not really understanding what it does, decided he'd move that. And the rest is history. Let's hope we can tidy up the act. He's moved on from the portfolio now. Last week we started to tidy up the mess he'd left behind. We started last week with that other boondoggle called the Regional Investment Corporation. It's a shocking piece of public policy too, but at least we've now secured some amendments to improve the governance around that new entity. But I again appeal to new Minister Littleproud to take a look at this and, on a bipartisan basis, say: 'I understand this is a mess. It needs to be fixed.' I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes that since the former Agriculture Minister decided to force the relocation of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) to Armidale in his own electorate, the Authority has suffered critical staff loses and declines in operational efficiency".

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, the amendment is seconded and I reserve my right to speak.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Hunter has moved, as an amendment, that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. If it suits the House, I'll state the question in the form that the amendment be agreed to. The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will come to the amendment later on. I note that the last two-thirds of the member for Hunter's speech was about the amendment rather than the legislation before us. In the first place, I will address the legislation before us, and I note that the member for Hunter and his team support that legislation.

I want to use this as an opportunity to speak to the public about their perceptions, in our modern society, about chemicals in farming and the tools that we use to produce food and protect ourselves. They have a bad rap. A friend of mine, who was a secondary high school teacher, once said to me, 'Name me something that's not made out of chemicals.' Of course, everything's made out of chemicals, but somehow they seem to carry a nasty connotation as if somehow they are inherently dangerous. And some are, and many of those occur naturally. Take the oleander plant, deadly nightshade or the beautiful black bean—or, as it is otherwise known, the Moreton Bay chestnut. There is an almost endless list, yet somehow, in the eyes of some of the public, they are not seen as chemicals. In fact, the only things they generally seem to think are chemicals are those which are produced by multinational companies and sold on a commercial basis and which benefit our health, protect us from vermin, keep our swimming pools safe, and benefit our farmers and, ultimately, the communities in which the farmers live.

The Australian economy is large and diverse, but it still relies on a very profitable ag sector, and we are exporters. That's what agriculture does in Australia. We feed this nation, but predominantly we are exporters. Australia's farmers provide export income, which, to the economy, is the most important form of income, because export income is fresh money which is coming into the system and is being recycled. Ultimately, it is our export income that pays for our imports. It is in everyone's interests that Australian farmers have access to the right tools.

We—and, by 'we', I mean farmers—have stayed in business by sitting at the cutting edge of agricultural technology, and it must continue. There are myriad advances in farming technologies: mechanical technology, intellectual technology, artificial intelligence, satellite guidance systems, new and more efficient cultivars, and new tillage practice, which has largely been leveraged through new and efficient chemicals. In fact, the biggest revolution has been the no-till, or zero tillage, change to agriculture, built on the basis of new and efficient chemicals. It has all but stopped soil erosion and has lifted production levels dramatically, increased quality and improved our economic outlook.

However, in world terms, Australia is a small market for chemical producers and those who manufacture chemicals—and the member for Hunter touched on this. It's not always worth the while of the developers and owners of that intellectual property to go through the expensive procedure of registering new chemicals on the Australian market. If our registration procedure costs millions of dollars per item to prove science which has already been proven in other jurisdictions and the market for a new specialist chemical is only in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, it is pretty obvious that Australian farmers will miss out; the manufacturers of those chemicals will choose not to register them in Australia. That is why we must keep the APVMA incredibly efficient. We must improve its efficiency, we must improve its time lines, but, in particular, we must keep the costs down for those who wish to register new chemicals in our market.

I will give an example from my industry—and, before anyone gets too excited about a great new breakthrough in chemicals, this is a hypothetical example. Let's say there is a highly selective new insecticide available for Australian plague locusts. We have quite a few good ones on the market right now, but let's say there is a new chemical that is more specific, in that it harms no other organisms. Of course, one of the problems with insecticides is that, when you spray them, generally there is collateral damage. For instance, we, as farmers, are warned to keep the insecticides we use for plague locusts out of the waterways because they are lethal to things like frogs. So we do that, but I make the case that, should there be a new chemical that would alleviate this issue, we would absolutely want and need that chemical in Australia. But one of the things about the nature of plague locusts is that we have a plague every five to seven years, so that market is unlikely ever to be of sufficient size for a manufacturer to jump through expensive regulatory hoops to participate in the market. In that case, the only parties to suffer would be the environment, because it will continue to suffer collateral damage, and the land users, because the land users need access to the best technologies to best protect their crops so they can market them into the international market and provide export income for Australia.

