Mr NEHL(5.34 p.m.) —At the outset, I would like to advise the parliament that, on Wednesday of this week, 26 March, in committee room 1R1 at 10.45 a.m. and 11.45 a.m., there will be safety demonstrations of a new gun safety product which has been developed in my electorate by James Griffiths and Michael Steel. They have developed the safe-tech firearm locking system, which provides a valuable enhanced system of gun control and safety for weapons through an electronic locking system operated by a PIN. I am delighted that the Attorney-General (Mr Williams) is in the chamber this afternoon because I am sure he will be personally very interested in the system.

If the weapon is stolen, the thief cannot operate it because he has not got the PIN. I will not go through all of the valid points in favour of it, but, in terms of police safety, the firearm, when activated, produces a signal which can be monitored by police radio receivers. Police in the vicinity can deactivate that weapon by a remote switcher in their possession.

I encourage all members, senators and people who work in the parliament to visit committee room 1R1 on Wednesday at either 10.45 a.m. or 11.45 a.m. to witness this very interesting development by small business. It is fitting that today the Prime Minister (Mr Howard) launched the government's response to small business. Here is a prime example of Australian initiative and ingenuity tackling a problem.

I would also like to talk about a drug called Fosamax, which is alendronate sodium. Fosamax 40-milligram tablets were listed as a pharmaceutical benefit on 1 November 1996 for the treatment of symptomatic Paget's disease of the bone. I must say I am delighted to hear that because I am probably going to end up with it because both my mother and her brother had it. The likelihood is that I might get it too.

I am not talking about Paget's disease, because it has already been listed. Fosamax 10-milligram tablets were listed on 1 February this year for the treatment of post-menopausal osteoporosis in patients with fracture due to minimal trauma. That is excellent; that is great. But what we have is a degree of discrimination against men. Most Australians do not realise that males—not a great many but a significant number—can also suffer from osteoporosis. The situation is that they are not allowed to get it under the pharmaceutical benefits scheme. If you are a women, yes, you can get it. If you are a man, you cannot.

I want to take this opportunity to appeal to the Minister for Health and Family Services (Dr Wooldridge) to become interested in the process. Of course, it is up to Merck, Sharp and Dohme, the manufacturers, to provide more information to the Australian Drug Evaluation Committee, which, in turn, provides advice to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee.

I have a male constituent living in Nambucca Heads who has three vertebral compression fractures. Of course, he is not post-menopausal but he needs this drug and he cannot get it. He can get it by paying $100 a month for 30 Fosamax tablets. I would urge the minister, the manufacturer, the Drug Evaluation Committee and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee to do what they can jointly to ensure that this very valuable drug is available to males who also suffer from osteoporosis.

Cyclone Justin has today been upgraded once more, and I just wanted to mention the effect on the banana industry. The Queensland industry will suffer a 60 per cent loss from now until May and a 30 per cent loss in the six months following. It is likely that prices will rise. I would anticipate that we might get pressure from the major retail chains, Woolworths and Coles, to try to allow some imports in. I would say to Woolworths and Coles that it is strange that when banana prices to growers fall, it is very rare that banana prices fall in the supermarkets. I would like to suggest that in these coming few months, when banana prices will rise, the supermarkets might restrain themselves and not raise the prices.

The major concern is that if there is pressure from the retailers to try to import bananas, which would come from Ecuador in South America, this would provide a very substantial risk for the whole of the Australian banana industry. Two absolutely devastating diseases, moko and black sigatoka, are endemic in Ecuador.

We have had several attempts to have bananas imported. There is danger in relaxing our quarantine and importing bananas from Ecuador or any other place where there is disease. We also have black sigatoka coming from New Guinea into the Torres Strait; we have to very careful there as well. And remember the papaya fruit fly and the cost that that has had to the fruit growing industry, to the government and to the people of Australia, the taxpayers. I wanted to make the point that quarantine has to remain vigilant, and that we as a government must ensure that disease is not imported to destroy the banana industry, which is of such significance to New South Wales and Queensland and which is of growing significance to Carnarvon in Western Australia.

Another issue I wish to speak about in this grievance debate is an organisation called DADS: Dads Against Discrimination. It started about 6½ years ago and is a result of the difficulties experienced following family law court settlements. Every member of this place would have many constituents coming to them and complaining bitterly about the impact.

I must say that DADS is not all male. It has about a 10 per cent female membership. In other words, these are non-custodial parents. While it is impossible to generalise—there are two sides to every story; there is no doubt about that—they believe that there is a lack of equity for non-custodial parents both in child support and family law.

They also make the point that the rights of the child are very important. One of those significant rights is to have an ongoing relationship with both parents. This often becomes very difficult because the custodial parent frequently decides to move far away and the non-custodial parent has almost no contact, except at great expense. They also make the point that, when considering child support, all the income of both parents, including family allowances, should be potentially assessable for child support payments. Whether that is a correct argument or not, I believe it is worth consideration.

The final point I want to make is about the service cadet units of this country—the army, the navy and the air training corps. In my electorate there are, in Coffs Harbour, three excellent cadet corps with the army, TS Vendetta and the air force and in South West Rocks there is TS Culgoa.

This is a very simple problem which could be solved very easily; it is an off-shoot of the gun legislation. We have these cadet units which train—and many of them go on into the armed services—and which, in my area, provide catafalque parties for Anzac Day, for Remembrance Day and a whole range of other things. If I have time, I might even mention some more of them.

I can see no reason why the service rifles—even if we went back to 303s—that were totally incapable of being fired could not be provided so that they could continue to do their drill, because it is an integral part of the community. Particularly in my electorate, all these cadet units make a major impact. They have the support of the Sawtell subsection of the Naval Association of Australia. They have the support of the whole community.

All we need is for inoperative rifles—incapable of being fired—to be made available to the cadet units so they can provide this community service and so they can provide catafalque parties for Anzac Day and be a valuable part of our community. I would like to appeal to the parliament, through the Minister for Defence (Mr McLachlan), to see whether we might be able to take some action on this so that the cadet units can still conduct their ceremonial drill, which is of great value to all of the community.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Andrew) —Order! I put the question:

That grievances be noted.

Question resolved in the affirmative.