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

Oh, there are other provisions. Senator Joyce says he does not know about that. I can assure him that there are other provisions that apply to other commodities, in existing laws, which no doubt would apply in terms of AQIS and its role in relation to exports. I do not know why we need specific provisions in this legislation that, as a matter of fact, are a justification for delaying the introduction of this provision. The 60 days from royal assent, which I understand is the operative date, seems to be an unnecessary delay. If there is a commitment to the deregulations of boxed and bagged wheat, as it is colloquially described, then why can’t it happen upon royal assent? We do not know that there is a great need for an extensive system to so-called ‘assure quality’. And we do not know what cost that will impose on this measure. I know that there are some within the grower community who have a suspicion that this is another means by which the deregulation of containerised wheat will be made less economic, and it will therefore be an illusory deregulation. Those concerns are out there. But, whether or not those are valid concerns, I do not understand why we need to go through this process of ‘quality assurance’. If I were an exporter of barley—or canola, or lupins or any other of the dry-land farmed commodities that we export—I would not need to go through this process, so why should a wheat grower?