Senator O'BRIEN (10:39 PM) —On 10 June, the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Anderson) and the Minister for Trade (Mr Tim Fischer) released a joint media statement. The statement detailed the Howard government's response to the deepening crisis in the Australian pork industry. The package announced by the ministers had one fundamental weakness: it did not provide any short-term assistance to those producers facing severe hardship as a result of a collapse in prices. You would recall that the Senate last week called on the government to review that decision and reconsider the application for exceptional circumstances assistance from the industry. The minister is yet to respond to the Senate resolution. In the media statement, the ministers said:

The Government has decided to correct a surprising administrative anomaly it identified when looking at the safeguards issue—

the safeguards issue being the safeguard provisions of the World Trade Organisation rules. The statement continued:

The previous Labor Government inexplicably failed to include such a safeguard mechanism in legislation introduced into parliament at the conclusion of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations in 1994.

Madam President, we on this side of the chamber have been waiting for the govern ment to introduce an amendment to the legislation which the government stated was required to activate the World Trade Organisation safeguards provisions. I endeavoured to determine exactly what amendments were in fact required. I have also attempted to establish whether or not such a change could have been achieved by regulation. No-one has been able to tell me exactly what legislative or regulatory changes Mr Tim Fischer was referring to.

Today my office was advised that in fact there were no legislative changes required as was claimed by Mr Tim Fischer and Mr Anderson. So the Howard government could have moved to establish whether or not there is a case for the application of World Trade Organisation safeguard provisions at any time.

There has not been any legislative impediment at all. In fact, if the minister had listened to the views expressed by the Labor Party, the Democrats, the Greens, the Independents and his colleagues in the Senate on 8 April, this whole process would be well advanced. On that day, the Senate passed a resolution calling on the Minister, Mr Anderson, to immediately establish an inquiry into this matter. That resolution was passed by the Senate 83 days ago.

I understand the government has now designated the Productivity Commission as the body to undertake an inquiry into the impact of imports on domestic prices. I further understand the government has given the commission some 140 days to investigate the matter. If Mr Anderson and Mr Fischer had acted promptly and in the interests of the industry the work of the commission would be well advanced and help for nearly 4,000 pork producers and their families would be much closer.

Unfortunately, the claim by the Minister for Trade that there is a legal flaw in the legislation is yet another illustration of how this government has avoided the tough but important decisions in relation to this industry. The government was aware last February, some 16 months ago, of the potential problems for Australian producers flowing from imports. In fact, Mr Anderson asked the industry to advise him on possible options to deal with the potential problems and the industry responded to that request.

The minister has been aware of the problem for some considerable time, from the surge in imports in the second half of last year. It should not have required the Senate to force Mr Anderson to act. I would have thought that, as the minister responsible for this industry and the many thousands of rural families who rely on it for a living, he would have been keen to act to help them in their time of need. And I would have thought the same would be said of the Minister for Trade, Mr Tim Fischer. They are both farmers, after all.

Mr Tim Fischer revealed all on the John Laws Show just before the Queensland election. He was asked whether he had moved to support Australian pork producers because their case had been picked up by the member for Oxley. He said that was not correct, but he did not say that he had acted to support the industry because of the unprecedented collapse in prices being experienced by growers. He said that to be blunt and honest the reason for the move was the upcoming election in that state and the federal election.

These ministers and this government are seeking out every means to delay taking action to support this industry. For ever day that Mr Anderson and Mr Tim Fischer fail to act, farmers are going broke and their families face severe hardship as a result. Now the industry is looking at another 140 days before any relief might be forthcoming on the question of imports, and the government is not prepared to consider any short-term relief to keep normally productive and efficient producers going until other measures such as export assistance have had an opportunity to kick in.

Now the Minister for Trade has delayed until after the next election making any decision about safeguard action to protect Australian producers from imports because that is what the 140 days period for the Productivity Commission to report means. The commission is unlikely to report before the next election.

It is about time that the government put the interests of this important industry first, not last. I believe it is time they looked at some interim measures to assist the industry, such as exceptional circumstances assistance, the sort of assistance that the Senate called on the minister to further investigate in its resolution last week.

I touch briefly on another matter. Regarding a speech that I made last week, Senator Heffernan, responding to my quote of a Mr Bill Hunt from Bordertown, suggested that Mr Hunt was not a farmer. Unfortunately, I did not acknowledge that interjection at the time so it does not appear in Hansard. I think he will acknowledge that he made it. I subsequently rang Mr Hunt and asked him what his occupation was. He is a woolgrower. His family have been farming since 1911 and his grandfather was a National Party member of parliament. Senator Heffernan should think again before he intervenes on the basis of lack of knowledge.