Chris Ketter (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution on the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Legislation Amendment (Operational Efficiency) Bill 2017. I support initiatives to reduce the regulatory burden for our primary producers, providing they're taking into account the primary purpose of the APVMA, which, as we know, is to protect the health and safety of people, animals and the environment by ensuring chemical products are safe. So, yes, this is a very important regulator. It has very important functions. That's all the more reason why the government of the day should be respectful of its operations.

I'll talk later in my contribution about the way in which this government has been utterly dismissive of the importance of this authority. Labor is supporting this bill, but I note that this legislation should have been implemented three years ago. The coalition government has dragged its feet on agriculture reform just like it's dragged its feet on banking reform, on payday lending, on consumer protections and in relation to superannuation.

What this bill seeks to do is to make minor and technical amendments to the following acts: the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals (Administration) Act 1992, the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Code Act 1994 and the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemical Products (Collection of Levy) Act 1994. The explanatory memorandum states that the amendments will 'realise operational efficiencies, reduce unnecessary regulation, clarify ambiguities and remove redundant provisions'.

In enacting these changes, the bill reduces the regulatory burden on industry by simplifying reporting requirements for annual returns; reduces the administrative burden on the APVMA and industry by increasing the flexibility of the APVMA to manage errors in an application at the preliminary assessment stage; reduces the regulatory burden by enabling the APVMA to grant part of a variation application under section 27 of the schedule to the code act, which is the Agvet Code; enables a person to apply to vary the relevant particulars or conditions of a label approval that is suspended, to the extent that the variation relates to the grounds for suspension; establishes civil pecuniary penalties for contraventions of provisions relating to providing false or misleading information in the Agvet Code and the administration act; amends the notification requirements in section 8E of the Agvet Code so that the APVMA and the FSANZ will have the flexibility to agree on appropriate time frames for notifications; amends the definition of 'expiry date' in the Agvet Code to mean 'the date after which a chemical product must not be used'; and makes minor and technical amendments to the administration act and the Agvet Code, including the repeal of redundant provisions.

As I said in my opening comments, the government has been too slow to implement the necessary reforms in this space—reforms which were expected from industry stakeholders following the introduction of these significant legislative reforms by the Labor government in 2013 to improve the efficiency of the APVMA. Despite the National Party selling themselves as the champions of farmers, it's often Labor who achieves the results. Labor's reforms saw promising signs of increased performance at the APVMA emerge in 2016. The performance against the statutory time frame for assessing pesticide applications reached 83 per cent in the 2016 September quarter. However, with the ongoing negative impact on the APVMA due to the forced relocation by the then Turnbull government, as currently supported by the Morrison government, these promising signs have been devastated. I noted Senator Ruston's comments earlier about the importance of the work of the APVMA not only for Australians but also in terms of our international reputation, and that just throws into stark relief the irresponsibility in relation to the relocation of the APVMA. The APVMA only achieved 30 per cent of its work within statutory time frames for crop protection in the 2017 March quarter, 24 per cent in the June quarter and 36 per cent in the September quarter. The recent performance figures have improved but are still not at the height of the time frames reached in the 2016 September quarter.

We know that industry stakeholders are seeking to have this bill passed as soon as possible, but I note that this bill could have been put forward much earlier than 25 October 2017. It's interesting that Senator Ruston made the comment that these reforms are extremely urgent. You wouldn't know it by the time frames that they've been following in respect of these reforms. Further, since the election of the coalition government, it's failed to identify or deliver any legislative reform options that would result in any quantifiable ongoing efficiency dividend for the regulator. The former Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, Mr Joyce, has been all talk and no action on ensuring that further legislative operational efficacies are implemented. An example of the all talk and no action is the failed 2015 agriculture white paper, which indicated that the government would further streamline the approval of agricultural and veterinary chemicals by reducing industry and user costs by around $68 million to improve timely access to productivity-enhancing chemicals while still ensuring appropriate safeguards.

Once again, we see that this is proof of a government that's big on media releases and discussion papers and incredibly slow to act. It brings to mind the continuous policy failures of the National Party in relation to the constituency which they claim to represent. We've seen failures on the part of the National Party in respect of climate policy, in respect of the rollout of the NBN, particularly for rural areas, when it comes to irrigation policy, when it comes to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility and northern Australia development, and when it comes to rural health. We know that people in rural Australia suffer some of the worst outcomes when it comes to health and yet we see this government not lifting a finger to assist. Another recent policy failure has been in respect of the creation of the Regional Investment Corporation, a $28 million organisation for which there is no policy rationale. In fact, it duplicates many of the functions of the state rural adjustment authorities. It's going to be located in Orange—which is a state seat that the National Party lost, coincidently. We know from evidence received at the last estimates that it's currently administering around four loans. This is a massive waste of taxpayer funding and another example of the failure of the National Party to properly represent people in rural Australia.

Returning to this bill, it does consist of the necessary minor technical amendments to assist with streamlining the APVMA operations. Such amendments are to be expected following the significant legislative reforms introduced by Labor in 2013 to improve the efficiency of the APVMA.

The amendments presented in the bill by the current government are three years later than what was required. Taking three years to implement necessary amendments is unacceptable, and this unnecessary delay highlights the lack of urgency and the focus of the then Deputy Prime Minister and his previous department, which had been distracted by the forced relocation to the member for New England's own electorate. However, criticism of the department is not warranted, because they have had to manage a difficult minister with very different priorities. Since deciding to relocate the regulator to Armidale, in his own electorate, the former agriculture minister and Deputy Prime Minister has failed to identify or deliver any legislative reform options that would result in any quantifiable, ongoing efficiency dividend for the regulator. Agricultural chemicals are a cost effective, efficient, essential and sustainable option for farmers to use to control pests, weeds and diseases and, as such, represent a core input for modern farming systems. A streamlined, effective regulator capable of delivering more timely risk assessments, approvals and registrations is essential.

