Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Another waste of time, Mr Acting Deputy President. Senator Back sought to make a point in his contribution about the fact that he had not been contacted by the minister—he had not got a copy of a letter. I had a message passed to me from the minister’s office just after he made his contribution. The minister’s office said that they rang Senator Back’s office before question time, or left a message for him to get back, to talk to him about the issue, and he did not return the call. I do not know what is happening in his office if he did not get the message, but that is the bona fides of the minister. He did contact Senator Back and something has either gone wrong or the senator has been unable or unwilling to return the call.

But let us get back to tintacks on this. We have a proposition for reform of the import inspection charges regime, which has been put on the table after many years of complaints by the industry. This was not done by the coalition, who were in government up until the end of 2007. The coalition were content to put a bit of money into the pot and say: ‘We will pay you off. We are not going to actually do anything about the system. We will let the system roll on because it is too hard for us to do something about it.’

So what happened? As usual, Labor came into government and we said that we wanted to do something about it. But we want to do it in such a way that there is not going to be a double-dip, that when we make the reforms we do not come here and see that the Liberal Party and the National Party say: ‘Yes, but we are going to disallow your regulation anyway. We want to keep the charges lower so that we keep the subsidy, because they should be subsidised.’ This is the proposition which is effectively being put: ‘You, as government, go and put the money in and do the reform and then we will tell you whether we will pass your regulation for an appropriate charging regime.’

For years the coalition talked about full-cost recovery. But they avoided dealing with all of the issues by putting a subsidy into the budget and keeping it going, all the while saying, ‘We really want achieve efficiency; we really want to see that these charges are paid for by industry,’ but they were never prepared to bite the bullet. They were never prepared to go down the road and say, ‘Here is a way that we can achieve it, where you the industry make a contribution towards it and we all accept that at the end of the day there is cost recovery and you get the greatest benefits that we can achieve.’

We established in our inquiry that many of the charges that are imposed on the exporters are imposed because the importing country requires them. The biggest charges, which are costs imposed on our system, are because there is respect for our system. We have a system of quarantine inspection which is respected overseas, and that costs money.

In the evidence before the committee in the hearings we were told that if this regulation were disallowed there would be a $103 million black hole in the Quarantine Biosecurity budget. Those opposite are saying that the government should just put that up, but at the same time we should be funding all of the work that is necessary to achieve efficiencies in the system. At the end of the day, what is a promise from them? Have I heard an ironclad, believable commitment that then they will agree to full cost recovery? No. I know that a reasonable minister would be saying, ‘How could you depend on that?’ What we are again going to see are opportunistic approaches saying that, because someone overseas does not have to pay for their quarantine inspection charges, Australians should not have to pay. Yet that was basically the underpinning of the coalition policy for years: all they did was avoid it with a subsidy that they put into the budget.

As for the shadow minister, Mr Cobb, speaking to the minister yesterday, the suggestion was that he put something concrete forward. What he put forward was: ‘Yes, we will disallow the regulations; we’ll go back to the old fees, and you do the work.’ That is all he put forward. The only person in this debate who has put something to the government to try and take things forward is Senator Milne, who put forward a proposal for an additional $20 million towards effectively subsidising the fees while the work was done.

What we do have from evidence before the committee is that most industry participants want the work done. Most industry participants were keen for the work to be done and indeed had signed up for the work to be done. Frankly, I would have to say that they are in a position now where someone is saying, ‘We can disallow it for you; are you really going to say you don’t want it disallowed?’ And they are saying, ‘Well, we’re happy to have it disallowed as long as we get the work done.’

I do not think a reasonable minister would accept that. I do not think a reasonable minister would accept having a gun held to the head of the Australian government by someone saying, ‘Blow $100 million on your biosecurity budget and put all the work in to put the reforms into the system, but I’m not going to guarantee that you’re going to get full cost recovery then.’ How would the minister be able to convince his cabinet colleagues that it was worth while putting $103 million and more towards this reform when he could not guarantee that at the end of the day there would not be a further drag on the budget for these services—even though there has been a longstanding agreement within both parties that, underpinning it all, there should ultimately be cost recovery? We are dealing here with political opportunism which really does tell the government that it cannot trust those opposite to deliver full cost recovery, even if it puts the work in, even if it spends $100 million, $150 million or $200 million towards achieving that.

I did think that the comments made by Senator Fielding with regard to Senator Milne and the Greens were unfortunate. I have a lot of disputes with the Greens on a range of issues—we do not agree on a lot of things—but I thought that he had, frankly, quite a cheek to suggest that the Greens had come to this issue with some ulterior motive. It demonstrated that Senator Fielding came to the debate not understanding—of course, if you had heard Senator Milne’s contribution you would understand—where Senator Milne was coming from in terms of her rearing, her family background and the interests she has. I fully accept that Senator Milne and Senator Siewert in particular in the Greens have close contacts with rural industry, and the last thing I would suggest is that somehow they would come to a debate such as this or any rural debate without some regard, whatever their other views, for rural industry. I do think that Senator Fielding should reflect carefully on what he said. I thought it was very unfair, I thought it was very unreasonable and I thought he lowered the tenor of the debate as a result. I think if you reflected on what you said you would say something quite different.

What Senator Milne did in seeking a resolution of this matter was to make a proposal to take this matter forward so we would actually make progress. What those opposite are now doing is leaving us with a proposition where it is clear that this regulation will be disallowed. The minister will then be faced with having to convince his ministerial colleagues that it is worth putting more money into this area to achieve the reforms that everyone wants, but he cannot guarantee that that will result in the aim which he started out to achieve—that is, that the costs incurred in the provision of export inspection services be paid by the beneficiaries of those services and not the taxpayer. That puts him in a difficult position. I do not know what decision he will ultimately come to.

I do hope that, when this matter is dealt with, those opposite, the minor parties, whoever, decide that they can come to a resolution of this matter which gives certainty to the government that enables us to pursue these reforms in a way that is equitable to the taxpayer as well as to the industry. I would urge senators not to support the disallowance. It is pretty clear that the coalition are committed to it. It is clear that Senator Fielding is committed to it. I understand Senator Xenophon, who cannot be here because he is not well, is not prepared to oppose the disallowance, and that is unfortunate, but I am not going to comment on that; I do not fully understand why. That is what we have to live with and, at the end of the day, it may be that the reforms this industry wants just get left sitting on the shelf because it is too hard for those opposite.