Senator WOODLEY (10:36 AM) —I am very grateful to Senator Forshaw and Senator Margetts for doing this work. The issues that I think all of us want to get at are a breakdown in the industry and serious division between different parts of the industry. We want to make sure that the memorandums and articles of association will take up the concerns of the different positions that still exist within the industry. I am very grateful for this opportunity.

I have been listening to the debate and I have also been taking some advice from advisers in trying to see the best way to go. There are risks with these amendments; there are risks in not passing these amendments. It is a real balancing act. The risk in passing these amendments is that, rather than there being a coming together, we will continue the division. That is the risk in passing the amendments. There is a risk in not passing the amendments that the same thing will obtain.

I would like to read a letter that has been given to me by Senator Crane which I think is useful. It really does cover an assurance I was going to seek from the parliamentary secretary in any case.

Senator Margetts —Senator Crane has already done it.

Senator WOODLEY —Okay. This is a letter from John Anderson. It is an assurance that he will not sign off on the M and As prior to November 1998 and will take account of the various issues which are being raised. I have also received assurance from the Grains Council that they will take very seriously the Western Australian Farmers Federation proposition, that they will take that into account. Obviously, they cannot prepare a letter at this very moment, but they will put that in writing. That is, for me, sufficient assurance that the concerns that are raised in these amendments will be taken up.

I know I am putting an awful lot of trust in the minister at this point, but we have got a written assurance from him and I am prepared to do that. I think he knows that he and the industry are on notice that we cannot continue the division. I was certainly strongly inclined to see these amendments as solving the problem. I have taken advice. I can see other problems with the amendments, so at this stage I now will not support them. The assurances which are given will have to work, otherwise the problem I and others have raised will continue.