If we go back to the beginning, to when the then Deputy Prime Minister announced his forced relocation of the APVMA to his own electorate, he did so without any understanding of what the impact would be on the authority. Or, if he did understand it, it was with callous disregard for the impact. It also appears, on the face of it, that he seemed not to understand what the APVMA actually does. On 10 February, 2016, Minister Joyce actually said:

Moving the APVMA would allow it to have a closer interaction with the people who actually use agricultural and veterinary chemicals, as well as build a centre of excellence in the research of agricultural issues.

The APVMA does not actually deal directly with farmers and it does not test the products. The talk of the centre of excellence was just hollow words, and there is no actual plan as to what an agricultural centre of excellence would actually look like.

Minister Joyce said that the proposal to relocate the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority to Armidale would go through the process of an independent cost-benefit risk analysis, which would then be looked at further by the government. A cost-benefit was undertaken, and it gave a damning assessment of the relocation, stating that, firstly:

The estimated economic cost of $23.19 million excludes any potential cost to industry arising from the risks to the agricultural sector, the chemical industry or Australia’s trading reputation. Whilst these risks are real, their impacts and consequences are based on a probability of an event occurring and as such in adopting the principle of conservatism they have been excluded.

Secondly, it said:

To effectively undertake the move of the APVMA and adopt relevant risk mitigation strategies, the cash cost to the government could be significantly higher than the estimated economic cost of $23.19 million.

The report continued:

The most significant risk identified through the analysis relates to the ability of the APVMA to relocate, or to recruit and replace, key APVMA executive, management and technical assessment staff within the first two years of relocation. Critically, the loss of technical assessment staff (regulatory scientists) has the potential to seriously disrupt the ability of the APVMA to successfully fulfill its purpose and achieve its objectives in the short and medium term.

Further, a key concern for stakeholders in relation to the relocation of the APVMA to Armidale is the impact that the relocation may have on the approval of new chemicals for use. Stakeholders are concerned that delays to the approval of new chemicals will arise as a result of the loss of staff, the disruption to business and/or the impact to the APVMA’s current reform agenda. The analysis found that if poorly executed, the economic costs of moving the APVMA could therefore be considerably higher than identified in the cost benefit analysis. Based on conservative estimates of a one year delay in the approval of new products, the potential impact on the agriculture sector for crops alone could be between $64 million and $193 million per annum. The risks to the agvet chemical industry associated with moving the APVMA are also significant with a one year delay in the approval of new chemicals potentially impacting industry to the value of between $0.8 million and $2.7 million per annum in terms of lost revenues.

Sadly, the cost benefit was totally ignored by the then Deputy Prime Minister, and now the risks identified are actual realities. But it wasn't only the cost benefit analysis that warned the then Deputy Prime Minister of his ill-considered pork barrel, the former CEO Kareena Arthy stressed the negative impact the relocation would have on the authority, in a letter to Minister Joyce on 31 July 2015, stating: 'Potential loss of regulatory scientists—the most significant challenge highlighted by the outcomes of the staff survey is that around three-quarters of regulatory scientists would probably not move if the APVMA is relocated. Only seven regulatory scientists have indicated a willingness to move. Even if all the scientists who have indicated that they may consider moving agree to move, there would be only 19 regulatory scientists with knowledge of how to assess registration applications or undertake the underlying scientific assessments.' The letter from Ms Arthy goes on to talk about the fact that regulatory scientists have highly specialises skills that are in short supply in Australia and even under the current situation, back in 2015, the APVMA found it hard to recruit appropriate regulatory scientists.

Again, this is now a reality. The APVMA has recently indicated in its business model:

The construction of the new business models for Armidale should be regarded as a high priority and delivered by a full-time team headed by a senior executive with a direct reporting line to the CEO. In order to insulate the team from the day-to-day and operational pressures of a busy regulator, the team should be separated from the ongoing business and include staff located in Armidale. Arrangements could also be made to facilitate the transfer of staff who wish to relocate to Armidale into this team so they have opportunities to contribute to the construction of the new model and the training of new staff.

The maintenance of a sufficient internal scientific capability will require vigorous efforts to retain and recruit appropriately skilled regulatory scientists.

This will require active management of staff relocations including incentives for staff to relocate and an accelerated recruitment program. The APVMA should also consider targeting staff from overseas pesticide and veterinary chemical regulators, either on permanent appointment or on secondment. Remote working may provide a means of retaining some more experienced staff. However, only some of the functions currently performed are suitable for remote working, and it is highly unlikely that this would be a long-term viable arrangement for the bulk of the staff involved in the function.

So the APVMA is, of course, consumed with the issues associated with this forced relocation. I also note that there's been a recent report of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee this month in relation to the independence of regulatory decisions made by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority. This committee report has expressed the concern 'about the manner in which the APVMA was relocated', 'its impact on the availability of staff expertise', 'the flow-on effects for farmers across Australia who require timely and certain access to pesticides and veterinary medicines', and the committee pointed to the fact that despite the best efforts of the authority they 'had no other option than to retain the satellite office in Canberra'. This is an indictment of the whole move.

In conclusion, Labor will support this bill today. We will support it because, while those opposite drag their feet in standing up for the rural and regional communities they purport to represent, Labor will stand up. Labor is listening and delivering for regional and rural communities through Senate inquiries into the dairy industry, the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund and insurance policy prices; through investment in renewable energy; through a review of free trade agreement protocols to expedite opportunities for our produce growers; and, in Queensland, through state Labor initiatives such as Building our Regions and wild dog cluster fencing. Labor will continue to listen to regional and rural communities. (Time expired)

(Quorum formed)