Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I will not detain the chamber very long. We have been debating the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Removing Re-Approval and Re-Registration) Bill 2014 on and off for a while. I want to make a couple of short points. I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture was not meaning to suggest that the Greens are opposed to all chemical use with his comment that if we did not have chemicals we would lose 20 per cent of our production. We certainly do not come from the position that we need to stop all chemical use. We appreciate, and are fully aware of, the role that chemicals do play. We are concerned around the use of toxic chemicals in production. I will not go into the nature of the debate, but Fenthion is a classic example. The debate on that has been going on for 15 years. I think that is too long. It has delayed the industry being able to move to find alternatives. I do not want to see that happen with other chemicals.

I acknowledge that the minister is correct in saying that Australia has led other countries in some areas—I absolutely agree with that—but in other areas it has not. There are still a number of chemicals that are used in this country that are no longer in use in other markets. We believe we need a better process. We think this is a step backwards. We think we need a stronger process in place and that is why I moved this amendment. I understand the government is not going to support this amendment. We will be watching this process very carefully to see how the APVMA go about their assessment processes from now on. We think it is not going to be in the best interests of the industry in the long term because we think we will be back to the trenches fighting over particular chemicals rather than having a clear process for the assessment of chemicals, particularly those with unmanageable risks.

Question negatived.

Bill agreed to.

Bill reported without amendments; report adopted.