Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

We do fall on different sides of the fence on this particular issue. The government's view is that if you get it right at the border then the subsequent supply chain right down to the retailer is unnecessary. It is unnecessary for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the importer will have the opportunity of doing due diligence. We will hold the importer accountable for that due diligence. We will have a compliance framework on the importer at that point. As to the remaining supply chain, as you move down from the wholesaler and retailer, all the way down, say, to the hardware store at Cunnamulla, you would find that, if you started to put requirements on them, they would be second-best; they would not even have the same knowledge that the importer would have at the border. In fact, you would then be adding a compliance system plus a process onto—to use again the example of the retail outlet—the Cunnamulla hardware store.

This would be an unnecessary trade restraint and it certainly would be a burden on costs, because then you would be requiring them to do due diligence where that small hardware store in Cunnamulla would not have the ability to do that. A Bunnings, and a range of other large retailers, may be able to contemplate it. But it is about ensuring that there is appropriate legislation that is relevant and practical and able to be met at the border without providing unreasonable burdens along the supply chain and creating unfair outcomes for small, medium and large players or vertically integrated businesses, or small hardware stores at the end of the supply chain—which would not add one extra thing to the ability of the importer to do appropriate due diligence at the border and get it right there rather than have a second, third and fourth checker along the way. The auditor, the independent compliance, will do that work for us.

I would add, as to the issue around the EU: yes, they have fallen on the side of having a supply chain process. In my view, it will add costs to their supply chain but, if you look at their system, I think they would have debated this, as to whether or not they used this at the border. As you are well aware, the EU does not have borders in that sense, and therefore it is far more fluid. I think in those instances that is why they have fallen on the side of a broader system along the supply chain. We have a definite border. We have a definite place of importation. We know the importers. We know that we can put compliance at that point. We know we can put an auditing process at that point. Therefore, the additional cost, burden and regulation would be an onerous impost, and, quite frankly, on that basis, as I have explained, an unnecessary impost, and I would be criticised roundly I suspect. The Senate committee supports me in this view. They came to the same concluded view.