Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to support the Wheat Marketing Amendment Bill 2006, which is before us today. I have been a wheat grower for most of my working life and in recent times a holder of AWB shares, but I can inform the Senate that, as I no longer own a farm and I have divested myself of my AWB shares, I do not feel as though I have any conflict of interest in representing the interests of wheat growers in supporting this bill.

Australia’s wheat growers have been going through very difficult times, partly brought about because of the drought over most of Australia—in some places that drought has continued now for three or four years—and partly because of the recent activities of the Australian Wheat Board and the necessity of having a full-scale inquiry, which we know now as the Cole commission of inquiry. While that inquiry was being undertaken, there was nothing that could be done to make any definitive moves about the sale of export wheat from Australia to other countries around the world. During the long time that the Cole commission took to report, the government always said—and government members on this side heartily concurred—that nothing could happen until that report was handed down and that an adequate and appropriate response would then be made by the government to the recommendations in the report.

In the meantime, growers in Western Australia, one of the few areas of Australia where reasonable wheat harvest has been gained by growers, have been left in an untenable position; many people did not have faith in the Wheat Board, so they have sought to warehouse their wheat while a decision is made as to what can be done in relation to exporting.

This decision of the government is the only decision that could have been made at this time. It is important for a variety of reasons. One is that we must take the concern out of the minds of the wheat growers as to whether they will get paid for their wheat, how much they will get paid for their wheat and who will be selling it for them. The provisions of this bill allow the veto to be taken away from AWB and put in the hands of the minister and the cabinet. In those hands, judgements can be made as to who should be selling the wheat from this season’s crop.

We also need to take into account the feelings of wheat growers around Australia. I have no statistics to back this up, but I have a view, and the consensus and anecdotal evidence would suggest, that there is still a majority of wheat growers in Australia who would prefer to have their wheat exported through a single marketing authority, whoever that authority might be. Some say it should still be the Wheat Board. That is yet to be determined.

In bringing this bill before the chamber, we have given ourselves some breathing space, some time to consult extensively with industry and with growers around Australia so that we can do what is in the best interests of the growers of Australia. I unashamedly represent those growers and not anybody else, because it is the growers who have to take the risk and it is the growers who, up until now, have had only one opportunity to sell their wheat through the Wheat Board. Some insist that that is the way they would like things to remain, but I know there are many others moving for change, especially amongst the younger generation of wheat growers, those aged 35 and under. They have taken to modern technology and modern communications. A price is offered each day: they can tap into the internet and find out the value of wheat. They have a knowledge and understanding of wheat futures. A whole range of issues that young people and young wheat farmers in Australia now take into account were simply not available to their grandfathers in the 1930s, when the marketing of wheat in Australia became such a shambles through agents varying prices and through the pressure put on growers, particularly smaller growers, at the time of harvest.

I wholeheartedly support this bill, because it gives us time to ask the growers whether they still want to maintain a single desk or whether they would like to move to some other form of marketing. It will give us time to consult the industry itself, apart from the growers, as to what it thinks is the best form of marketing for our grain and for the export of wheat in Australia. The bill in its present form is one that I hope receives the support of everybody in this chamber.