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BARLEY MARKETING (MISCELLANEOUS) AMENDMENT BILL
Adjourned debate on second reading.
The Hon. IAN GILFILLAN: The Democrats support the Bill. We have strong feelings of support for the single desk marketing of primary products. The chaos inflicted on the coal industry of Australia should stand permanently as an example of the idol of open and deregulated competition when primary industry producers compete amongst themselves for a very hostile and voracious international market. I have a letter dated 21 May this year addressed to me from Jeff Arney, Chairman of the SAFF Grains Council, and it would be useful to read it into Hansard. It states:
Re: Barley Marketing Bill/Authorised Receiver. As the date draws near when a decision will be made on the single desk legislation currently before Parliament, the South Australian Farmers Federation (SAFF) Grains Council would like to take this opportunity to provide you with an update on our position. As has already been stated on more than one occasion by the Grains Council, the single desk legislation should be maintained post 1 July 1999 while it continues to deliver benefits to the State's grain growers. This letter also provides a quick overview of the Grain Council's position on the provision of authorised receiver. Single desk legislation. At our recently held annual grain conference the following resolution was debated at length prior to being passed:That this conference support legislation currently before State Parliament, i.e., single desk export marketing to year 2001 and that, as long as it can be demonstrated that single desk export is advantageous to South Australia, single desk beyond 2001 is our priority.
I repeat: `single desk beyond 2001 is our priority'. The letter continues:
The conference agreed to support the common legislation being presented in South Australia and Victoria with privatisation of the ABB to occur on 1 July 1999. However, continuing the single desk is seen as a priority for our barley growers who are extremely vulnerable in the international marketplace due to subsidies and other market distortions.
Authorised receiver.
With reference to the position of authorised receiver, the Grains Council supports progress of the legislation through Parliament proceeding without interruption. Whilst it is agreed that the legislation should continue, the matter of authorised receiver requires deliberation shortly thereafter to ensure that the South Australian Cooperative Bulk Handling Limited (SACVH) not be restricted from participating in the 1999-2000 trading season. The Grains Council considers the reference to authorised receiver was an oversight in preparing the legislation and is no longer relevant. On behalf of the SAFF Grains Council we thank you for your continued interest in the Barley Marketing Bill.
The letter points out that if I want further information I should contact the Chairman, Jeff Arney. It is essential to dwell on the emphasis that this South Australian organisation of barley growers has placed on the continuation of the single desk beyond 2001. The reason that that extension past 2001 is not in our legislation is not that the South Australian Government would not support it and certainly not because the South Australian growers would not support it—in fact, they would dearly love to have it; it is because the Premier of Victoria (Mr Kennett) determined that the year 2001 was as far as he would go in tolerating the continuation of a single desk for the export marketing of barley.
I sat next to a leading executive of the Victorian Farmers Federation who was involved in barley marketing, and he told me that, at their State conference, one or two dissenting voices of the Victorian barley growers—I cannot remember the exact number—insisted that there should be a push to extend single desk marketing past the arbitrary date of 2001. So, this legislation has been dictated to the exporting barley growers of Australia by one autocratic individual who is besotted with the philosophy that you must demolish any sort of regulated organised marketing as a tenet of faith.
It is obscene, and it is a crushing blow to the far sighted and constructive attempts to establish a viable, strong export industry for Australia to have this pedagogue telling the South Australian Government what it is allowed or not allowed to introduce as legislation in South Australia for the South Australian barley growers. Sadly, if we had insisted that we wanted to have the extension of the single desk past the year 2001, the Victorian Government (not the Victorian barley growers) threatened to pull out of the whole deal entirely and make it open slather so that it would have legalised exporters from Victoria operating in what they would then have constructed as a deregulated export market.
The barley growers of South Australia and Victoria would be justified in feeling extremely angry with this thoughtless intrusion into a sensitive area of holding a world market by the idiotic imposition of ideology into practical export marketing. We will need to be as ready as we can be to move to the next leg in this exercise, and that is amending legislation as soon as it can be organised by pressure or persuasion with the Victorian Government to make sure that the world barley marketing community is aware that Australia is determined to have a single desk as its marketing authority for export barley. There is scope for the boutique market because in certain circumstances up to 50 tonnes are exempt from the single desk. So, there is scope for those who feel that they can trade limited amounts to lucrative markets and can exercise that deregulated marketing capacity.
536 With our expression of support for the Bill, we cannot express strongly enough the dedication that we feel for a unified marketing of Australian primary product when we are trying to hold our own in the world market. It is pointless to say that level playing fields exist and that competition will eventually allow the best end result for the producer. We know that that is a deception and that the end of that track will be that many producers will be forced out of production, and if that occurs Australia will be the loser in the long run.
I will address the other matter that the Farmers Federation has urged, and that is that South Australian Cooperative Bulk Handling Ltd is guaranteed its role to participate in the 1999-2000 trading season. In the Government's reply to the second reading debate, I would like to hear a categorical assurance that that will be the case, and in those circumstances I look forward to a speedy passage of the Bill.
At the risk of being tediously repetitive, it is essential that we signal, as we pass this legislation, that we are not content with the so-called sunset clause of 2001 for the termination of the single desk. We believe that it must be continued past that year and also past 2004, which was the mystical year that the Hon. Paul Holloway mentioned relating to wheat. I think that the concept of single desk marketing of such a specialised product should be indefinite.
The Hon. P. Holloway interjecting:
The Hon. IAN GILFILLAN: He said `at least'. In that case I stand corrected: he said `at least to the year 2004'. Let us put our sights on there being no indicated termination of it. It is the best way for us to market these particular forms of grain into a world market, and I hope that will happen in the near future in legislation in this place. With those remarks, I indicate support for the second reading of the Bill.