MOTIONS

Mr KATTER (Kennedy) (16:23): I move: That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Kennedy moving the following—That the House: (1) notes: (a) Australia has agreed to a number of international commitments relating to modern slavery, forced labour and child labour including the Palermo Protocol, conventions established by the International Labour Organization and the Convention on the Rights of the Child; (b) Australia implements these commitments by focusing on supply-chain transparency that only applies to entities with annual consolidated revenue of at least $100 million (0.11 per cent of Australian companies) and, even then, only requires reporting on risks and mitigation measures; (c) strong evidence is available that fresh fruit and vegetables produced overseas are produced using slave labour wage levels, extending to child labour; (d) Australia currently assesses fresh produce import applications without any consideration of the need for the product or the working conditions under which it reached our shores; (e) by comparison, the United States has a stronger import-control framework with import prohibitions, which more closely aligns with international commitments; and (f) Australia must move from 'report and disclose' toward 'report, investigate and prohibit' to ensure: (i) stronger and more effective implementation of international obligations; (ii) Australia does not become a destination market for at-risk goods; (iii) support for Australian businesses, including the vulnerable agriculture and manufacturing sectors; and (iv) alignment with emerging international trends towards mandatory due diligence and import controls; and (2) calls on the Government to: (a) prohibit imports linked to slave labour wage levels, extending to child labour (modelled on Section 307 of the US Tariff Act, but also including specific provisions in relation to fresh produce); (b) provide the Australian Border Force with authority to investigate, detain, require evidence and seize or exclude goods; (c) establish a rebuttable presumption of prohibition for high-risk goods (that is, agricultural products) that originate from specified regions, sectors or entities associated with forced labour; and (d) extend the existing Modern Slavery Act to apply to all importers and require reports to feed into a list of prohibited high-risk goods.

Moving what we are today, in this place—I'm trying to gather my thoughts here, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to take up the time of the House in referring to my notes. I think we've circulated the actual legislation. The banana industry in Australia is a huge industry.

It employs 6,000 people. It is the biggest generic product sold in Woolworths and Coles. The honourable member who spoke previously represents part of that industry, and I probably represent the rest of that industry—6,000 jobs.

Now, there's an application that has come in and has been accepted for processing. I moved in this place that the processing body of the federal parliament and the department be replaced by the CWA ladies at Kynuna because all they've ever done is say yes. To every single application, they have said yes.

This is a country that had no farming. It was the only country on earth where there was no farming until about 150-odd years ago, and then we started farming. So we don't have the endemic diseases that other countries have.

We don't have them. So we have a very strong case for keeping products out. Even under the restrictive nature of our laws—and I applaud successive governments for that—black sigatoka came into Australia, and 250 hectares were sterilised.

We can't grow anything there. The land can't be walked on. It can't be touched.

How many hectares are going to be sterilised in the future because disease gets in? We said, if you allow the prawns to come in, you'll get white spot. If you allow citrus in, you'll get citrus canker.

I could go on and on. In each case, that's what happened. We told you it would happen.

You completely ignored everybody, you brought the stuff in and you brought the disease in with it. So, if ever there has been hypocrisy in government, it is in the processes by which we assess applications for fruit and vegetable imports into Australia. So we are moving this legislation.

We're not concentrating on the diseases; we are concentrating on the labour conditions under which goods are produced. I'm not into denigrating other countries, but in a lot of countries producing bananas—for example, even in America, people worked for $5 an hour the last time I looked, which was a fair while ago now, when Australian workers were on $18 an hour.

In the United States it was $5 an hour. You say, 'That's Mexican wetback labour coming across.' It doesn't matter where it comes from or how it gets there; the fact is that their farm workers are getting paid $5 an hour, and we're having to compete against them, but we're paying $18 an hour. And those figures are fairly old.

It would be much worse now, I can assure you. What we're asking for here is that you take into account the fact that the product is being produced with slave-labour wage levels. All you're doing is promoting the slave-labour wage levels to stay there for eternity.

The benefit does not flow to the workers—oh no. I'm not going to name the countries. The workers are employees.

The farms are owned by people that live in the capital city in big mansions. So you're not helping the worker; you're helping the big, rich farmers that live in the big mansions in the capital cities of these countries. I'll use the expression 'Central America', for example, where they produce a lot of bananas.

So this legislation goes forward. Our forefathers fought for pay and conditions. When the greatest man in Australian history by a long way, 'Red Ted' Theodore, was elected Premier and then was effectively running the federal government later on—if we'd listened to him, we'd have had no depression in Australia.

By the way, I didn't say he was the greatest man in Australian history. Paul Keating said that. I didn't say he was the greatest man in history.

Malcolm Fraser said that. Well, I disagree with them on about everything, but at least they got that one right. But, when he instituted the Labor Party, one in 30 of us that went down the mines died down the mines.

One in 30 of us that worked in the cane fields died in the cane fields. That was our situation. So he formed a union, as the wonderful song goes, to win fair pay and proper conditions.

We don't have one in 30 dying in the cane fields today. We don't have one in 30 dying down the mines today. But in places like China, yes, they'd probably still be up around one in 30, maybe, in their mines in China.

So we stand firmly behind the principle that employees—the workers, if you like—in Australia are protected against product that'll take their jobs off them, bananas being a classic case in point. People work for slave labour wage levels in those countries that produce bananas. If they come in here, 6,000 people in Australia will lose their jobs, and about 200 or 300, maybe 400, farmers will be bankrupted.

Is that a good outcome for Australia? And in those bananas will come disease. Bananas in particular are very susceptible to numerous diseases because of the nature of the fruit.

So (a) we are going to undermine wages and conditions here in Australia, (b) we are going to perpetuate slave labour wage levels overseas and (c) we are exposing our country to the worst possible types of diseases. I name white spot. We said, 'Don't bring the prawns in.' You brought them in.

We got white spot. We said, 'Don't bring the citrus in, because you get citrus canker.' They brought that in. We got citrus canker. 'Don't bring bananas in.' But, even with that protocol, bananas got in, and black sigatoka came in, as we predicted.

So we know the downside of this, but I think there's an important principle involved. The World Trade Organization has gone into the details of a foreign country—I won't name that country—and the working conditions there, which they consider to be slave labour wage levels. That is a country that applies continuously to bring their product—bananas, in this case—into Australia.

I am not aware of a single application being rejected once it gets into the system. Bananas are in the system, and I'm not going to go over how the bananas were stopped before, but it's an interesting comment upon good Australians standing up and fighting. I come here representing those hardworking people.

If you have a banana bunch, it weighs about 40 kilos. The first time I picked one up, I fell over on the ground. I had no idea they weighed that much.

But, for these people, that is how you work bananas. You hit it with a machete or a cane knife, put them on your shoulder, wobble a bit and then stagger out and put it on the back of a tractor, and it's taken for processing. Why I went into detail is that it's a very intense labour input, and we must protect our workers from slave labour wage levels.

(Time expired) The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Boyce ): Is there somebody to second the motion? Mr Wilkie: I am deeply honoured to second the member for Kennedy's motion and reserve my right to speak.