Mr SIDEBOTTOM (7:27 PM) —The Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2002 proposes amendments to the Quarantine Act 1908, the Imported Food Control Act 1992, the Pig Industry Act 2001 and the Wool Services Privatisation Act 2000. The amendments are unrelated, except that the legislation subject to amendment falls within the portfolio responsibility of the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. This omnibus bill was first introduced into the House on 29 May last year, and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry delivered his second reading speech on the same day. The fact that the government has had this bill sitting on the program for over 12 months says a great deal about the way it manages its legislative program. It also says a great deal about the priority this government assigns to agricultural matters. I propose to address the bill's noncontroversial measures before commenting on what we regard as its rotten heart—and that is the outsourcing of Australia's quarantine function.

The proposed amendments to the Imported Food Control Act 1992 give effect to some of the recommendations of the national competition policy review of the act. Changes include the introduction of compliance agreements in the imported food inspection regime and amended rules relating to the labelling of imported food. I know how seriously Australia's food industry takes the protection of public health standards and am confident that the co-regulatory approach will be successful. The industry supports these changes, and it appears that this is a rare instance where the government has listened to industry's views and acted accordingly. Members will be aware that this is most unusual behaviour, certainly in the instance of this minister. The government did not listen to anyone, let alone the food industry, when it implemented its goods and services tax—an important step in its path to becoming the highest taxing government in Australian history. It certainly did not listen to the food industry when it imposed a sugar tax on Australia's food processors.

The very long delay between the completion of the national competition policy review and the implementation of these changes is quite telling. It was a long delay when the bill was introduced, and it is massively longer today. The review was completed in November 1998—more than four years ago. Issues like reform of the imported food inspection and labelling regime have slipped off the government's agenda in preference to the introduction of additional tax imposts on the sector. Labor will support the amendments to the Imported Food Control Act. Nevertheless, we will monitor the operation of these changes to ensure that they have no negative impact on the integrity of our imported food inspection and labelling regime.

The amendments to the Pig Industry Act 2001 and Wool Services Privatisation Act 2000 sensibly bring the legislation underpinning research efforts in the pork and wool industries into line with that of other rural industries. The provisions correct an anomaly that currently prevents Australian Pork Ltd and Australian Wool Innovation Ltd from carrying forward research and development expenditure from one year to the next, thus denying these important industries full matching funding in some years. Labor supports the amendments but again questions why the minister has sat on his hands for so long in relation to this matter.

The amendments to the Quarantine Act 1908 do three things: extend the quarantine act to Christmas Island; change the quarantine fee regime; and permit state quarantine officers and private contract staff to be appointed as `quarantine officers' within the meaning of the act. With respect to the extension of the act to Christmas Island, Labor has received some representations from residents concerned about the potential impact of this bill on their cost of living. Whilst not disposed to oppose the extension of the Quarantine Act to Christmas Island, the opposition seeks some assurance from the government that the residents of Christmas Island will not be adversely affected by the provisions of this bill.

As has been so effectively highlighted by my colleagues the member for Banks and the member for Lingiari, the Howard government generally has scant regard for the interests of the residents of Australia's external territories—except, I might add, to excise them. I trust that the minister can give the opposition and also the residents of Christmas Island an assurance that the extension of the Quarantine Act proposed in the bill will act to the benefit and not the detriment of the affected community. The changes to the fee regime provide for the collection of quarantine fees from agents, and reflect current practice. The minister advises that a legislative change will reduce bad debts, and this has the support of the opposition.

Changes to the categories of persons able to exercise quarantine functions are the key provisions of this amendment bill. It is disappointing that amendments that impact on the integrity of our quarantine system have been bundled together with a raft of other administrative amendments to the Quarantine Act and three unrelated bills. Some naive souls might attribute the inclusion of such important provisions to an oversight or disorganisation on the part of the minister; but it is neither. More reprehensibly, it represents an attempt by the government to bury the privatisation of Australia's quarantine service within an omnibus bill. Let me repeat: this is no more than an attempt to privatise Australia's quarantine service—an attempt to privatise one of the most important front-line defences of our national security. This is headline material buried in what looks like an innocuous omnibus bill related to matters agricultural.

