Senator BOB BROWN (Leader of the Australian Greens) (3:42 PM) —I move:

   That the Senate—

(a)   notes:

(i)   the European Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety vote to ban the use of highly toxic pesticides which endanger human health and to require the use of safer alternatives for other pesticides, and

(ii)   the committee’s recommendations that farmers should be obliged to inform retailers of the pesticides they use; and

(b)   calls on the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Mr Burke) to respond to the Senate on the committee’s recommendations that pesticide makers must prove their products do not have a harmful effect on bees before they can be authorised, in contrast to Australia’s House of Representatives Standing Committee on Primary Industries and Resources report, More than honey: the future of the Australian honey bee and pollination industries, which has only recommended better labelling of pesticides that affect bees.

Question agreed to.