Mr O'KEEFE (4:10 PM) —I signal that the opposition does not intend to oppose these amendments to the Wheat Marketing Legislation Amendment Bill 1998 . The bill has been through an exhaustive process in the other place and has delivered satisfaction to the industry on most of the issues that were under scrutiny. I would like to take the opportunity to just clear up for the record a couple of issues that have arisen along the way in this debate.

First of all, I go to the Western Australian growers, in particular, who at all times believed that their proposed model for the grower owned structure was better for the future of the industry than the one being proposed by the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Anderson). It should not go without note in this House that, when the minister commissioned a private sector recommendation on the structure that should be put in place for the grower corporate model, he got a private sector corporate structure. In a 300-page report which covered a range of private sector style models, one page was given to what is one of the most common corporate structures used in the world in agriculture—that is, the grower owned cooperative model. Yet the Western Australians—and they, as a group, are the largest wheat exporters in Australia—were trying to get the minister and the industry to listen to their view that the modern cooperative, as has been developed in the dairy industry and the pharmaceutical industry in Australia and as has been developed in Europe, was the better one to go for.

The position of the Australian Labor Party was to say that we actually agree with you. I made it clear that I was prepared to give the industry further time to properly study this, which was why I proposed in the House last time that the bill be deferred and that the underwriting arrangements be continued to give the industry further time to consider this and other matters such as the tax matters. We tried in the Senate to do the same thing—to defer passage and guarantee the underwriting on that basis—but, in the end, it was unsuccessful.

So the industry now proceeds with a model that every single person in the industry knows will be back in this House in five years time as the conflict of interests evolves between the owners of capital and the growers in the industry. We all know we are going to be back here in five years time helping to resolve the problem that has been put in place. We also know that the minister had to call in every single political chip he could find around the industry to finally get the support of the Democrats, to get them to the table with their vote for him in the Senate last week.

Let us look at Labor's position and the government's position as a direct comparison. What is the single biggest issue for this industry? It is the right to retain their single desk, their consolidated marketing body. What did they have from the ALP? They had a letter written by me and cosigned by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Beazley) guaranteeing the future of the single desk and saying that, while the majority of growers still wanted the single desk, it would stay that way. What did they have from the minister? They had a letter saying that that was subject to review by the National Competition Council. As a result, the member for Wide Bay (Mr Truss) has had to come into the chamber with amendments to guarantee the single desk, at least for a period of time until the Treasurer (Mr Costello) wants to bring some legislation back again, but it is subject to a review by the National Competition Council.

I want to go to the heart of this point. I actually have a copy of a letter that the minister wrote to the grains section of the Western Australian Farmers Federation on this very topic. (Extension of time granted) On about 16 June, I was invited to address the general meeting of grain growers in Western Australia. The minister sent them a letter prior to my address demanding that, before I addressed the meeting, copies of our speeches in Hansard be made available. He said to them that the ALP spokesman—that is, I—demonstrated:

. . . a total misunderstanding of the wheat industry and corporate matters, and proposing quite ridiculous ideas in relation to the future of our industry.

That is about as smart as the Prime Minister (Mr Howard) describing Pauline Hanson as deranged. What he is actually saying is that all the people who support her views, support some of her views or are even thinking about her views, are also deranged. The minister was saying to those 400 Western Australian wheat growers who happen to have exactly the same view as me, `O'Keefe's views are ridiculous and, therefore, so are yours.'

Further, he went on to say to them that, if they supported O'Keefe's views, if they stuck to their position believing a cooperative model would be better than a Peat Marwick corporate model with a conflict of interest between investors and growers, they would delay the process of the bill, the national competition policy review would run over the top of it and the single desk would be stuffed. So that is what wheat growers have in front of them—a guarantee from the Labor Party that the thing they hold most dear, the single desk, is there, countersigned by Kim Beazley, agreed to in our processes, and there has been no talk about it being subject to a national competition policy review. The letter continues:

The National Competition Policy review will be held starting next year. Under the legislation already agreed to by all governments, it simply cannot be held any later than this.

I just put a simple little point: competition policy is within the palm of the federal government. It runs the National Competition Council. It gives it the briefs. It gives it the references. If it decides it does not have to have a review of the single desk of the wheat industry, it does not have to have a single desk review.

So here are these people telling the wheat industry, `O'Keefe's ideas are ridiculous. Your own ideas are ridiculous. If you keep on supporting this view, we'll have a national competition policy review that knocks you over.' Then the doozey of all doozeys, he says to the meeting in his letter:

I wish to make it abundantly clear that neither the Government nor the GCA—

here is the minister speaking for the Grains Council—

supports the cooperative or composite model and I will not entertain any structural changes to the Grower Corporate Model.

So here was the industry, still in the process of consultation, still working through their position, still having yet to reach a final decision, being told by the minister, `I will not entertain any changes to my model, my Peat Marwick private sector model that provides a direct long-term conflict of interest between the AMPs of the world who will buy the financial shares as farmers sell them and the wheat growers who will run the model.'

It has not been a very flash performance. It is no wonder that, on the front page of today's Weekly Times in Victoria, even the Country Women's Association—the CWA—has announced it now intends to campaign politically on behalf of the bush because, whilst it is not endorsing Pauline Hanson, at least she is representing country people and at least, to use their words:

Pauline has made rural people aware that their National Party is not giving them true representation in the corridors of power.

That is the point we have reached.