The bill makes two particular changes to the law governing the appointment of quarantine officers. First, it provides for the appointment of state quarantine officers to perform quarantine functions within the meaning of the Quarantine Act. The opposition is satisfied that quarantine officers employed by state governments operate under an appropriate accountability framework and the provisions in the bill related to these officers will, indeed, improve the efficacy of the existing system.

The second change is the extension of quarantine powers to contract pool staff, and it is this matter that this side of the House will fight tooth and nail to avoid. The bill would give the Director of Quarantine the power to appoint a person who is not a Commonwealth, state or territory employee to be a quarantine officer. Specifically, the bill provides for the Director of Quarantine to enter into an arrangement to create a contract pool and then appoint a person from that pool to perform quarantine functions. Buried in the minister's second reading speech to the House on 29 May last year is the supposed rationale for these provisions. The minister said that AQIS needs `increased flexibility to deal with the new and growing demands the government is making on the organisation'—I have to add cynically, not enough flexibility to necessitate bringing on the debate within 18 months, but flexibility nonetheless. Presumably the government would say that these demands are a consequence of the new security environment in which Australia now finds itself and reflect the community's demand for increased border protection.

So what is the government's answer to these new demands? It is the outsourcing of our quarantine function to the lowest bidder—indeed, the outsourcing of border protection to private, contracted labour. When the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee inquired into the provisions of the bill 13 months ago, it found that AQIS has engaged between 150 and 200 contractors to perform routine manual tasks at airports and ports under the direction of quarantine officers. These contractors continue to undertake tasks such as loading and unloading and X-raying goods, cleaning shoes and assisting to remove dirt from shipping containers. These staff would be the potential initial beneficiaries of the new powers. However, these powers do not just relate to the positioning of bags on conveyor belts and the cleaning of shipping containers. With this bill, contractors could be appointed to perform all existing quarantine functions with some limited exceptions. For example, under section 66AB of the Quarantine Act, contract staff would have the power to enter and search premises; under section 66AD of the act, they could seize material without a warrant. These extraordinary powers would be accompanied by a host of others not excluded by the government in the drafting of this amendment bill.

The fact is that the powers are not required to assist the existing staff, those carrying out manual functions, in the performance of their duties. These provisions represent an insidious attempt by the government to outsource by stealth key quarantine functions to the private sector. It is an attempt completely at odds with the government's stated commitment to a world-class quarantine regime. Clearly this government is strong on the rhetoric of protecting our borders but weak on the actual practice. In this case, it is privatising a central plank in our border protection platform; that is, quarantine.

The minister's recent proposal to return the sheep stranded aboard the Cormo Express was the clearest possible example of his lack of understanding that quarantine does matter. The fact that the plan to return the sheep to Australia went to an advanced stage without the release of an import risk analysis points to the recklessness with which the minister treats our quarantine barrier. I know that plenty of members on the opposite side share that view. They do no more than reflect the truth of the matter, and what the industry and the National Farmers Federation believe. Unfortunately, in the wake of the Cormo Express fiasco, the current minister maintains stewardship of our quarantine system.

Our quarantine system is our first and last line of protection against a disaster imposed on our agricultural industries, our environment and the health and safety of the Australian population by the incursion of a foreign disease or contagion. My constituents, residents of Australia's natural state, Tasmania—which is now regarded as `the flavour isle'—particularly residents of the north-west coast and King Island, demand that this parliament take quarantine matters very seriously. The provisions of the bill relating to contract staff are completely out of step with the expectations of the electors in my electorate of Braddon and the wider Australian community. It is noteworthy that the move to provide contractors with powers under the Quarantine Act has attracted staunch opposition from the dedicated men and women currently providing this nation with its quarantine function. These are the professional officers most concerned about ensuring the integrity of our border protection. Hundreds of quarantine officers have signed a petition opposing the outsourcing of their responsibilities to contractors. This petition says in part:

This petition has been signed by over 1,750 quarantine, Customs and immigration officers, none of whom are fooled by the government's claim that all the provisions do is lend AQIS the requisite flexibility it requires. Experience dictates that, in practice, for this government `flexibility' is no more than code for extensive outsourcing and then privatisation.

