Mr BOWEN (5:41 PM) —My grievance tonight relates to the plight of chicken farmers in Australia, particularly chicken growers in my electorate of Prospect. Chicken growers operate in a unique environment. They grow their chickens on their own land with their own infrastructure—sheds et cetera—but the chickens are provided by a processing company, as is the feed. The processing company delivers day-old chicks to farms and provides the feed. The grower then feeds the chickens, raises them to a mature state and returns them to the processor.

It is widely recognised that the bargaining relationship between chicken growers and chicken processors is very uneven. In New South Wales there are six major chicken processing companies and over 300 chicken growers. The six processing companies, to my understanding, all operate in similar ways. They all have very similar contracts; the terms of pay are all exactly the same; the modus operandi is very similar. So, if a grower is unsatisfied with the conditions they are receiving from a particular chicken processor, they are unable to go to another chicken processor to get a better deal, because all the deals are the same. Chicken growers find themselves in a very unequal bargaining position. This has been recognised by state governments across the nation, and there has been a series legislation to assist chicken growers. Many of these pieces of legislation are being removed or substantially amended under national competition policy, which I will refer to in a moment.

I would like to provide the House with a couple of examples of the unequal bargaining position the chicken growers find themselves in. Perhaps the best example of why chicken growers find themselves in an unequal bargaining position is the price that a chicken grower receives per chicken, which at the moment is 53c. For those outside the industry it will be difficult to make a determination as to whether 53c is a fair or unfair rate. I simply make this observation: the rate has not changed for many years—in many cases, for as much as 10 years. There are few industries where you would find that people who have worked hard and productively have had no increase in their income for the last 10 years and, therefore—very clearly—have had a reduction in their real income. This is what I mean when I refer to the unequal bargaining position that chicken growers find themselves in.

I would like to share with the House two specific examples from my electorate to show the unequal bargaining position chicken growers are in and how hard they are doing it throughout the nation. Recently a chicken farmer in my electorate received a contract from his processing company, and he was told to sign it that day. There was no choice in the contract between an efficiency based system and a standard system. He was told that, if he wanted to renew the contract, he had to sign it that day. He said that he would not sign it that day and that he would take it to his solicitor, which I am sure the honourable member for Denison would agree was a very wise course for him or almost anybody to take.

The chicken farmer was advised to recall that the processing company still had the payment from the previous batch of chickens and that, unless they received the signed contract, he would not receive payment for the last batch of chickens that he had already returned to the company. So a chicken farmer who is doing it tough and who has provided chickens to the processing company has found that his payment has been withheld until he is in a position to sign the contract. He showed quite a considerable degree of courage and refused to sign the contract until his solicitor had had a chance to look over it.

Another chicken farmer in my electorate had his pay docked without negotiation following a mistake he made—and which he freely admitted to—when ordering the chicken feed. The processor was aware of the mistake well in advance of the batch of chickens being ready but waited until it was time to make the payment before informing the chicken farmer that his pay would be docked. This chicken farmer has found himself in an invidious position, but there is no other chicken-processing company to which he can turn.

In the past, these chicken growers received some protection through state based legislation. In New South Wales, legislation to protect chicken growers was first introduced in the 1970s and was updated in 1986 with the Poultry Meat Industry Act. In 2003 the federal Treasurer accepted the findings of the National Competition Council that the New South Wales Poultry Meat Industry Act 1986 did not comply with competition policy and imposed a $12.86 million penalty on the New South Wales government. It was indicated to the New South Wales government that these penalties would continue until the New South Wales government substantially amended the Poultry Meat Industry Act.

I have to put it on record that, generally speaking, I think national competition policy has been a very good thing for this nation. We have seen reductions in energy and water costs. We have seen the introduction of a national access regime, which hopefully will come before the parliament this week after many delays—which is something that I will refer to in the debate on that legislation. We have seen reform of laws which restrict competition. We have seen the development of competitive neutrality so that privately owned businesses can compete on an equal footing with those owned by government.

All these reforms have been designed to benefit the average Australian working family and to reduce their costs of living and, largely, those goals have been achieved. But national competition policy has to be implemented in a sensible way. I referred earlier to the fact that the price that chicken growers receive for each chicken has not increased for the last 10 years. Hence it would be very difficult to mount a case that chicken growers are in a monopoly situation, that they have been price gouging or that they have in any way contributed to an increase in the price that the average Australian family pays for their chickens when they go to the supermarket to buy their dinner. In my view, nobody can mount that case.

That case has not been argued or put by the National Competition Council because they could not sustain it, yet the New South Wales Poultry Meat Industry Act 1986 has been amended by the New South Wales government, with the sword of Damocles hanging over it: ‘If you do not amend this act, then we will withhold from you $13 million a year in grants from the federal government to the state government.’ That is not something that the New South Wales government could sustain, and I do not blame them for then amending the Poultry Meat Industry Act 1986 to comply with the National Competition Council’s and the federal Treasurer’s interpretation of the national competition policy.

I will refer briefly to Labor’s policy, which was announced before the last election. There is no doubt that this is a complex area and that poultry farmers will not have any easy answers under any government, but Labor’s policy, which was announced by the honourable member for Corio on 6 July 2004 in the lead-up to the last election, was a substantial step forward for chicken growers and for other people in very similar situations. With small providers, often the whole family works on that farm and they are in a situation such that they can deal with only one or two companies and they are in a very unequal bargaining position. Labor’s policy was to allow collective bargaining between those groups. Labor promised to bring forward legislation to amend the Trade Practices Act to introduce a collective bargaining notification scheme, including the right to collectively boycott in cases where it was considered to be in the public interest.

We hear a lot from this government about choice—that people should have the choice to bargain how they wish to in relation to workplace relations and other matters—but this government, through its National Competition Council, is taking away the choice of hardworking chicken growers in Horsley Park, Kemps Creek and elsewhere throughout the nation to bargain collectively with the chicken-processing companies. I have no doubt that the chicken growers would welcome a situation where they could get a fair deal from the chicken-processing companies. All they want is a fair deal. They are not asking for any special deals, and I do not think it is unreasonable for them to ask for a bargaining regime through which they can negotiate a small increase in the price they receive for each chicken. I do not think that is an unreasonable request considering they have not had an increase in the last 10 years. I do not think it is unreasonable for their being able to negotiate a contract in good faith.

At the moment they negotiate a contract in a situation where many of the forces impacting on how much they receive are out of their control. They do not choose the chickens that they grow. They do not go down to the auction like many farmers do and buy the beasts, for example, and choose which chickens they grow. The chickens are delivered to them by the chicken-processing company. They have no choice over the quality of chickens that they grow. They do not buy their own feed. They have no choice over the quality of the feed, yet they are penalised if a chicken grows at a slower rate than is the average and they receive a lesser payment from the chicken-processing company. (Time expired)