Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make my contribution to the Biosecurity Bill 2014 and related bills. Senator Back makes some very good points. Probably one of the most poignant points that Senator Back makes is that the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport references and legislation committees are diligent. We set about in our work to do what is best for our nation, what is best for our farmers, what is best for our fishermen—anyone involved in horticulture, aquaculture or agriculture food production—and what is best for Australian consumers. There is absolutely no doubt about that. We do our best. We do not politicise it. Unfortunately, sometimes we have a few senators who blow in and want to make a political point, but we are all focused on the main intent: to look after Australia's agriculture, horticulture and fishing industries. We have worked diligently together for a number of years and under some fantastic chairmanship by me—I give myself a plug there—and by Senator Heffernan. So it is the same farm but a different paddock with whoever may be chairing at the time.

As Senator Back said, this bill is to replace and act that was first introduced in 1908. All credit to former agricultural ministers in the Rudd-Gillard era—Minister Burke, Minister Ludwig and Minister Fitzgibbon. I got agreement with my committee members that the new biosecurity bill, which we are going to put in place of the last one, was too important to rush. I got agreement that it did not matter what might be the will of the government of the day, we could not rush this bill. We had to thoroughly examine it. I had their full support. Of course, we know there has been a change of government.

Before I go to the circumstances of my problems with the bills as they stand now, I want to reiterate that biosecurity is probably one of the most important issues this nation has to address. We are an island and so fortunately we have some defences to save our agriculture and food production industries, but unfortunately through the best efforts of everyone involved we do get some serious incursions. I am fortunate to be part of the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport committees. We have looked into just about every incursion that has hit this country; and, if we have not looked it and examined it, we are very well aware of it and have certainly not been backward in coming forward to talk about it and make recommendations to our relevant ministers.

When I walked into this place in 2005, the first inquiry I copped was on citrus canker. I had a fistful of papers put on my desk and was told, 'Read that, because you've got to come up to speed with citrus canker.' It frightened the living daylights out of me! What I did find out through those first few months in the Senate committee process was that that incursion came in through—I cannot put it any other way—a devious method. I have to tell you that, at the time, the department did not cover themselves in glory. They were very, very shoddy in their work. They could not have been any more shoddy than warning the perpetrator that they were coming to have a look at the possible place of incursion. They gave them plenty of notice. The rest is history. It is something which we should not be proud of. But what it did do was take the committee, under the chairmanship of Senator Heffernan, to Emerald in Queensland. We saw firsthand the devastation that occurs to not only an industry but a community when someone drops their guard or when someone is being sneaky. We saw the wipe-out of the citrus industry in Emerald, even to the point where orange, lemon and lime trees in people's own backyards—everything—had to be destroyed.

This is not political, but we have got another incursion on our doorstep in Queensland—and this is damned frightening. The rural and regional affairs committee was in Darwin last year, inquiring into something else, when we stumbled on the fact that the banana industry in Darwin was going to be wiped out by banana freckle. We know that every banana tree on every plantation in Darwin—I do not think it went any further than Darwin; I do not think it went down to Katherine, although I am not sure—had to be destroyed. Because of the incursion of banana freckle in Darwin, the industry was brought to its knees. There was a $26 million package. I do not know how you come to a figure like $26 million, because all I could see were family businesses put out of business, employees who worked in those family businesses put out of work and the service industry was left with nowhere to go. They lost a massive chunk of income and their workers were affected. This is just not good enough. I remember saying in Darwin, 'Let's hope to hell this doesn't get across the border'—and it has not.

I want to talk about the panama incursion. What we know at this stage about panama is that once it is in the soil it does not leave. I am told that it can be around for 40 or 50 years. So, goodness gracious, I have my fingers crossed! I really hope and pray that that incursion can be contained. I do not want to start scaremongering but, boy oh boy, if that gets into Queensland, not only do we talk about it being around for 40 or 50 years but it will wipe out the banana industry in Queensland. To a lesser but no less important extent is the fact that the banana industry in Carnarvon has just been wiped out by a cyclone. Fortunately, they will be able to bounce back because they are resilient up there.

I also want to touch on the importance of biosecurity, not only to our food industry but in terms of, as Senator Back touched on, the equine influenza outbreak in 2007, where we nearly did not have a Melbourne Cup—and putting aside the number of horses that were infected and put down. To come back to the intent of the bill, all I want is what is best for Australia. I want what is best for Australian consumers, and I want what is best for Australian farmers and food providers.

Not that long ago, in February, we had a Senate inquiry into this. I raised a number of concerns, as did my colleagues, with the Department of Agriculture. One of the biggest problems that I had was the possible watering down of the powers of the Inspector-General of Biosecurity. Another issue was that the department could not supply us with a copy of the regulations that were going to be hanging off this piece legislation. They tried to defend that by saying—and I am paraphrasing now—if we did not like it, it did not matter because they had consulted everyone. I think it was Senator Williams who asked who they had consulted, and they said stakeholders. Then I think it was Senator Ruston who asked for a list of the stakeholders that they had consulted, and then it came out that the stakeholders that they had consulted had not seen the regulations—there were no regulations!

When I asked Ms Mellor from the department where were the regulations and how far away were they, all I got was, 'They'll be here sometime this year.' When you are told that in February, 'sometime this year' could be up to 31 December. As a committee, and as representatives of the rest of the Senate, we were being asked to vote on a piece of legislation when we did not know what was in regulations. That was not the case when the bill was put up by the previous government; the regulations came out. We had to flush that out at Senate estimates, because the answers were a little bit different from what actually happened.