This legislation is a step in the right direction, reducing some of the unnecessary regulatory burdens. It will reduce the effort of those wanting to register a new product and reduce at least some of the cost. But, importantly, it will not water down the standards, because we never should. It also simplifies and aligns reporting procedures for quantity sales for levy purposes and on active constituent quantities. Anything that protects the integrity of the process but offers reduced regulatory burden is a good thing.

In the longer term, I strongly believe that we need to make our system even more flexible and, for instance, accept more of the proven science from major markets in the world, those being predominantly the US and the EU, which are already seen as world leaders in this space. Quite frankly, if you've passed through their regulatory process and have approval to use a chemical, it seems highly likely that it would be quite safe to use in Australia. But to hasten doesn't mean that we automatically add products to our list just because they've been approved overseas. We simply accept the underlying science and make our own decisions based on that science. So we need to keep alert. We need to be ready to make changes to legislation. As I said, this legislation is good, but we should never be satisfied in this area with a set-and-forget mode. We must be agile and ready for change at any time.

I come now to the amendment proposed by the member for Hunter. He launched a fairly wide attack on the relocation of the APVMA to Armidale and confidently predicted that the exercise will fail. Maybe he will be proved right—maybe he will. But maybe he won't. Maybe it's worth considering that in, I think, 1992, the New South Wales government relocated the Department of Agriculture to Orange. I was recently in Orange as part of the Select Committee on Regional Development and Decentralisation, and we had a look at the New South Wales Department of Agriculture in Orange. It is an integral part of that community. It has led to an enormous amount of investment in the Orange area and a large number of spin-offs for the communities surrounding it. It was probably the highlight of what we, on that special select committee, saw as we toured around Australia looking for examples of how decentralisation can work.

I wasn't paying such close attention in 1992 when the agency was relocated, but I'll lay London to a brick that there were plenty of complaints about it and plenty of predictions that it would fail and plenty of employees who said that they wouldn't go there—which almost certainly would have led to short-term issues as those things were sorted out. But, as with the APVMA, when people come to work for the APVMA from now on they'll know where they're going, whereas, when you're trying to relocate a population, it doesn't matter whether they're working in the ag-vet industry, or working as car makers or as nurses—it doesn't matter what they do—people have family connections wherever they live. And so relocating workforces is always difficult and leads to a certain amount of recruitment. But that doesn't mean to say that we shouldn't have the initiative and the intestinal fortitude to have a go. As I said, I don't know whether this will be an outstanding success in the long term, but I point to that previous exercise of the New South Wales parliament when they decided to relocate Agriculture to Orange, and it looks, to me, like an outstanding success. So I think we should bear that in mind as we consider this move of the APVMA.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill, the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Operational Efficiency) Bill 2017, may seem an innocuous, minor and technical piece of legislation, but it is, in fact, very important, as it deals with an organisation, the APVMA, which is involved at its very heart with the fundamentals of Australian agriculture and which at present is undergoing an extremely traumatic and damaging process—that is, the move of the APVMA from Canberra to Armidale—at the whim of a minister, the member for New England, so besotted with his own power that he's prepared to fundamentally damage a major Australian scientific institution at his own behest for no particular good reason.

The APVMA was established in 1993 as a uniform authority and testing organisation for the multitude of chemicals, pesticides, antibiotics and other veterinary medicines used in agriculture and in veterinary medicine. This was required because of the rapid expansion in the number of chemicals, pesticides and antibiotics becoming available, the ongoing concerns about insect and weed resistance to common chemicals and the damaging environmental effects these chemicals can cause. There's also been—and this is very important to me—rapidly emerging antibiotic resistance to common pathological bacteria, such as staphylococcus, streptococcus and some of the Gram-negative bacteria responsible for many human illnesses, and the effect that antibiotics used in agriculture and veterinary medicine may have on this. This affects clinical practice by our doctors and our hospitals and is an ongoing and increasing concern as our world becomes more and more globalised and these organisms quickly spread from country to country. In fact, the Australian Veterinary Association calls antimicrobial resistance a global animal and human health emergency. For example, we are already seeing multidrug-resistant human diseases such as tuberculosis spreading from South-East Asia to Australia. Antimicrobial resistance is now seen as a health emergency by many scientific organisations, such as the Australian Veterinary Association.

