Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Perhaps if Senator Conroy remained silent for a moment he might learn something, particularly when he is seeing most of rural Australia from his Melbourne office. We all need to take a long, deep breath and await the findings of the Cole inquiry. This inquiry has been given all the powers it needs to get to the bottom of the issue.

I want to stress a very important point: the single desk is not on trial. It makes me very cranky to see some people deliberately attempting to link the Cole inquiry and Australia’s wheat single-desk export marketing system. The Cole inquiry and the principle of the single desk are two entirely separate issues. The single desk is not an Australian company; it is the vehicle for this nation’s wheat export arrangements, arrangements that have been in place for decades and that have brought great benefits to our Australian farmers. I find it quite unbelievable that there are those who seek to attack the Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of The Nationals, Mark Vaile. Yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition, Kim Beazley, claimed that Mark Vaile headed off to Iraq to avoid accountability in the parliament.