Mr VAILE(10.54 a.m.) —It is interesting that the debate this morning so far has been relatively focused on the chicken industry but the bill does cover a number of other industries. Obviously previous speakers have taken a keen interest in that particular issue at the moment. It is quite topical as far as the importation of chicken meat is concerned.

I was interested in the remarks from the member for Kalgoorlie (Mr Campbell) with regard to an attitude that prevails within this government and the previous government towards international trade arrangements under GATT. I just highlight to the member for Kalgoorlie that there are a number of us who take the attitude that we are watching and seeing how beneficial it is. Whilst I personally acknowledge the philosophy behind trade liberalisation, the process in achieving the ultimate goal is not always equitable. Certainly at the moment there is anecdotal evidence that it is not equitable either. So on that basis I would probably disagree a little bit with the member for Kalgoorlie on that point.

The other issue that has been commented on fairly generally this morning is with regard to the way we as a nation discharge our international responsibilities and how we treat the import-export arrangements and our bilateral trade arrangements. As far as the importation of the chicken meat is concerned, I am sure that as a nation exporting commodities and a lot of primary produce we are expected to go over much higher hurdles sometimes than what we impose on imports into this country. One of the previous speakers was talking about the export of rice. If we think of the process and the lengthy negotiations that this country has had to go through to be able to export rice to Japan, the restrictions that are put on us and the requirements that we must meet compared to other nations, certainly we see that the process and the progress of the development of world trade liberalisation is not equitable. I think that we should always bear that in mind when making decisions such as this with regard to the non-direct tariff/subsidy type arrangements with commodities.

A number of the previous speakers have focused to a large extent on the chicken industry. I want to focus a little bit on a couple of our other primary industries that have associated and not totally unrelated problems at the moment. I know this bill is about protecting what we have got in this country. I suppose that when people in Australia go to the shop, to the supermarket or to the butcher's shop to buy beef, lamb or chicken, they just take for granted that it is in pristine condition, that we do not have any exotic diseases in Australia and that there is no fear of foot-and-mouth disease or mad cow disease and all the sorts of things that are evident in other countries. Generally, the population takes that too much for granted.

I think that Australia's very good track record in this regard should be highlighted. Perhaps that record causes other nations to which we are trying to export to raise the bar, so to speak, and to try to slow us down. There are so many other nations around the world which do not have such a good track record on animal diseases.

We obviously support the bill before the Main Committee today. The purpose of this bill and the associated amendments to a number of primary industry levy acts is to direct funds to the Australian Animal Health Council Ltd. This will allow the beef, sheep meat, egg, chicken meat and pork industries to meet their funding obligations to the council. The Australian Animal Health Council Ltd has been established as a non-profit company and will be jointly owned and funded by the Commonwealth government, state and territory governments and the peak national representative bodies of Australia's livestock-based industries. Its mission will be to ensure that the Australian animal health service system is capable of maintaining acceptable national animal health standards which meet consumer needs and market requirements at home and overseas. That is described in the second reading speech, which also describes the structure of this body. Under `Remarks' in the bills digest it says:

While the provisions of this bill are of a non controversial technical nature, the use of a non statutory corporation as a disbursement vehicle for public and private funds differs from the more traditional statutory disbursement vehicle in a number of respects, including:

the AAHC is not required to prepare an annual report which must be tabled in parliament;

the AAHC is not subject to the Audit Act of 1901; and

it is unclear whether the AAHC is subject to the Senate Estimates process.

Bear in mind, that this body is being funded by governments, both Commonwealth, and state and territory, and by industry. So there is a very broad range of public funds being applied in this exercise. As a member of the Public Accounts committee—and we are just reviewing the Audit Act and looking at a new Auditor-General's bill—I think that the parliament, generally, and the government should watch that the responsibilities of this organisation are dispersed when it is structured in such a manner. I am not saying that it is not an acceptable manner but, certainly, it is new as far as a statutory authority is concerned.

We have had instances recently where different government departments have been less than prudent in their oversight of the expenditure of public funds. For instance, the future tech project, I understand, had many millions of dollars worth of taxpayers' and levy payers' funds and, to all intents and purposes, these were lost in that failed project. We should flag that. The minister and his department should monitor the process as it takes place once this organisation comes into effect.

Obviously, the whole exercise is about guarding and protecting Australian industries. The annual report from EXANDIS—the Exotic Animal Disease Preparedness Consultative Council—says that there are 54 animal diseases currently not present, but which could enter Australia and threaten our livestock industry. We all know what difficulties our primary industries are facing as far as exports are concerned and we certainly do not want to see the incursion of any of these diseases into Australia. They may jeopardise those very important domestic and export industries.

