Mr CAMERON THOMPSON (9:35 AM) —It is a pleasure this morning to speak on this legislation at its introduction: the Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Amendment (Rotterdam Convention) Bill 2004 and the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals (Administration) Amendment Bill 2004. When those of us who represent electorates with large rural components turn to the agricultural situation at the moment in those areas, the No. 1 issue on the agenda is the need to provide water and to improve the water supply opportunities for the farmers there. In recent times Australia has suffered from terrible drought and farmers have been faced with extremely difficult situations as they have battled to produce their crops and turn off their livestock. Drought has exposed farming and associated rural industries to real dilemmas over that time, and I think it has exposed the need for us to provide better and more consistent water supplies—and that is No. 1 on the agenda. But close behind that comes the question of quarantine and health, into which is tied this question about agricultural chemicals.

There is I think a great deal of paranoia about agricultural chemicals and their administration. Of course, this bill deals with all kinds of chemicals—industrial chemicals as well as the agricultural variety. But I would like to speak about the agricultural ones, because it is important that we maintain the balance between controlling pests and maximising our production but also guaranteeing the safety or the health of the completed product—something that the member opposite devoted quite a deal of his speech to addressing.

This legislation, which deals with the parameters and protocols for importing and exporting agricultural as well as industrial chemicals, is quite significant in the lexicon of arrangements that we need to have in place to look after the farming sector. One of the comments that the parliamentary secretary made while introducing this legislation was that the rate of trade growth, and the continuing development of greater trade opportunities on a global scale, is quickly outstripping our capacity under the existing arrangements to look after and guarantee the safety of agricultural and industrial chemicals. With trade continually improving all the time, we need, particularly in developing countries, to have a set of protocols in place that ensure a ready access to information about what you need to protect yourself in applying the chemicals and what other safeguards need to be made. People also need to know where and on what grounds chemicals have been banned or restricted.

By having these protocols in place, people can be more confident about trading globally, and that is something that is always in Australia's interest. Of course, we have seen a further acceleration of those trade arrangements with this move towards the free trade agreement. I would like to underline how important that is, because we have heard again and again from the government side about how significant this trade agreement is and what an advantage it is. The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, who is at the table, has also underlined the great value to the agricultural industry in Australia of the free trade agreement which has been negotiated so successfully by the Australian trade minister, I think with the involvement in the end of the Prime Minister as well, to produce an excellent outcome for Australian farmers.

Horticulture is a huge industry in the Lockyer Valley. Dairy farming has been a significant industry right across the Blair area, although that has reduced somewhat as a result of the deregulation issue. We also have a great involvement with beef and peanut production. There is a burgeoning pork industry and wine is certainly improving, with lots of people taking up opportunities in wine production. I think avocados are another crop that is burgeoning at the moment as well. All of those areas and industries are ones that come quite readily to mind when we look at the free trade agreement and the opportunities that it presents.

As I said, we need to have confidence to ensure that these trade opportunities continue to grow and continue to be exploited by our producers. That is a twoway issue, because if the people who are receiving the product are in some way dissatisfied with it or suspicious of it and are unsure about the health or clean aspects of it—whether it is a green product or whether there are other elements to it that make them concerned—then we can run into difficulty with our exports. So managing a regime to look after the chemicals that are applied to those crops is very important. In fact, I think at the moment it is an issue among the people who are buying these products which is probably inflated in its value, but they continue to focus on that as a question, and while that is the case it is certainly going to be in our interests to make sure that our regime for administering those chemicals is absolutely secure.

I would like to give an illustration of some of the areas in which we need to be able to utilise and administer more and more effectively these sorts of chemicals for the good of our production, noting that at the same time we must bear in mind that the challenge that then arises is the need to balance that against the concerns of the consumer. There is a question in my electorate and other parts of south-east Queensland about the growth of African love grass. African love grass sounds like a completely harmless thing. I can see the member opposite finds it quite a humorous sounding thing. It conjures up all kinds of images as to what it might be. But in my area it is quite a concern. This is a grass that was introduced to Australia in the fifties in an effort to stabilise waterways. It is unpalatable to stock and is fairly much out of control in some areas. It has spread along the road reserves in the south-east corner and has been causing a great deal of difficulty.

