2016-08-16
MR BARBER (Northern Metropolitan) — As noted, this bill is a whole grab bag of different amendments to different acts — six of them in total — to make various changes to those laws. Many of these provisions we support. There are a number we have concerns with.
The first is the abolition of the Victorian Agricultural Chemicals Advisory Committee. This is a committee made up of producers of chemicals, users of chemicals, consumers and one environmental representative. From talking to the environmentalists who have represented themselves on this committee, it appears that there is a certain amount of fairly tokenistic consultation going on by the committee, while outside those who profit greatly from this industry of course have their own very effective channels to get the ear of the department and the minister now. Because the advisory committee exists, the pesticides and chemical industry wants to be on it, but that is not to say that abolishing the committee is the best way to ensure that a range of advice gets to the minister.
There have been issues with pesticide residue in Australian products when they have hit overseas markets, in some cases. Here I am noting some recent publicity in Taiwan. Australian-sourced oats exceeded Taiwan's standard for glyphosate and actually caused those products to be withdrawn in that country. Now I think there is a risk of reputational damage there to all of Australia's cereal crops, so I would be interested to know if the minister is aware of this occurrence back in May, whether they were Victorian oats, whether she believes that there is any concern in relation to this recall and any reputational risk to Australia's products and whether indeed more and better advice on the way chemicals are being used in Victoria is needed to ensure overall brand protection.
Moving on to another section of the bill, the clause there in relation to scientific premises and the extension of licences is of concern to us. Standards in this area and public attitudes are rising very fast. While it may suit some people to have a longer licence and therefore have to avoid reapplication, it also means that in regard to these rapidly rising standards there is an in-built and longer lag time until high standards can be driven through the licensing process.
Last but certainly not least are the changes around the duck hunting legislation, the Wildlife Act 1975 — the procedures for closing wetlands when threatened species are found on those wetlands and are at risk from the indiscriminate blasting of duck shooting. The government got itself in a hell of a mess with this in the run-up to last duck season. There is no reason to believe that we will not continue to have the same problem year after year after year — that is, the problem of non-target and threatened birds being killed by hunters. We saw it again this year in the wash-up. We have seen it in almost every year in memory. In the committee stage of the bill we are going to have some further dialogue about exactly how this mechanism works in practice and what it is that is replacing it in this new proposed bill. I gather there may even be other amendments floating around the chamber that look to make further changes to that, but I will not steal anybody's thunder there.
Those are the areas we have some concerns with in this bill but, as I gather, there will even be a government amendment to the bill. We will inevitably go to the committee stage, and we can deal with those issues there.
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