Senator BROWN (10:52 AM) —In these circumstances, I oppose it and will support the Democrat amendment. With regard to Senator Boswell's contribution, I totally support the desk pricing scheme for sugar in Australia. It enables growers to get a decent price and not be picked off by the big players—not least the supermarkets in this country and people purchasing from overseas—one grower as against another so that primary producers end up with the lowest possible price.

I am forever amazed at the way in which primary producers spend months growing something and then end up with 10, 15 or 20 per cent of the retail price. The middle people and the city handlers, merchants and sellers who may have the product in their hand for a few hours or a few days, end up with the vast majority of the money that comes out of the sale of that product. There is something very, very wrong. This is not just a national problem; it is a global problem. The people who put the toil into the soil are not recompensed, and they are robbed by the economic rationalist policies of the government, including the National Party.

Senator Margetts has fought those policies from when the World Trade Organisation provisions first came into this parliament. She fought them item by item, but they went through. I might add that the press gallery totally ignored Senator Margetts when she took on that fight in this place. At the height of their economic rationalist subservience to the then Keating government, the National-Liberal parties decided that opposition to this particular component of economic rationalism was not something that the Australian public should be interested in.

The press gallery failed to report on an extremely important change in the way Australia approached the protection of its home grown industries. The outcome was not only massive job losses but falling incomes for regional and rural people in particular. It has undeniably had an impact on regional towns and cities around this country. It was the Greens, long before One Nation was ever heard of, who were fighting this trend against the big parties. It is the Greens who will continue to fight this economic rationalist concoction, which says, `Disempower the people who are the producers and hand the rights across to the stock exchange, empower the stock exchange. Disempower the parliament. Get rid of rules—hand them across to people like Professor Fels who can ensure that nobody gets in the way of anything that is going to make a quick buck.'

Senator Troeth has talked about the impact the laws prohibiting secondary boycotts will have on people, but she has left out some—indigenous people, for example, trying to protect their lands against the Jabiluka uranium mine at the moment, who are effectively engaged in a secondary boycott. They are trying to boycott the establishment of a uranium mine for other purposes—so that they can keep their spiritual and physical attachment to the land. They are the people locked out, remember. It is ERA, the big mining combine, that has its bulldozers in there.

The 500 people protesting up there today are effectively running the risk of being hit with a secondary boycott suit. Senator Troeth, there are other people in the constituency besides those who might be contributing to Liberal Party coffers at the next election who are affected by the laws that you are talking about. Once again, the Greens, as our friends in the Democrats will know, have fought against the tightening of provisions to prevent unions as well as community groups taking part in protests which are for the wider good on social or environmental grounds. We have not had the numbers to do that, but the chickens are coming home to roost.

The Australian electorate is becoming more and more rested—it seems powerless to have a say not only about economic processes but also about life in general. So curiously enough, I support Senator Boswell as far as the desk price system in Queensland is concerned. I just wish that primary producers of everything from asparagus to—

Senator Troeth —Zucchinis.

Senator BROWN —Not zucchinis, but we will include those as well. I wish that primary producers of all the great primary products of this country were organised to defend themselves against being picked off by the big corporations which purchase their products and make the giant share of the profit out of those products, despite having put very little into the production of them.