John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to make a brief contribution to this debate on the Agriculture and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Removing Re-approval and Re-registration) Bill 2014. AUSVEG represents 9,000 vegetable and potato growers, and early last year AUSVEG public affairs manager, William Churchill had this to say after Labor, the Greens and Independents combined to increase the regulation of agriculture and veterinary chemicals in Australia:

AUSVEG has slammed Independent Member for New England Tony Windsor for voting in favour of a bill seeking to increase the regulation of Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals in Australia, a move which has infuriated Australian vegetable and potato growers. In an exemplary display of putting personal politics before good policy, Mr Windsor has succeeded in punching every farmer in the country below the belt …

The legislation before the chamber will right the wrongs. It implements the coalition's 2013 election commitment to remove re-registration and includes additional reforms to improve the efficiency of agvet chemicals regulation. It will remove red tape for farmers and other businesses. It will stop unnecessary costs and burden that should only occur when an unsafe product warrants the regulatory oversight. The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Association already uses the activities, assessments and decisions of overseas regulators and reviews peer-reviewed science.

On Monday, 23 June the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee lodged its report in the Senate. The report said that the Department of Agriculture noted that without changes to the Agvet Code, the re-registration requirements due to come into force on the 1 July would lead to significant costs to both industry and the APVMA. It would increase APVMA's costs by $2.2 million per year once the initial rollout is complete.

I am very wary of chemicals on the farm. My wife, Nancy, has done the course that we have to do, and I follow her advice when it comes to chemicals. I am very aware of digoxin, so when I had to spray a paddock just two weeks ago I got a contractor to do it. It is a dangerous chemical and it must treated with respect.

In summary, these agvet chemicals legislation amendments will save the agvet chemical industry $1.3 million in time and fees annually by removing duplication and unnecessary red tape. I just find it amazing that they want to change the size of a chemical container. Imagine if I go to buy a 10-litre drum of a particular sheep drench and they want to put it out in a 20-litre container. The red tape and associated costs to do that will amount to just another cost which we will pay for. The cost is always passed on to the consumer—while we are trying to remain internationally competitive. Here is the problem.

APVMA estimate that re-registration would cost them an extra $2 million per year, as I have mentioned. Industry has calculated that removing the re-approval and re-registration scheme will save them up to $9 million annually in red tape and associated costs. I commend my colleague the Minister for Agriculture, Barnaby Joyce, for introducing legislation to stop another layer of Labor-Greens red tape that burdens users of agriculture and veterinary chemicals. Farmers want to get on with the job.

We do respect chemicals. We know they are basically essential in the production of food. You cannot grow a crop of wheat with weeds; you grow either one or the other. Many chemicals that simply have not been a problem have been used for many years. Roundup is a classic example, which I use often myself. We know that we have a strict oversight of registering chemicals, and that is exactly how it should be. To deregister chemicals that in time prove to be very dangerous and harmful to human health would be wrong. But we have strict scrutiny of how these chemicals are tested, researched and finally registered. To come back to reregistration every few years is just another cost, and, as I said, who pays for it?

In winding up, I commend former Senator Barnaby Joyce, now Barnaby Joyce MP, Minister for Agriculture, for removing this cost burden. We want to see more profit at the farm gate—that is our goal. We have already seen decades of cost increases after cost increases. It is time to remove costs but keep those strict regulations in place so that farmers, vegetable growers et cetera deal with safe chemicals that are most importantly safe for the consumer. No-one has an agenda or a goal to harm the consumer. The consumer must be protected from any sort of dangerous chemical, and that system is already in place. That is why I commend this legislation, and hopefully we will see the passage of it very soon.