What is little known, however, is that over 70 per cent of antibiotics used in Australia are used in agricultural and veterinary medicine—much more than is used in human medicine. The use of these antibiotics may have significant environmental effects and significant effects on human health. You need to be very careful about introducing new groups of antibiotics into our environment because of the development of antimicrobial resistance. The Australian Veterinary Association has recently produced significant data about the use and abuse of antibiotics in veterinary and agricultural practice.

The APVMA is responsible for approving and testing these chemicals and antibiotics and has always had bipartisan support. There has been some concern about the slow approval process, but under the previous CEO, Kareena Arthy, there was rapidly improving efficiency since she started in 2013, with record efficiencies and record numbers of chemicals and pesticides approved in 2016.

With the move of the APVMA from Canberra to Armidale, there has been much comment. None of the scientific organisations that I've spoken to feel that this has been an appropriate and transparent process. Lately, much has been written about the Deputy Prime Minister, and I don't want to add to his recent difficulties. Of much more significance to me is the forced transfer of the APVMA to Armidale because of its enormous cost, its devastating effect on operational efficiency and the enormous loss of scientific expertise and the ability of the APVMA to interact with other scientific institutions, such as the Australian National University. The cost estimate has been variously said to be between $30 and $40 million and, more recently, over $60 million. It's estimated that about half of the staff will not make the transition to Armidale, including some of the most senior scientists, in spite of massive financial inducements for staff to move.

No adequate reasons for the move have been given. The government's response has been to hire a public relations firm—I believe by the name of Seftons—to deal with media inquiries and to not provide any information about the suggestions of other scientific organisations about the move. In fact, many in the scientific community have condemned the move, including the Australian Veterinary Association. The only person I can find on record defending Mr Joyce's decision to suddenly come up with this idea to move the APVMA to his own electorate is TV personality Don Burke. That's right! The only person who's approved this move in public is TV personality Don Burke.

It's recently been suggested that the APVMA may have to hire staff from overseas on 457 visas to fill the vacancies. There has been absolutely no transparency even in the numbers or type of staff who are making the transfer or into the inducements offered. We know that no preparation has been made for an appropriate office for the staff. There has been little transparency in preparing the legislation. There are still multiple reviews of the present legislation to come in the next few weeks. The time for public comment was severely limited. Multiple measures, including those relating to the APVMA's handling of confidential commercial information, have not been given to us. And, most importantly, the consideration of anti-microbial resistance has been omitted from the final bill prior to its presentation to parliament.

This bill has also been significantly delayed in its presentation to parliament for reasons that we do not understand. We get very little from the Deputy Prime Minister, the previous minister for agriculture, when questioned about the move. He blusters and yells about completely irrelevant topics. It is very hard to hold him to account as he doesn't seem to understand the science behind the APVMA and its importance to not only Australian agriculture but also Australian human health. This has been an exercise in pork-barrelling for no particularly good reason. I would ask the new minister for agriculture, Mr Littleproud, to seriously reconsider this unscientific, damaging and particularly poor understanding of the importance—

Mr Littleproud interjecting—

I'm glad that he has some comment, because he doesn't seem to have any understanding of the importance of the APVMA. This is a further example of the government's terrible attacks on science and scientific thought, and of governmental transparency of this government. I wish the new minister for agriculture well. I have no reason not to want him to perform well.

Agriculture is still part of my electorate and a significant contributor, but this particular move has been so damaging, so opaque, so poorly thought out and so poorly understood by members of the government that it is time for a review. I would counsel the new minister to seriously consider that. We've had enough of the polycythaemic proconsul—his predecessor—blustering about this, but we do need some answers and some transparency. This is a very important scientific institution and one that is at risk of being destroyed by a member of the government who is too preoccupied with his own self rather than the best interests of Australian agriculture.