Look at the sorts of costs that are involved in dealing with this weed: it costs $50 an acre to apply some of the chemicals that are required to keep down African love grass, and one of the chemicals they use, called Taskforce, costs $800 for 20 litres. That is quite an amount of money for a farmer to be bearing and of course councils, since we are talking about the road reserves, are also paying out an awful lot of money to combat African love grass. Because of its spread, it results in diminished production for our farmers, it undermines their productivity and returns, and it weakens the farming sector. So we have to be able to continue the fight against African love grass and other pests, such as giant rats tail grass, which is another one that has caused great difficulty. In our area the campaign against African love grass is being coordinated by people such as Damien O'Sullivan at the Department of Primary Industries in Kingaroy. They are doing a very effective job. I think as awareness of the problems with African love grass has grown we have found a much more determined effort to keep it down. We have had shed meetings where 100 or more farmers have turned up because of concern over African love grass. Their concerns over it have resulted in greater awareness, so we are, I think, slowly turning the corner and winning the fight on that question.

Over all of this we are now going to have this new regime, which is part of a progression towards providing a stronger framework to regulate the use of industrial and agricultural chemicals world wide. This process began with a voluntary type of scheme which was first introduced in 1989. In 1992 Australia began using the voluntary system, which was called the prior informed consent procedure. On a voluntary basis, countries became involved in a system whereby, if you were exporting either industrial or agricultural chemicals to another country, you would inform them if these chemicals had been banned or their use restricted anywhere.

We have now moved on from that. Since September 1998, in Rotterdam, 73 countries have signed a convention which will take the procedure from a voluntary one to an interim one, and what we are looking at here today is ratifying a convention that will impose a series of mandatory requirements on countries that are exporting or importing agricultural and industrial chemicals. The convention is due to come into force in only about a week's time, on 24 February, and already we have something like five industrial chemicals, 21 pesticides and five severely hazardous pesticides listed as part of the convention.

This will primarily assist developing countries, because these countries do not have the scientific, bureaucratic or administrative procedures to monitor the individual chemicals. They will be assisted because under these requirements it will be necessary for the countries that are exporting chemicals to them to advise them if those chemicals within the convention area have been banned or restricted in any way in any two countries. In some cases, that will also apply to the more severe chemicals even if only one country had moved against them. So developing countries will be assisted because it will help them make informed decisions and it will not be necessary for them to do their own scientific work; it will be provided to them as part of the procedure. Our country has been very much at the forefront in this regard, and I think that is acknowledged by members opposite. Certainly, the member for Corio, who spoke before me, made some very positive comments about the efforts that the minister has gone to in this regard, and in other areas, to promote Australian agriculture.

There is something I should clear up. The member for Corio talked about a wide range of chemicals. I should remind members that this arrangement does not include things like narcotics, psychotropic substances, radioactive materials, human or veterinary pharmaceuticals, food additives or small amounts of chemicals that might be used by people for research or some kind of personal use. The range of chemicals covered by this arrangement, while broad, is an identified area: it is basically those types of chemicals that form the backbone of industrial and agricultural processes world wide.

It is important that we do have unified standards, because that is the way in which global trade will be accelerated and that is a great advantage for Australian producers. Australian producers do want to trade on world markets. We have the best products, and in that regard I would like to highlight the pork industry. Australian pork has a reputation for the great health of Australian pigs—we have the advantage of healthy pigs—and the product is recognised world wide. They are exactly the circumstances that the member opposite spoke about: people over time beating a path to our door because we have the better product. We have the healthier product; it is the quality product. While other countries support their pork production through subsidies, particularly to grain, and that provides them with a great advantage in the marketplace, they cannot match the health and good quality of our product. So the pork industry is an area where we certainly have a wonderful future ahead of us.

Similarly, in other areas affected by the free trade agreement with the United States, we have what are also recognised as quality products, and those are the ones that in time will attract more and more demand world wide. So underpinning all this we do need to have a system that guarantees the safety of the chemical applications that are a necessary part of that process, because people will be confident about buying our product, and the outcome will be greater profitability for Australian farms, greater productivity for Australian farms and greater availability of employment in the agricultural industry in Australia—and all members of the parliament, I am sure, would want to see that. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on these bills today. I commend the bills to the House.