Australian agricultural exporters are back in the firing line again with the Rudd Government yesterday scrapping a critical 40pc rebate on AQIS export certification costs.
The Acting Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Senator Nigel Scullion, hit out today in this way, now that the federal Government has given in-principle support to all 84 recommendations contained in the Beale Report On Biosecurity: A Working Partnership into the future of our quarantine services released yesterday.
Senator Scullion said country Australians must be wondering when their nightmare under Labor will end.
The new recommendation comes on top of the unveiling of an emissions trading scheme that will damage Australian primary producers.
It comes in a year when the Federal Government has:
• Cut more than $1 billion in rural and regional program spending,
• Targeted drought funding for review and
• Cut back on infrastructure spending.
Senator Scullion said, “Despite the claim that the rebate on export certification quarantine costs was ‘scheduled’ to end in 2009 anyhow, it has existed in some form since 1979, except for a decade after 1991 when the Hawke Government slapped full cost recovery on exporters.
"The Coalition restored the 40pc rebate from 2001.
“No country in the world imposes full cost recovery on export certification.
"But Labor (again) expects our exporters to foot the whole bill.
"This will cost agricultural exporters at least $35 million a year.
“The report also proposes a host of new and baffling bureaucracies.
"The cost of all or part will be passed onto exporters.
"This again makes our farmers increasingly uncompetitive.
“The decision to combine all the agencies with responsibility for quarantine under one banner is of doubtful merit.
"AQIS is essentially an enforcement agency, while Biosecurity Australia is charged with providing independent scientific assessments.
"Besides these dangerous and short-sighted decisions, there does appear to be some useful recommendations in the Beale Report."
The Coalition will be consulting widely with industry before finalising its position on the report.
Senator Scullion said there was certainly room for improvement in the way the Government agencies protect our nation from biosecurity threats.
“Protecting our borders from disease and pest incursions, whether deliberately or accidentally introduced is a major ‘public good’ and taxpayers must be prepared to properly resource agencies in the front line," he said.
“The Coalition is very concerned that having spent the surplus it inherited the Rudd Government has nothing left and will hit industry already struggling with higher costs.
"The release of the report this week – a week before Christmas - is surprising, given that the Minister for Agriculture, Tony Burke, has had it on his desk since September," Senator Scullion said.
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