Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Happy birthday, Senator Moore! As I rise here tonight, grain growers across the country are working on their cropping strategy for the coming year. They are working out how rising fertiliser prices—up $100 a tonne on the last year—and fuel price hikes from around 90c to $1.40 a litre will impact on their business. They are praying for favourable rains after years and years of drought. They are getting prepared for the coming season. They are some of the people that I represent.

Today marks the 30th day of hearings for the Cole inquiry. Since the Cole inquiry started its public hearings on 16 January this year, barely a day has passed when the media and political spotlight has not has been on the AWB, the single desk and the Howard-Vaile government. I have to say I am bitterly disappointed at some of the hysteria, political point scoring and misinformation that has been whipped up by some. Australian wheat farmers are already suffering from the impact of drought and low prices. This sort of ongoing commentary does nothing to help them, and the attitude of the ALP does nothing to help them.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Conroy interjecting—

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Perhaps if Senator Conroy remained silent for a moment he might learn something, particularly when he is seeing most of rural Australia from his Melbourne office. We all need to take a long, deep breath and await the findings of the Cole inquiry. This inquiry has been given all the powers it needs to get to the bottom of the issue.

I want to stress a very important point: the single desk is not on trial. It makes me very cranky to see some people deliberately attempting to link the Cole inquiry and Australia’s wheat single-desk export marketing system. The Cole inquiry and the principle of the single desk are two entirely separate issues. The single desk is not an Australian company; it is the vehicle for this nation’s wheat export arrangements, arrangements that have been in place for decades and that have brought great benefits to our Australian farmers. I find it quite unbelievable that there are those who seek to attack the Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of The Nationals, Mark Vaile. Yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition, Kim Beazley, claimed that Mark Vaile headed off to Iraq to avoid accountability in the parliament.

Ross Lightfoot (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Nash, I remind you that it is either ‘Mr Vaile’ or ‘the Deputy Prime Minister’.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry. He said that Mr Vaile headed off to Iraq to avoid accountability in the parliament. What a ridiculous statement. It is so wide of the mark it is ridiculous. Do the Leader of the Opposition and his frontbench—and even those on the other side in this place—seriously believe that Minister Vaile would head off to a war-torn country simply to avoid some questions from the Australian Labor Party? I don’t think so! And that remark was from a man who claims to be the alternative leader of this nation.

The Grains Council chief, David Ginns, said that Mr Vaile was being unfairly criticised. He said: ‘People are assuming we’ve lost something, but we didn’t. He should be applauded for putting himself in the firing line for Australian farmers.’ Those are not my words; they are the words of the Grains Council of Australia—a body that has got a lot more knowledge about wheat exports than Kim Beazley—

The Acting Deputy President:

Mr Beazley, Senator.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry—Mr Beazley and most his frontbench would have between them. I say to those people who seek to attack Mr Vaile: play the ball and not the man. As long as this nation’s growers operate in a distorted global wheat market and the majority of Australian wheat growers want the single desk arrangements to remain, The Nationals will fight to retain the single desk.

Australian grain growers are competing against distorted world markets right across the world. Our wheat growers are not playing on a level playing field. We need to remember that US and EU farmers alone receive around a billion dollars in farm subsidies every day. The single desk allows our grain growers to compete with international providers. I am advised that Econtech, who are respected economic modellers, have calculated that the average premium achieved as a result of having a single wheat desk is $13 a tonne.

Australia’s wheat industry employs more than 150,000 people in rural Australia, and the single desk arrangements deliver almost 2,000 jobs in rural Australia alone. Approximately 45,000 non-farm business enterprises in rural Australia rely on the profitability of the wheat industry. Every day, wheat growers tell me and colleagues in The Nationals to save the single desk. Last week, more than 700 wheat growers rallied at Warracknabeal to send a clear message: save the single desk. Two quotes from the media reporting on that meeting stuck out for me. Firstly, ‘Every time Beazley opens his damn mouth, we lose another couple of hundred thousand dollars’ and, secondly, ‘Bracks should tell Rudd to pull his head in and stop doing the American grain growers’ dirty work.’ Those are not my words but the words of angry, distressed farmers who are just trying to make a living. Their message to Labor is clear: hands off the single desk.

Last Thursday, the Land newspaper, the paper that New South Wales farmers turn to every Thursday for the latest ag industry news, published the findings of a Rural Press nationwide survey of wheat growers. The results were overwhelmingly in favour of the single desk. Seventy-three per cent of Australian grain growers still support the single desk for wheat exports; almost 70 per cent of them think that AWB has been unduly victimised compared with other international companies named in the oil for food scandal; and 69 per cent of growers support AWB maintaining its role as the wheat export single desk manager. This is a survey that was taken within the last couple of weeks and accurately reflects the feelings of those growers. As I travel across New South Wales, the message is still the same: those growers want the single desk to stay.

This Friday, around 1,000 wheat growers are expected to gather at the Parkes racecourse to send the same message: they want the single desk to stay. But I ask where Labor are on the single desk. I suppose it depends on who you ask. Had we asked Labor’s current shadow minister for trade, Mr Rudd, last week, his answer was:

We need to consider it on its business and economic merits. This requires thorough consultation with the wheat industry. My colleague Gavin O’Connor is currently engaged in those consultations and we won’t be making any premature policy announcement on that until those consultations are concluded.

Labor’s shadow minister for revenue, small business and competition, Mr Fitzgibbon, recently described the single desk as ‘an anachronistic wheat marketing monopoly which has been selling Australian farmers short.’ Then last week, after what must have been a very thorough consultation with some 30 growers in Wagga Wagga, Mr Rudd declared that Labor would support the single desk.

Labor claim that they act in the interests of wheat growers, and they certainly seem to feign sympathy for wheat growers. But, given those two quotes, I wonder where they are on all of this. There certainly does not seem to be any kind of position. If attacking the single desk is Labor’s idea of support for the single desk, then I think that is very sad for Australian farmers.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was Wilson Tuckey!

The Acting Deputy President:

If you must interject, Senator Conroy, it is ‘Mr Tuckey’.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask the Labor Party to come out and give a very clear view on their position on the single desk.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What is Mr Tuckey’s view?

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If Senator Conroy were speaking, I would do him the courtesy of listening to him in silence. The Nationals will continue to do what the Australian wheat growers ask us to do. The majority of those growers are saying to us that they want the single desk marketing arrangements for wheat to stay. While ever the majority of those farmers are saying that to us, while ever our wheat farmers are competing against distorted world markets, then The Nationals will continue to fight to make sure that we keep that single desk.