Mrs STONE(10.44 p.m.) —In 1991 the Anti-Dumping Authority chose to take the recommendations of the industry and impose anti-dumping measures against canned pears from China. They chose to do that because the market had been flooded by a very cheap product and after their investigations they were quite satisfied that the product's wholesale price was below its value.

Some five years later, on 20 November, that five-year period of anti-dumping measures was up. So the pear industry, represented by the Australian Canned Fruits Industry Council, made a new application that those same anti-dumping measures be reimposed for a further five-year period. The pear industry is under great stress at the moment with the possibility of apple and pear fire blight coming in if a quarantine measure protecting it from that disease is removed. So a new five-year measure to protect this industry from any dumped Chinese pears is of enormous importance to it.

In May this year, the industry Council submitted their proposal to the Anti-Dumping Authority. Under our anti-dumping authority conditions they had to use a surrogate market because China at the time was designated a planned economy. They chose to look at Germany and Canada. In those anti-dumping authority markets, Chinese tinned or canned pears sell for some $9 per case compared with Australia's wholesale price of $27 to $30—a difference of two-thirds in market value. Australian canned pears quite obviously cannot compete.

The Anti-Dumping Authority has chosen not to take the recommendation of the canned fruit council. The authority says that the council has not demonstrated that that product is dumped but says that the product is just very low priced. Therefore, as of 20 November this year canned pears from China may enter Australia at a price that is approximately one-third the wholesale price of the Australian same sized product. That is of enormous concern to the industry.

Also of concern to them is the changed market status of China. We now designate it a free enterprise market. That means that if the canned pear product comes into this country, the apple and pear industry has to go off to China and get the data to prove that the product is in fact being sold below its value. Can you imagine a small industry the size of Australia's pear industry being able to get that data from Chinese manufacturers, who are only too aware of the use to which that data will be put? Quite clearly, it is almost beyond their ability. In fact, they say to me that it is well beyond their means to collect that data. As would be the case in many other small agribusiness sectors, it is unreal to expect that they do that.

I am putting to our ministers that in the future we reverse the onus of proof when an Australian domestic manufacturer believes dumping is occurring, when product is coming to this country below its value. Instead of that small manufacturer going off to Chile or Brazil, if it is orange juice, or China to try to prove the value of those products in those markets, the exporters from those countries should be required to supply their data—the cost of their labour, the cost of transport, the cost of the various ingredients. The Anti-Dumping Authority would then review those costs and make a judgment as to whether or not they believe those costs are accurate.

That is quite consistent with the world trade order, the GATT. It is what happens in other countries. I believe that is the fairest way to make sure that our agribusiness continues to thrive in the future and is not made to compete with product from other countries sold well below its value. It is too much to ask one small industry to take up the fight in the way they are presently required to by the Anti-Dumping Authority.