Mr FORREST (2:50 PM) —My question is addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade. Would the Deputy Prime Minister inform the House of the important contribution the Australian beef industry makes to our export performance? What measures has the government recently put in place to continue this success?

Mr VAILE (Minister for Trade) —I thank the member for Mallee for his question. In answering the question, I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to a family that has made an enormous contribution to Australian agriculture and more recently to the Australian beef industry. I refer to some former constituents of the member for Mallee, Peter and Angela Menegazzo, who were tragically killed in a plane crash last Friday outside of Condobolin. Peter Menegazzo and his family have made a remarkable contribution to agriculture in Australia, particularly in the produce and beef cattle industries. He was the nation’s biggest potato producer and the third largest beef cattle producer in Australia, operating in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. I am sure that everybody in this place expresses their condolences to the family of Peter and Angela. They will be sadly missed. The hard work and success of the Menegazzo family and other rural businesses, and the gutsy way Peter Menegazzo made investments throughout Australia in the rural industries that he engaged in, have been vital to the improved employment opportunities in rural Australia, and it is an absolute tragedy that their lives were cut short.

But the member for Mallee asked primarily about the Australian beef industry and its contribution to exports. Of course, our beef industry is one of the great success stories of our rural exporting industries, where the beef industry in 2004-05 increased its exports by 24 per cent to a record value of $4.9 billion—almost $5 billion worth of beef products exported out of Australia—with a record one million tonnes exported. Of course, in that year, we set a record in the Japanese market by dominating that market, where almost 90 per cent of all the imported beef in Japan in that year came from Australia. Of course, while we have been in office since 1996, we have continued with our objective of creating and sustaining an economic environment that is conducive to developing and growing these businesses and in particular their competitiveness internationally. We will continue to work with these industries to enhance their opportunities and to ensure that they remain competitive and that they remain productive in the common circumstance.

It is ironic: today is the 20th anniversary of the day when in Darwin in the Northern Territory Justice Morling reconvened the Federal Court in the hearing of the Mudginberri damages case in the beef industry. It was the beginning of a process that ultimately led to the endgame which was to see the full bench of the Federal Court two weeks later find that the Commonwealth has an absolute obligation to supply export inspection services to meat export works which comply with the law. Mr Speaker, you might ask why the Commonwealth would not want to supply export meat inspection services to help exporting industries. That was the case at the time, and that is exactly what the Hawke-Keating government in 1995 had done to prevent a small abattoir from entering into flexible working arrangements and agreeing to end the unit tally system, one of the meat industry’s most appalling work to rule award conditions.

Following the passage of the Work Choices legislation last Friday, that circumstance is a thing of the past. Under Work Choices, employers will immediately gain access to common-law remedies in the courts to deal with unlawful industrial action, and the Australian Industrial Relations Commission will have to determine an application to stop unprotected industrial action within 48 hours. All parties to an industrial dispute are now required to meet acceptable standards of behaviour and must not be able to avoid the rule of law. With this legislation passing at the end of last week, we have ensured Australia will have fair, practical and sensible laws supporting Australian workplaces in the interests of employers and employees. As we have continued to say, this continues our government’s commitment to improve productivity, create more jobs and increase living standards for all Australian families. We have demonstrated that our government is committed to working with the job creators in Australia to create a better economic environment and a better workplace for employees and employers, whilst we continue to see the focus of the Labor Party just to work with the job destroyers in the community.