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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 11 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 3496 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

go on for? Just three or four years, according to them. They say, "Let us have dearer milk for three or four years, because we can fix things". Putting a levy on milk as Queensland has done does not address the fundamental problems of the Trade Practices Act. We are in violation of that Act in the existing Milk Authority Act. We have to address that problem, and we have to address it now. That was quite clear in the Sheen report.

I take great exception to Mr Hargreaves' comment that the answers were provided to those who did this inquiry and that they came up with the script to fit the answers. This inquiry was above board. This inquiry was well done. It came up with recommendations that give us a way forward for the milk industry in the ACT to protect the jobs that Labor claim that they are in favour of and to stabilise and keep as low as we can the price which Labor are now obviously in favour of putting up. Mr Speaker, the inconsistencies of the Opposition are quite incredible.

It is very important that this Bill go through today, for a couple of reasons. Labor stopping this Bill will not save Goldenholm Dairy. The Bill provides a framework to allow milk supply contracts with Goldenholm to be extended to 30 June 2000. If we do not put this Bill through, that will not happen.

What are the implications for the processing plant if those opposite knock this Bill off? I cannot tell you, because we have to see what happens in regard to the all-up milk industry as events unfold in the next couple of years. Not passing this Bill will put the local jobs at the processing plant at risk because there is not a clear way forward.

As for the milk distributors, there will be no more production at the local plant and, as Mr Hargreaves has already said, jobs will be lost. The method offered by Labor does not offer any certainty for those jobs; they are all at risk. Those opposite do not understand the difference between the Trade Practices Act and national competition policy.

As for the home vendors, the Government has proposed a clear way forward. We will guarantee their territories. If on about 2 January next year somebody wants to question our trade practices exemption, and this place has not been honest in its intent to show that we are reforming the industry so that we are not in contravention of the Trade Practices Act, the Trade Practices Commission would be justified in not granting the exemption. What would happen then? No-one would have certainty, no-one would have a territory and no-one would have a future. All those jobs that Labor claims they seek to protect would go down the gurgler. They would go down in the quicksand of Labor's inadequacy in addressing this issue.

We have the dilemma that for a long time the Milk Authority has been not only the regulator but also the marketer and the commercial agent for the milk industry. It is ridiculous to say that that can continue in this day and age.

This Assembly has had no trouble in supporting the role of the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Commission in reviewing monopoly prices. Yet members opposite wish to put the price of milk up by imposing a small levy to support people for four or five years while we change things over. They have their heads stuck in the sand. They are saying

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