Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to return to the point that I was discussing. Is the minister saying that the government is content to wait and see how this request provision operates? Problems have been clearly revealed, through Senate estimates, in the Wheat Export Authority’s ability to gain information from a private company allegedly controlled by growers. I am not going to blame the growers for the behaviour of AWB in this regard but the experience clearly was that there were significant problems in obtaining information. In fact, there needed to be a memorandum of understanding between the Wheat Export Authority and AWB in order to get information. I am curious as to why the provisions are such that the government is content to simply wait and see what happens. Given that these provisions are probably much less likely to come into effect, in a real sense, until after 1 March, why should we wait until some time next year to see how these work before we give the authority or the commission a power which, on the face of it, one would think was essential for the authority or the commission to do its job in the interim? This is an area of the legislation that is perplexing. It seems that it is a rather permissive approach by the government in an area where, demonstrably, the Wheat Export Authority has lacked power, in terms of AWB. One would have thought that there was an argument that any company, if it thought it might be in its interest, might decline to give information if there was not a compulsion power.