On this point, I want to turn to evidence given by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to the Senate inquiry into the provisions of the bill last November. The department expanded on the minister's rationale for provisions in the bill, saying that the extension of quarantine powers to a private contract pool is necessary to uphold the legality of the existing contract arrangements. In other words, it was contended that the job being performed by the current contract pool is under some legal doubt. One might think it extraordinary that a Commonwealth department would embark on the engagement of contractors without inquiring as to the legality of those contract arrangements. The department does, after all, engage up to 200 contractors to perform manual work at airports and seaports around the country. It seems, though, that anything is possible under this minister. If the department is to be believed, up to 200 staff have been engaged to perform duties they have no legal standing to perform. The minister has let this situation drag on and on.

Last year, Labor's shadow minister for primary industries, Senator Kerry O'Brien, sought advice from the minister about the basis for his department's contention that current manual functions were being performed illegally. In response, the minister provided advice from AQIS lawyers Minter Ellison. Unfortunately for the minister, that advice does no more than point to the fact that the Quarantine Act does not permit non-quarantine officers to perform statutory quarantine functions. The other argument in favour of the contract provisions is, of course, that AQIS needs more `flexibility' in the management of its quarantine staff function. Again, I cannot but help refer to the 18 months it has taken the government to bring this bill on for debate. If flexibility was needed in May 2002, it clearly was not needed very badly. Rather unfortunately for the minister, his department's own legal advice says that the existing act provides a range of options for flexible employment, including the appointment of temporary and fixed-task quarantine officers. The existing act also provides authorisation, in respect of certain tasks, for those assisting quarantine officers in the performance of their duties. Part-time ongoing, full-time non-ongoing and part-time non-ongoing employment is allowed under the Public Service Act and is a feature of the department's current employment profile.

On the issue of the legal advice that the government has been so ill-advised to rely on for its argument, the House will be interested to know that this advice has not come cheap. In fact, the contract list for the minister's department released around the time that this bill was first introduced discloses the contract value of legal advice at $5.7 million. I know that, when the people of Braddon have the unfortunate need to consult a lawyer, they make sure they listen to the advice they receive. Clearly, the minister lacks the good sense of my electors, a matter of no surprise to his colleagues on the other side of the chamber or to most rural and regional Australians—particularly of late.

Even if one accepted that the government was presenting this argument in good faith, the next hurdle for it to overcome concerns the range of powers it proposes to award contractors under the provisions of the bill. The department told the Senate inquiry that it does not see the role of the contractors extending much beyond putting bags on conveyor belts and scraping mud from shipping containers. But the provisions of the amendment bill give these contractors almost all the statutory quarantine enforcement powers, including the right to enter and search premises, seize material without a warrant and search goods.

An associated concern is that of the complete absence of accountability for this proposed new category of quarantine officers. The bill provides that, before a contractor can be appointed to the contract pool, the appointee must agree to comply with the Australian Public Service code of conduct. The minister, in his second reading speech delivered on 29 May last year, said:

The provisions of the bill and those words from the minister are well and good, but they do not provide one ounce of accountability. The fact is that the APS code of conduct will not apply to contract quarantine officers because they will not be Commonwealth employees. The minister's department has conceded that the Public Service Commissioner and the Merit Protection Commissioner would have no role with respect to the contract quarantine pool. Whistleblower protection has not been contemplated. Indeed, the contention that the only mechanism to deal with individual breaches of the code would be the application of common law has not been seriously challenged.

It is our view that the proposed extension of quarantine powers to private contract staff poses a direct threat to the integrity of Australia's quarantine regime. Subsequent to the Senate inquiry, Senator O'Brien's office spoke to the minister's office about the opposition's concerns about the bill. The opposition understood the minister was taking another look at the bill, but that has not come to pass. All the minister has done is sit on his hands again—in this instance, for 18 months since the bill was introduced, for 13 months since the Senate inquiry into the bill was reported and for 12 months since the bill was last listed for debate in this chamber.

In expectation of the government's inevitable disregard for the legitimate concerns expressed by the opposition in this matter, I advise it is the opposition's intention to move amendments in the other place to remove the offending provisions from this bill. As noted earlier, it is regrettable that the government has chosen to bundle up contract quarantine provisions with other, largely administrative, matters related to quarantine, industry research and development, and the inspection and labelling of imported food. The opposition will simply not permit Australia's quarantine barrier to be threatened by the ideological obsession of the current government with the privatisation of its core functions. To bury such an important amendment, especially given its connection to border protection—in this case, quarantine—in an omnibus bill is simply unforgivable, and the opposition will not stand for it.