COMMITTEES

Senator BROCKMAN (Western Australia—Deputy President and Chair of Committees) (17:54): I too rise to speak on this matter. As those in the chamber know, I've got a long history and background in working in and with the agricultural sector. I think it is important to put some balance into these discussions.

All chemicals are dangerous. Pesticides and herbicides are, by their very nature, dangerous, and we should not in this place seek to add to community fears about the safe use of such chemicals. The fact is that paraquat has just been through an extensive regulatory process with the government regulator of agriculture and chemicals in this country, widely considered to be one of the top three regulators in the world if not the best regulator in the world.

It is very important that people understand that chemicals like paraquat are, in the context of Australian broadacre agriculture, used extraordinarily differently to how they are used other countries. This particular chemical has been banned in other countries. Let me give you one example.

It was banned in China because it was being used as a method of suicide amongst peasant farmers in China. That was one of the principal reasons it was banned. Is anyone at the other end of the chamber really saying that that is what is happening in Australia?

Of course they're not, and I don't accuse them of doing that. But the point is chemicals in Australia are significantly regulated. They're used by a very small, very professional set of farmers, and they are used in conditions—a long way from population centres in the vast majority of cases—where to not use those chemicals could actually have massive negative consequences.

For example, if broadacre farming in Australia lost the use of paraquat and Roundup, it would almost certainly have to return to a significant level of tillage to produce the same crop. Tillage has massive environmental consequences in terms of loss of soil structure, which leads to a loss of carbon in the soil. That means lower productivity.

It means a loss of soil moisture. It means you cannot grow as much from a given acre as would otherwise be possible, which means you have to plant more acres to feed the same number of people, pushing the cost of food up. Australia is a net food exporter.

We feed the world. If we push the efficiency of our farmers down and the cost of food up, that will have direct negative impacts on millions of poor people outside of Australia—not one or two but millions. We have a regulator in this country to decide on the appropriate and safe use of chemicals such as paraquat.

Whilst I would never be one to say that a Senate committee shouldn't be considered, in this particular case I would deeply fear that the Senate committee would be used, as we have seen in other countries, to exacerbate fear, to exacerbate people's concerns and to misrepresent the reality of these chemicals and the way they are used in Australia. No farmer in Australia wants to use one gram more of pesticide or herbicide than they absolutely have to.

In fact, farmers have got much, much more efficient at using computer controlled spraying to ensure that only weeds are sprayed, rather than whole fields—to spot spray. As I said, I would never not want to see the Senate able to scrutinise matters, but I think it is very important that we actually take our roles seriously—that we do not use committees such as this one for fearmongering and that we actually seek to understand the reality of the use of these chemicals in Australia and the reality of the scientific decisions that have already been made.