Mr VAILE (Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) (12:13 PM) —I move:

That the bill be now read a second time.

One of the greatest threats to the survival of many of the world's critically endangered species is the illegal hunting of these animals for use in a range of products, particularly traditional medicines. Australia is one of the 144 countries which have ratified the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, CITES. Under CITES, parties are required to control international trade in species that are threatened with extinction, or that may become threatened with extinction if trade is not controlled. Continued and uncontrolled use of endangered species in products such as traditional medicine threatens many species with extinction, and has been the subject of particular concern among the signatory nations to CITES, including countries that have practised in traditional medicine for thousands of years, such as China and Japan.

CITES parties have acted on this concern in recent years by agreeing unanimously to a number of resolutions which urge parties to strengthen controls on products containing endangered species. The government is committed to fulfilling its obligations under these resolutions.

Two species commonly used in traditional medicines, tiger and rhinoceros, survive in wild populations in numbers of less than 5,000 and 14,000 respectively. In the case of tigers, this represents a decline rate of 95 per cent since the turn of the century. Out of the five species of rhinoceros in the world, four have numbers of less than 3,000 in the wild with the Javan rhinoceros surviving in numbers of less than 100.

The Wildlife Protection (Regulation of Exports and Imports) Act 1982, which is administered by Environment Australia, implements Australia's international obligations under CITES. The act prohibits the import and export without a permit and, in some cases, the possession of products that contain endangered species.

However, in its current form the act does not enable the government successfully to prosecute offenders for the illegal import into Australia of many products that contain material from endangered species. This is because forensic science is not currently able to provide the required level of certainty. Thus, despite the prohibition, imported traditional medicines containing material from endangered species remain available in Australia and there have been no prosecutions, under the act, for their illegal import.

The amendment will rectify this by extending the controls to products that are represented to contain material from endangered species and will enable prosecutions on this basis. Implementation costs for the amendment will be funded from within existing departmental budgets.

I would now like to explain the amendment in more detail. For a prosecution to be successful under the current legislation, it must be proved beyond reasonable doubt that a product does contain material from an endangered species. In some products, particularly traditional medicines, material from endangered species may be mixed with other ingredients and heated to high temperatures. In such cases, current technology is unable to distinguish individual species or to prove conclusively that material from any particular species is contained with the product.

The proposed amendment will allow prosecution to be successful on the basis that a product is represented to contain material from an endangered species. If the packaging, markings or labelling of a product, or any accompanying documentation or other circumstances, represent that product as containing material from endangered species, it will be legally regarded as doing so. In this way the amendment will overcome the forensic problems associated with conclusively proving the presence of a particular species in the product.

The amendment will act as an effective deterrent to the trade in traditional medicines that contain material from endangered species, and will encourage the use of alternative ingredients, many of which are already recognised by traditional medicine practitioners. It is not the intention of the amendment to prohibit the general use of images of wildlife as a marketing tool, for example, where a product obviously does not contain material from endangered species.

In making successful prosecutions possible, this amendment will play a vital part in protecting endangered species from poaching for use in the traditional medicine trade. In conjunction with the implementation of this amendment, the government will continue to work closely with groups of traditional medicine practitioners and consumers to highlight the plight of endangered species and to promote the use of alternative substances in traditional medicines.

The government is providing leadership and support for the community in meeting our national and international obligations to preserve the world's endangered species. This amendment will contribute legislative force to the fight to protect them against extinction. I present a copy of the explanatory memorandum to this bill.