Senator WOODLEY (12:12 PM) —I also wish to speak to the Quarantine Amendment Bill 1998 , and indicate that the Democrats will be supporting the legislation.

At the outset, I should indicate that at this stage I am not sure about the amendments to this bill foreshadowed by Senator Brown. But I presume we will have time to look at those, given that we probably will not get to the committee stage of this bill today. I am not sure yet what our response will be to those amendments to be moved by Senator Brown, but no doubt in the committee stage we will be able to indicate either agreement or otherwise. I will certainly listen carefully during the debate to Senator Brown's reasons for foreshadowing these amendments. I do not know if Senator Brown was present in the Senate committee inquiry hearings; I presume he was not. I certainly was not able to get there, but was able to read the report. I just wonder where the amendments come from—whether they come from out of the ether somewhere or whether in fact they are valid amendments. They are the questions I will want to hear answered by Senator Brown.

I indicate that the Democrats still have concerns about the whole area of quarantine. We believe that this legislation is picking up a number of those concerns and is, therefore, an improvement on the current situation, but I put on the record that we still have concerns. No doubt the experience that we gain from the operation of this bill may suggest further amendments in the future—that remains to be seen—but I think we do need to allow the legislation time to bed down and see how it operates.

The bill seeks to amend the Quarantine Act 1908 and reflects the legislative response of the government to the Nairn report, which was released in October 1996. The government is reacting to the report's view of the importance to the community of the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service's contribution to the protection of the environment, and it is imposing an obligation on quarantine decision makers to consult with the Minister for the Environment and Heritage in certain circumstances, and we certainly support that.

I do not need to go through the whole history of some of the quarantine disasters that we have experienced in this country, but certainly the one which comes to mind for me was that of the papaya fruit fly in my own state, in North Queensland. In the end, the cost of cleaning up that problem was far in excess of that of the quarantine measures that had been in place and had been removed, which allowed the papaya fruit fly to enter North Queensland and, of course, to cause a tremendous cost in terms of the clean-up of that problem.

However, it is good to be able to place on the record that, in fact, that clean-up operation did work and that, to all intents and purposes, it appears we were able to eradicate the papaya fruit fly from North Queensland. So we commend the government and the government instrumentalities on their achievement in that regard. But it underlines again the importance of quarantine, the importance of making sure we have in place proper meas ures to, as far as possible, ensure that there are not breaches of our quarantine protection. I have debated previously—and in fact, I think I remember Senator Calvert also being involved in a debate on this issue some time ago—the whole issue of risk management. I concede that, unless you are going to spend an incredible amount of money, probably risk management is the only way that we can balance out the cost of quarantine measures and proper protection.

But I just place on the record again that if you asked the Australian population what they required from the quarantine service they would probably say that they would hope that `no risk' would at least be the goal of the quarantine service. We know that we have got to balance the `no risk' option against the cost of such an option. In fact, I believe that the Nairn report describes `no risk' as being a myth and impossible to achieve in a major trading country. The reality is that they are probably right. But, as an idealist, as I always am, I would still hope that risk management meant that we went as close to the `no risk' option as possible, at least in terms of the goal of the quarantine service.

One of the problems in this whole area—and this truly underlines the debate about privatisation of quarantine stations—is that we have experienced in Victoria a number of problems with the privatisation of laboratories. The privatisation of some of those laboratories turned into a bit of a farce when the privatised laboratories found that they were unable to operate economically. So I would like to underline what Senator Forshaw said and to repeat the last sentence of the quote he read, which was from AQIS to the Senate inquiry:

AQIS would see any new arrangements being made the subject of stringent compliance agreements.

I have to say that the Democrats remain very cynical about that kind of assurance, because we have seen, time and time again, that before you privatise you can give all sorts of promises about compliance agreements and the rest of it, but after privatisation often those compliance agreements are very hard to maintain in a privatised company. I can give you some examples. I have already mentioned the laboratories in Victoria. There is also a problem with trying to regulate the airport in Brisbane. There is aircraft noise and a whole lot of issues to do with the parallel runway which is proposed for Brisbane. The problem, of course, is that now that the airport is privatised it is very difficult to impose any kinds of restrictions on that airport. It is an example of the problem.

Senator McGauran —You think you've got a problem with the Brisbane airport?

Senator WOODLEY —You are in Victoria, Senator McGauran. Yes, there is a problem with the Brisbane airport. It is not the present Brisbane airport; it is a projected future possibility of a parallel runway and the difficulty of enforcing on a privatised company any kind of regulation about aircraft noise. It is just an example of the problem. I could go on to talk about Telstra or the Commonwealth Bank, but it is the same problem: that it is very easy before privatisation to talk about `stringent compliance agreements' but, in our experience, after privatisation compliance agreements are very hard to impose and to maintain. So I just raise that. In terms of any proposal to privatise our quarantine stations, we know that at this stage that is not going ahead and that there is a discussion paper which AQIS is to issue, or has issued. I believe that, should we come back to further legislation along those lines, it will need to be scrutinised very carefully.

I know that I am jumping around a little bit in this speech but I think it is important to put some of these matters on the record. Let me return to the issue of the papaya fruit fly in North Queensland and the particular problem for organic growers. One of the problems that organic banana growers in North Queensland found was that once, the papaya fruit fly had entered North Queensland, all of the fruit from that area had to be dipped in chemicals. That absolutely destroyed those organic banana farms because they cannot use chemicals—that is the whole nature of organic farming. So the pest infestation was far more devastating for them than it was for other farmers who were not organic growers. This example is certainly one that raises issues about quarantine protection.

This legislation again raises issues which we have debated previously. Certainly, the Democrats will monitor this legislation very carefully. We commend the government for taking up nearly all of the issues raised by the Nairn report. The legislation is a big improvement in many areas. We will be monitoring it to see just how it works because the whole issue of the quarantine service is very important for the Australian public, for every one of the senators in this place and for Australian primary industry. I note that the committee report recommended shared responsibility between industry, government and the general public in maintaining the high standard of the service.

The current situation in our country is that Australia remains relatively free of pests and disease. But as Senator Forshaw pointed out, the recent outbreak of Newcastle disease in the Hunter area is very worrying. Apparently that was an indigenous virus rather than anything that came from imports. This, of course, raises issues for importers from overseas countries who will point the finger and say, `Why are you stopping us from importing? If it is fear of Newcastle disease, you have it here already.' So you can see that debate opening up once more.

In closing, let me commend the government and say `Well done.' I do not want to be churlish and say `It is about time,' but we certainly welcome this legislation and will be supporting it.