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

I just explained, Senator Heffernan. Perhaps you were not listening because you do not want to listen. The fact of the matter is that Senator Heffernan has been running a scare campaign. He has been behaving in what I consider is a most inappropriate fashion at committee hearings. He has been harassing witnesses, interjecting and trying to put pressure on people because he does not agree with this decision. It is his right not to agree with it, but I think he should behave a bit better than he is today.

I want to talk about some of the evidence we have had. I think everyone has got the right to come along to a Senate committee and give evidence and put their point of view. I have supported the process of Senate committees examining issues all the time I have been in this place, and I continue to do so. I do not support parties coming along and using the process to spread alarmist or untrue information. One of the matters which I raised with Senator Heffernan during a hearing was a proposition which was put by a representative of the Australian Beef Association. They were trying to, in effect, whip up a bit of a fear campaign that somehow we were about to be deluged with US beef if this decision went ahead. The proposition was put that somehow you only had to look at the price of beef in the US compared to the price paid here to see that, if we allowed this decision, suddenly we would be getting steaks out of US feedlots and they would be replacing Australian steaks. Prices were quoted. Mr Bellinger said, at a hearing on Friday, 5 February:

Choice-grade sirloin in the United States is currently selling for $13.86 a kilogram. In Australia it is selling from anywhere between $30 and $50 a kilogram at retail.

Point No. 1 is that ‘choice’ grade, under the USDA, is the second-grade steak and ‘select’ is the top grade. He gave us the prices for the top grade Australian steak as a comparison with choice grade. Point No. 2 is that, on searching the web that very day and looking at prices available on the web for the product that he mentioned, I could not get any price within a bull’s roar of the $13.86 a kilo that he was talking about. I could for a pound, but I could not for a kilo. In other words, I suspect—and I will give him the benefit of the doubt; he might have just made a mistake—that he quoted incorrectly the figure of the price per pound for USDA choice-quality sirloin steaks, that he misinterpreted it and put it on the record as $13.86. The fact of the matter is—you only have to do your own research—for anyone buying anything but ultrabulk cuts, the price comparison that Mr Bellinger gave to the committee is utterly wrong. It is part of the scare campaign that some people are seeking to mount. I guess, with their moment in the sun, they like to make the best they can of it and, if they exaggerate a bit or if they make a mistake, well, who is to know? Frankly, I think it is incumbent on people representing organisations that want standing in the community to get their facts right.

That point highlights one of the problems that we have had with this debate. There has been an attempt to scare people about this issue. There has been an attempt by the coalition to forget the fact that, all the time they were in government, they supported the principles that underpin the decision this government has made. Now they are in opposition it is their chance to try and make hay while sun shines, to forget about all the principles they had for 12 years in government and to run as if they do not support a limited-risk regime in terms of quarantine. They did for the 12 years they were in government. Frankly, it is something which we have to be part of because we export a lot more food than we will ever import. We export 378,000 tonnes, give or take a bit, to the United States. It is a market we could not afford to lose. I would not like to be in a position to have to say—if this government had not acted—that we might lose some or all of that market because we did not obey the rules. That is what is being proposed to the government. (Time expired)