Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I am not sure if Senator Siewert is going to ask me any questions as she indicated she might, but I am happy to answer any questions she may have. I will just pick up a couple of points particularly with respect to the security of payment in the matter that Senator Joyce raised. Senator Sherry said that there is currently no formal security of payment arrangement. Of course, what is contemplated here is simply that wheat growers, like every other person in business in this country, will rely on the operation of the ordinary laws of this country, as they do now in effect and will in the future. There are laws governing the enforceability of contracts, and that applies to you whether you are selling your wholesale bananas to the local retailer or whether you are selling to an accredited exporter. I point out to Senator Joyce that growers, like any other producer of any widget or any other product or service in this country, will of course have recourse to the ordinary laws of this country which, at a state and federal level, provide a greater degree of security in the law than those of virtually any other country on the planet. So I do not think that, out of this debate tonight, we want any sense among Australian wheat growers that suddenly they are being thrown to the wolves by this bill. That would be so far from the truth as to be ridiculous, so I do not think that that furphy should be allowed to run.

With respect to Senator Siewert’s remarks, I express surprise and disappointment that the Greens are not able to support our amendments with regard to individual growers, and I do not think that it is a sufficient argument against these amendments to surmise that there will not be individual growers who will have the quantities of wheat to export in bulk. That is not a sufficient reason to oppose the right of an individual grower who has or may have the opportunity to export their wheat without going through this process. Much of the purpose of the accreditation scheme is to give growers who wish to export their wheat through an exporter a considerable degree of confidence in the financial wherewithal and capacity of that exporter. That is part of the reason for the accreditation. That is obviously, by definition, not necessary if the wheat grower chooses to export their own wheat. As our amendments make clear, with respect to whether someone might cheat the system by exporting somebody’s wheat, they would, by definition, be breaching the act, because our amendment very specifically refers to an individual producer exporting wheat produced by that individual producer. Were they to seek to export wheat produced by somebody else, they would automatically not be covered by our amendments but would be covered by the requirements of the act with respect to accreditation. So I do not think that that is a legitimate argument either.