Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

So we have got a few problems over there, and that is not the first piece of legislation that has stalled over there by reason of the Labor Party.

I just want to quickly go through a couple of the things that were also brought up by the member for Calare. With regard to APVMA, I acknowledge that there is a strong desire in some instances by people wanting the minister to have a greater determination in what is available. This would move away from the belief in the independent scientists having complete oversight. As I have said before, I have to be little bit cautious because, if I had greater oversight, then maybe I would approve the use of DDT. But I do hear what you are saying. We do have the discussions with the independent scientists, especially in more recent times on fenthion, to try to make sure that we can get the greatest amount of information that we can possibly get on how we can work with growers so that we can assist them.

If there was to be a greater say for the minister it would require a legislative change and I think quite some discernment into what latitude you gave the minister, because just as you can assist people you could also end up in a position—hopefully neither myself nor the shadow minister but maybe somebody else who have a completely different view on the world—where they would go beyond where the independent scientist wish to be and would start banning things that would otherwise have no reason to be banned.

I have had discussions lately my office with a major chemical provider and it works both ways. He was saying that we were to quick and that it was not given the proper oversight and therefore the major chemical company felt that they were exposed because Australia in some instances is too quick in its registration of chemicals and they did not believe that their intellectual property was well protected in that space. However, I do note and I have noted from my own ministerial advisory council, precisely the issue is the member for Calare brought up, and that is that people want a greater capacity for APVMA to use existing knowledge as has been determined overseas and also to not completely go back over covered ground in registration of certain chemicals. I am having that discussion with APVMA via my department on precisely that.

With the issue of Johne's disease, there has been a request by Queensland for us to include in our levy structure a levy to assist Queensland in the eradication of bovine Johne's disease. I have a hesitancy to do that because, first of all, the Auditor-General has told me to have hesitancy because I am not allowed to. Apart from that, it opens a bit of a Pandora's box that every state then, when they want a levy, will arrive at the door of the federal government to impose it. Queensland has an alternate capacity to create a levy to control bovine Johne's disease themselves. I do not want to start picking up their washing.

Going back to the issue of concessional loans, as I have said, Western Australia being a classic example, if on the concessional farm finance package, which I commend the shadow minister for now calling the drought package— (Time expired)

See this speech in context