Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

After one of the biggest scandals in recent Australian history the government has presented this parliament with its solution to wheat exporting into the future. The difficulty we have is determining whether the government’s solution is adequate. At the moment our view is that it is not. One of our reasons for doubting the government’s solution with this bill—apart from some of specific concerns with its provisions, which I will go into later—is the way that this particular piece of legislation is being driven through this place without the opportunity for appropriate scrutiny. We believe that the government is showing unnecessary and worrying urgency to have this bill passed. What we are seeing again from this government is a quick fix to get the issue out of the way before the election. Because of the government’s failure to adequately deal with the wheat for weapons scandal, it continues to do damage and it wants to get this issue off the agenda.

They also want a quick fix to shut down debate within the coalition. It is very clear that this is a divisive issue still within their ranks. The only part of the bill that is actually urgent is the extension of the veto, which the Greens support. The rest of the bill, we believe very strongly, should and could wait for proper scrutiny. After the complete disaster of the previous arrangements you would think the government would want to ensure that they got it right this time around. Yet the government are deliberately avoiding adequate scrutiny of this bill.

The bill will have major ramifications for growers and farmers and the way we sell our wheat, and it is vitally important for the future of wheat exports in this country that we get this right. Why is the government, which says it is so concerned about the future of our wheat marketing, afraid to have a Senate committee look at this bill to ensure that it puts in place arrangements that are satisfactory and sufficient to ensure no repeat of the bribery scandal and no repeat of history? It was the lack of proper process that got Australia into this mess in the first place, and rather than learning from this hubris the government seems to be repeating its mistakes. By not allowing this bill to go to a Senate committee and by ramming it through this place, the government is treating the concerns of growers, farmers and the rest of the Australian community with contempt. The issues facing the wheat growers and the broader community in light of the AWB scandal, when you put aside the government’s role in that scandal, include: whether or not to continue with an export monopoly, the appropriate body to hold such a monopoly if we do continue with the monopoly, and the adequacy of the oversight measures.

There is still some disquiet, particularly within my home state of Western Australia, about the issue of the export monopoly. It is important to understand that in Western Australia wheat growers are one of the largest, if not the largest, exporters of wheat in Australia and the vast majority of their wheat is exported, whereas a lot of growers in the eastern states put a lot of their wheat into the domestic market and often exports are seen as a top-up.