As I've said, it is very important for human health that the APVMA functions to the best of its ability. It's important to note the APVMA's new CEO, Chris Parker, has confirmed a big slump in the rate of approvals and has ordered a root-cause analysis and review of the reasons why. Mr Joyce, the Deputy Prime Minister, has acted with colossal arrogance in the forced removal of the APVMA to Armidale with very little stakeholder consultation and without really understanding the importance of a scientific organisation built up over decades. The great shame that we have is that that body of thought, that body of scientific knowledge, is being destroyed in a very short period of time and will take decades to redevelop. It's anti-science, not in the best interests of Australian agriculture, not in the best interests of Australian veterinary medicine and not in the best interests of human health.

This money, the $40 million or so, could have been much better spent. In fact, the Australian Veterinary Association, in its pre-budget submissions, mentioned some very important areas where this money could have been better spent, such as developing proper guidelines for antibiotic use in agriculture and veterinary medicine; better surveillance systems for disease investigation in agriculture and veterinary medicine; making available adequate funds for emergency response training for veterinary practitioners and agricultural scientists; and improved veterinary student training in the use of agricultural and veterinary chemicals. All these efforts would cost far less than the amount of money that is being used for this destructive and inappropriate transfer of the APVMA to Armidale. The government has been asked to work with stakeholders, such as the Australian Veterinary Association and some of the bigger chemical companies, to try to develop proper guidelines and other efficiencies in the work of the APVMA. Surely the effort and time would have been much better spent on developing these proper practices rather than on this very destructive move.

Labor supports the bill, but we note that there are many other things that could be done to improve the operating practices of the APVMA. There has been very little transparency, I would reiterate, in what is happening with the APVMA and even with this legislation. There are a number of issues that still need to be addressed, such as the development of antimicrobial resistance in some of these antibiotics.

The Deputy Prime Minister has ignored advice in what he has done and has treated the APVMA and its staff, and indeed the parliament, contemptuously. There has been little understanding of the science. The move is quite clearly anti-science. The move has been lacking in understanding of the importance of our scientific institutions. So, whilst we support this legislation, we implore the new minister for agriculture to take some time to review the situation—to review it coldly, in the cold light of day—and strongly consider changing the very destructive practice of his predecessor.

David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Operational Efficiency) Bill 2017 aims to streamline industry reporting and support the operational efficiency of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority, the APVMA. These simple, noncontroversial improvements will support the efficiency of the APVMA and reduce some unnecessarily regulatory burden on the agvet chemical industry.

The bill simplifies reporting requirements for chemical products so that these requirements are now based on the quantity and value of product sales. This simplifies the reporting process and significantly reduces reporting costs for industry, while ensuring Australia has the information available to meet our international reporting obligations and policy development needs. The bill also includes measures that will support the administrative efficiency of the APVMA and help improve the handling time for applications. These measures will increase the APVMA's flexibility in dealing with errors in applications and altering applications and promote quicker access to safe and effective chemical products.

The bill also removes an administrative barrier that currently prevents the holder from addressing the reasons for a product label suspension. This will allow such a suspension to be revoked if the holder can address the reasons for the suspension. The bill includes civil penalty provisions for providing false or misleading information. These provisions provide a broader suite of sanctions than are currently available to the APVMA for dealing with false or misleading information. This will provide the APVMA with the necessary tools to proportionately respond to any false or misleading information it receives.

Further measures in the bill will clarify the meaning of the expiry date for a chemical product, deal with the same ambiguities and remove some of the redundant provisions in agvet chemical legislation. Stakeholders support the measures in the bill which will deliver benefits to industry and the regulator. In addition, the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills had no comment on this bill, and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has advised that the bill does not raise human rights concerns.

Collectively, the measures in the bill will reduce the regulatory burden on industry and improve the efficiency of the regulator while ensuring that safe and effective agvet chemicals continue to be available to the community. The government announced in April 2017 that it would undertake a review of the whole agvet chemical legislative framework. In the meantime, the simple and non-controversial changes in the bill will improve efficiency and increase the speed with which farmers and other chemical users can get access to safe and effective chemicals. I commend the bill to the House.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this, the honourable member for Hunter has moved as an amendment that all words after 'that' 'be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the amendment moved by the member for Hunter be agreed to.