I am very keen to tighten up and do whatever we need to do to put biosecurity foremost in every government's mind, but I find it very disingenuous. I cannot accept voting on a piece of legislation when we do not know what is in the regulations. One of our fears of the regulations concerned the Eminent Scientists Group. The Eminent Scientists Group are now a part of the handbook of the decision making. When I asked Ms Mellor whether we had any guarantee that that the Eminent Scientists Group would still form part of the handbook of the decision making, I could not get a clear answer: 'We don't know; they're not ready yet.'

We in the opposition trenches cannot accept the bill as it is. In the committee, we put in a dissenting report. For us on the opposition side, putting in a dissenting report is not something we do every week, I can tell you. That goes for the government senators when they were in opposition too. We always did everything we could to achieve a consultative position where we could all agree. We would tweak words and we would add a few. We would have a few little disagreements, we would have a bit of heartburn and we would have the odd bit of biffo amongst ourselves, but we would come to an arrangement. So when a dissenting report goes through the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee, it certainly does cause more heartburn. In this case there were some things that we just could not accept. I will share my concerns with the Senate. The dissenting report says:

Labor Senators do not agree with clause 567 of the Biosecurity Bill 2014 that provides the Agriculture Minister with review powers that will allow him to conduct reviews into the biosecurity system to identify opportunities for improvements in the assessment and management of biosecurity risks.

Our fear was this would all fall to the minister and he would have the final say. The report goes on:

Labor Senators also do not agree with clause 643—Delegation of powers by Agriculture Minister. This clause allows the Agriculture Minister to delegate any or all of his or her powers and functions under the Act (and any regulations made under the Act) to the Director of Biosecurity, an SES employee, or acting SES employee in the Agriculture Department, except for those relating to the Minister.

Labor Senators acknowledge concerns raised by submitters regarding the proposed review process under clause 567 and 643. The proposed review process was condemned as a 'backwards' and 'retrograde' step that would potentially allow conflict of interests.

That is the last thing that we would want to see in anything to do with biosecurity or enforcement of biosecurity. The report says:

Submitters highlighted key differences between the Biosecurity Bill 2014 clauses 567 and 643 and the review process designed under the Inspector-General of Biosecurity Bill 2012. Specifically, submitters noted with concern the proposed discretionary timing, conduct and scope of the reviews and the internal, confidential nature of review findings would not guarantee independent transparent review for example, the Australian Veterinary Association stated:

'If the Inspector-General's role is designed to be similar to that of an ombudsman (as described in the Beale Review) the public must be able to refer matters directly to the Inspector-General.'

AUSVEG came before us too, and they stated:

The explanatory memorandum for Clause 567 states that "… as the review powers are provided to the Minister, reviews will be conducted independently from the Department, ensuring independence between the subjects and the review (biosecurity officials) and the powers of the person conducting the review." However, as the powers for conducting a review into the biosecurity system lie with the Minister for Agriculture and may be conferred by the Minister for Agriculture, this cannot legitimately be described as an independent review process.

I want to quote the words that I have heard many, many times from my colleague Senator Heffernan, a government senator. In his view, and I find it very hard to argue with, you are only as independent as the person who pays you.

The Labor senators' dissenting report says:

Labor supports option 2 of the regulation impact statement that determined establishing the role of the Inspector-General of Biosecurity through legislation as a statutory officer, responsible for reviewing the performance and exercise of powers by the Director of Biosecurity, biosecurity officers and biosecurity enforcement officers as well as conducting biosecurity import risk analysis.

This is the preferred option as it would help assure stakeholders and Australia's trading partners of the integrity of the department's processes and would provide an independent, systematic approach towards maintaining and improving Australia's biosecurity system.

Labor recommends that the government adopt the recommendation of the Beale review to establish the Inspector-General of Biosecurity as a statutory body.

Establishing the role of the Inspector-General of Biosecurity through legislation would ensure that there is a statutory officeholder responsible for the independent audit—

I cannot stress enough that, on our side of the chamber, we want the independent audit—

review and assessment of the department's biosecurity activities and processes. The role and function of the Inspector-General of Biosecurity would align with the Beale review's recommendation that an effective risk management system should include formal auditing activities.

In summary of that, in our dissenting report we had one recommendation, and that was:

That the Senate either amend the bill or request the House of Representatives to amend the bill to provide for establishment of the Inspector-General of Biosecurity as a statutory body.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why Minister Joyce has a problem with that, why Minister Joyce would want to start a brawl with us, to put himself in a position where he could be the be-all and end-all of any biosecurity issues. I do not think any minister in their right mind—because of their workload and what they have to do—would ever think that was a good idea. Unfortunately that is what Mr Joyce has done, and only Mr Joyce, the Minister for Agriculture, can answer about that.

I go back to saying this: biosecurity should never, ever be used as a political football. Biosecurity is something that should unite this chamber and the other place on whatever issue it may be. Sometimes we lose sight, as a nation, of what we are actually consuming, what we are putting in our mouths, where it comes from and what the labels may say. The classic example is the unfortunate incident we have had with the frozen berries. That could be anything. In defence of the company, it was identified quite rapidly. It would have been nice if it had been quicker, but anyway it was identified and it was stopped. But it is imperative that Australians understand that, if you want to have the best biosecurity, if you want to have the best opportunity to consume the safest food, whether it be—