Senator WEST(3.20 p.m.) —This is a very important issue, and I do not think that Senator Woodley was pre-empting anything that the committee might or might not put down. He asked a very important question about EISs that had been promised by the now Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Anderson)—

Senator Bob Collins —In writing.

Senator WEST —In writing. Those EISs are now apparently not being delivered. That is an important issue for the industry to get on top of to understand precisely what the minister plans to do. It is well and good if the minister has changed his mind, but the industry must know because the industry is very concerned about this issue.

From the evidence that we received in Maitland last Friday, they have every reason to be concerned about this issue. They have to have a strategy to make sure that they utilise every means possible to bring their concerns to the attention of all of the appropriate authorities, inquiries and whatever else may be happening. If they have been led to believe by the minister when he was the shadow minister that an EIS would be conducted and they do not know that he has changed his mind about this, it is very important that this issue be canvassed very widely so the industry does know about it.

We keep hearing that whether cooked chicken meat comes into this country is AQIS's decision, and then in the same breath Senator Bob Collins, the previous minister, is being blamed for permitting the AQIS initial report to approve of this process. That minister obviously did not let that happen. We do not have cooked chicken meat from overseas in this country.

What the then minister did was set up the Nairn committee of inquiry. The now minister, when he was the shadow minister, wrote to the whole industry and said no decisions will be made until the Nairn committee of inquiry has reported. That report is expected in I think September-October this year, but what happened in May this year? We heard here that cooked chicken meat will be allowed to be imported. Somewhere along the line there have been so many double somersaults that I think the minister would go well in the diving team at the next Olympic Games. He has done so many triple pikes and 360-degree turns that he makes some of the—

Senator Carr —And a bellyflop, though.

Senator WEST —Yes, it was the landing in the water that messed it all up. But this is not a joking issue, Senator Carr; it is a very serious issue. One of the important things that now has come to light is a letter from Professor Alexander, whom AQIS appears to be basing its decisions upon in relation to this research.

Mr Baldwin, the member for Paterson, actually had correspondence with the professor—and I will give him credit for that—and received a letter that expresses a great deal of concern. It raises grave concerns about the extrapolations that AQIS has made with the results from the testing that Alexander did in relation to several of the diseases that affect chickens. There have been extrapolations across diseases and about the trials being conducted with actual egg yolk medium.

I am used to the health side of these issues and, if the Therapeutic Goods Authority or any of the other health people were going to bring drugs into this country, you can rest assured that they would certainly want more evidence placed before them than just the results of work that has been done with egg yolk medium. They would also want further trials done on the actual diseases and the different types of virus that are associated with Newcastle disease. They would want a lot of research done at all stages before this is allowed in, but it appears from the AQIS evidence that they are prepared to just bring it in on research that was done on egg yolk medium only. This is a very important issue.

Senator Crane keeps saying that the decision has not been made and that the minister will be making decisions, and I almost got the impression that he was suggesting that per haps the minister might like to appear before our committee so that we can actually ask him why he has made certain decisions and why decisions were changed. As I say, this is a very important industry. In the Hunter Valley of New South Wales this is the largest employer of labour. (Time expired)

Question resolved in the affirmative.