EXANDIS goes on to say that the best known of the diseases with the most serious potential impact is foot-and-mouth disease. It has been prevalent in a lot of the countries overseas, some of which would like to break into some of the marketplaces that we currently occupy overseas. It is important from that perspective that we support and bolster the activities and the appropriations that are being outlined in this bill.

In its final annual report EXANDIS urged government and industry to maintain, through the AAHC Ltd, a high level of continued activity aimed at protecting Australia against exotic animal diseases and preparing for any outbreaks. EXANDIS considered that the greatest exotic animal disease threats to Australia are foot-and-mouth disease, newcastle disease, bluetongue and classical swine fever. As I say, we have heard a fair bit about newcastle disease here this morning.

The AAHC was born out of concerns that Australia might not be able to meet the demands of trading partners for information on animal health and welfare, unless a number of fundamental changes were made for the delivery of animal health services. The AAHC Ltd, is an unlisted public company, as I said. It was established following agreement in August 1995, by the Agriculture and Resource Management Council of Australia. It is unique in its structure, in that it is a non-statutory corporation administering public and private funds. It differs from the more traditional industry and statutory bodies, such as AMLC and MRC—and I want to make some comments on those couple of bodies shortly.

However, the advantage of this structure is that the AAHC is still accountable to its members, is more flexible in nature and is relatively cost-effective in its administration. As I said before, we should be monitoring its effectiveness and the way it is administered. There are a lot of public funds going to be applied to this body, and so it is important that we do that on the basis of the manner in which other statutory bodies have expended public funds and discharged their responsibilities. They are bodies that have been under the direct scrutiny of the parliament and the Auditor-General.

With regard to an associated issue, with the current review that the minister and the department are undertaking with regard to the Australian Meat and Livestock Corporation, the MRC and the MIC, there has been a lot of public comment, particularly from the relevant industries that are involved. I have attended a number of public meetings, predominantly of beef producers in my electorate who are not satisfied with the way the AMLC and its associated bodies have discharged their responsibilities. The producers are not satisfied as levy payers, and this is associated with the issue that we are debating today, because the funds are coming in part from industry as well as from government.

The producers in my area are not satisfied that the levies that they pay are being spent to the best advantage of the industry, and particularly of the producers. They are not satisfied that they have adequate representation on any of those bodies. They are in a minority, and the processing sector has the majority view from its end of the industry on all of those bodies. As I say, there has been an enormous amount of public comment as to what should be happening with the restructuring of those bodies. At this stage, I have not been convinced that we should not have two separate species bodies controlling sheep meats and beef meats and live cattle and live sheep.

I believe that there has been a conflict of interest within the AMLC, probably on a four-way basis, between the sheep industry, the beef industry, the processors and the producers. They are all mixed into the one melting pot together, all trying to achieve a goal. There is a great question mark now over whether generic marketing is the way to go, when you consider what some of the people that we trade against in the world marketplace are doing with their commodities.

That raises the next question regarding getting some sort of agreement throughout the industry with regard to grading. It has been a bone of contention within the beef industry for a lot of years that there has never been agreement on a grading system. We are now getting to a stage as far as world competitiveness and access to markets are concerned where, unless the national industry—and it will probably take leadership from the government, the department and the minister—agrees to decide on a universally accepted grading system, we are going to be continually put at a disadvantage in the marketplace.

In speaking in support of this bill, I have a couple of points to make in closing. We must continue to support this sort of monitoring. As I say, we probably take too much for granted in this country the fact that we benefit from living in a disease-free island nation. We do not have common borders with other countries where we can see diseases coming across those borders. We must continue to monitor, and it is very important that the government plays its role in industry as well. I highlight the fact again that, with this new structure for a limited company that is using government funds, public moneys and levies that are being applied to its exercise, we should monitor the way that it has gone. Maybe in the future there should be a report brought back with regard to how this particular structure has worked in this industry.

I take the opportunity to urge the minister to bring in the report while there is an end date to the review into the beef industry and to bring down his response to that as soon as possible. The beef industry is in crisis and the beef industry is looking for leadership. As far as I am concerned, I think there is leadership throughout the industry but at different levels. I think the beef industry is looking for some leadership and some direction from government. The time is right to restructure those processes and statutory bodies so they better reflect what the industry wishes, they better reflect the producers in the industry and they better reflect the market in which we have got to operate internationally in the 1990s. With those few comments, I will finish there in support of the bill.