Senator QUIRKE (5:48 PM) —I do not have to declare an interest, other than the fact that I wear woollen clothes from time to time. I think a few comments need to be made in respect of this legislation. Firstly, I think it is a bit rich that members of the government come in here and tell us that they were not spooked by One Nation. I had government members telling me that the Senate would definitely come back this year. I even had government members telling me as late as the last week in August, `No, the election cannot be for a while yet because we have to get the freeze through.'

I think the first point that needs to be made is that it is not necessarily the best public policy to proceed to bring in the freeze when Pauline Hanson is on the rampage out there with a head of steam up and there is panic in the government ranks. As I understand it, this is a controversial issue; it is certainly controversial amongst a lot of the growers. If I am wrong about that, I am sure the parliamentary secretary will tell me so later.

Senator Troeth —I will.

Senator QUIRKE —She is nodding her head, but the evidence that I have heard here today in this debate is that there is considerable discussion about whether or not the freeze is a good idea. I will say a couple of other things. Firstly, we heard from Senator McGauran here today how all of this was our fault. I am used to that around here. It seems that we get blamed for everything from the weather all the way down. I asked Senator McGauran if he was wearing woollen knickers, and I did not get much response to that. But that is not actually as flippant a question as it seems because in fact today a large number of people have chosen from the smorgasbord of fabrics out there to wear things other than wool. Indeed, one of the problems the wool industry has had over a number of years has been that this smorgasbord of alternative fabrics has found its way into all the sorts of traditional areas that wool took for granted even only a few years ago.

I think that the schemes that have been in place to try to somehow or other rebalance the supply and demand equation that Senator Crane talked about have been interesting schemes that—according to his analyses, and I have no reason to dispute them—have generally had about 18 months of life in each one. I remember in particular the desire to try to keep the floor price going. In fact, it failed because it was too high. It failed not because a floor price scheme will never work; it failed because the market was not going to pay that price for the product. Then a new floor price was debated by the agrarian socialists who said, `The problem is that the floor price is too high.' You do not need much of an IQ to realise that. In the meantime, a whole series of bales of wool were being stockpiled around the country, and that is posing a major problem.

What then happened of course was that various schemes were put in place. I do not want to take the time of the Senate today—or, for that matter, that of other senators—to go over Senator Crane's history of how this problem was dealt with. But, at the end of the day—and, again, the parliamentary secretary can allay my fears—I cannot help but think that when you have got over one million bales in an official stockpile that is frozen and I am told by Senator O'Brien, who is more knowledgeable on these things than I am, that there is—

Senator Troeth interjecting—

Senator QUIRKE —He probably is—you can take me on if you want to, Parliamentary Secretary. I am more than able to look after myself on these things. But, at the end of the day, Senator O'Brien tells me there are 1.1 million bales out there in private hands. All in all that adds up to two million bales at least of product that is hanging over the market. Price recovery, I hope, is going to be a feature of the late 1990s. I am hoping that, in the next couple of years, wool growers will be able to get a decent price and a decent return for their product, but I do not know that this legislation is really going to help that because it puts a large question mark over where things are going to go.

There is no doubt that anyone buying serious amounts of wool will have to take on board what is going to happen with the stockpile. It is now frozen. There is no longer the regulated sale of this commodity over a lengthy period of time. It is going to hang there with the question: what will exactly happen with this? That is probably as far as government can go on this issue. The wool industry itself will have to seriously look at marketing and will have to seriously look at alternative uses for its product, as indeed other fabrics and other products that have come in and taken wool's share of the market have done. Over the last 10 and 15 years in particular other fabrics are being more widely worn in all parts of the world and wool's actual market share has shrunk considerably over this time in a whole range of different ways. The wool industry is going to have to look at some of the more interesting alternatives for the sale of its product.

I leave my remarks here tonight with a question mark over what a total freeze will tell the wool buying community out there. What is going to be their reaction to this? I do not know whether or not we will see a hardening of wool prices as a result of this legislation going through. We may. But I would think that, at the end of the day, this one will probably have less than an 18-month expected Senator Crane life. I suspect this one may last for a short while, but ultimately wool is a commodity. It is bought and sold and, if there is massive oversupply or potential oversupply because of a large amount of wool that could go on the market from private growers irrespective of this legislation, then the price, I suspect, will remain soft.

I am not sure which way the Asian crisis is going. I hope the economic reports that are coming in telling us that things have bottomed out there are correct, because this is very important not only for wool but for all of our commodities, for our trade in general. Indeed, we had a positive trade balance with many societies until the Asian crisis came along. Now we no longer have that positive trade balance. There are many societies now—and Malaysia is one—from which we are importing much more than we are exporting to them. One would hope that balance in the trade will come back. That is essential.

I am not so sure that this legislation is going to do much for that. I am not so sure it is really going to steady that price up over the next so many years. I suspect that is probably why a number of growers have taken the same view. It may well be that all the growers are unanimous on this and that the Senate has been told a bunch of—

Senator Forshaw —Porkies.

Senator QUIRKE —Not porkies, Senator Forshaw. It has been told some misconceptions. It may well be the case that there are some confused growers out there giving different signals. But, at the end of the day, it would appear that this is more a measure in panic. This measure may achieve the goal, but I doubt it. My suspicion is that it will soon fail, even if it succeeds in the short run.