Mr TRUSS (Minister for Customs and Consumer Affairs)(1.37 p.m.) —Listeners to this debate may not be remembering that the current government has been in office for less than a year and a half following 13 long, hard, bitter years of Labor. Who is being accused of delaying this issue? The people who sat there for 13 years and did not get around to fixing it are now setting the bar at ever increasingly high places for this government to jump. Frankly, we do not mind big targets because we address them.

I find with almost some amusement the member for Hotham (Mr Crean) suggesting that the government has not honoured its election commitment. I doubt whether there is any government in history that has made as much progress in developing and implementing its election platform as this one has. With the term only halfway through, most of the platform has been already delivered. What has not been delivered is certainly well on the way to achieving our intended objectives.

As I mentioned, the government's progress on this matter has not been slow from the moment the announcement was made by the government that it would address this issue. It is an issue that arose because of advice that came from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Attorney-General's Department. It was not an attempt to patch up Monsanto. Foreign Affairs and Attorney- General's advised that the legislation that you had put in place could no longer be used in relation to economies like China in the way it had been in the past because they could no longer be considered to be command economies. That is a matter of legal advice; it is not a matter of what people say in one place or other.

It is necessary, therefore, for us to deal with these issues on a case by case basis if we are going to provide an appropriately fair system for looking after the interests of Australian industry. In some cases, there will be a determination that the particular manufacturing process in a country like China—and let us not forget that there may well be economies other than China affected by this legislation—is in a command economy environment. In other cases the evidence from Foreign Affairs and others is that that is no longer the case. So that is the objective of this legislation.

The amendments before the House at the present time enable us to take into account not just the selling price in China but also the cost of inputs where those inputs are significant. I thank the honourable member for Hotham for the faint praise that he gave us in relation to the amendments. I thought he might also be prepared to commend us for the extensive consultation that has been undertaken, our willingness to talk to industry around the country and our preparedness to wait for the Senate committee report and to listen to what they have to say.

We should bear in mind that there was a majority report from that committee which recommended the passage of the anti-dumping bill and two minority reports which were significantly different from each other. So it was appropriate that the government should consider the content of those reports before bringing to this House amendments which we believe adequately resolve the issues.

I think the government's progress on this matter should be commended. I would like to thank the previous ministers who have done all of the elementary and development work on this proposal. It has certainly been my pleasure to bring it before the House today to bring it to fruition. I believe this legislation does provide to industries in Australia an appropriate level of protection where dumping occurs. It also ensures that, where a country like China is making reasonable and commendable steps towards freeing up its economy, we recognise those achievements and give them credit where they have made improvements.

I think we all know that China still has some distance to go. Therefore, it cannot be treated as a completely free and open economy in the current circumstances. That is why this legislation is before the House. I believe it will be welcomed by manufacturers and industry in this country.

Amendments agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.