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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 1 Hansard (16 February) . . Page.. 101 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

In some ways the Bill is really just setting the framework for further deregulation of the ACT milk industry and defers that deregulation for a year. Unfortunately, the Bill does not tell us what is really going to happen to the milk industry in a future deregulated environment in terms of what happens to milk prices and how the market opportunities for milk vendors may alter.

I can understand the logic behind wanting to separate the regulation of milk supply from the commercial activities of the Milk Authority and its promotion of the Canberra Milk brand, given that we now have other brands of milk being sold in the ACT. While I have concerns about interstate milk suppliers undercutting Canberra milk, unfortunately, with the lack of restrictions on interstate trade enshrined in the Constitution and the mutual recognition legislation, I cannot see how this can be legally stopped. I am, however, concerned that the Milk Authority will be reduced to virtually just a shell, with possibly just one person being a member of the authority and its staff being transferred to the Chief Minister's Department or the Urban Services Department.

I am glad, though, that the Government is allowing the existing price control arrangements for milk and the licensing and exclusive zoning arrangements for home vendors to continue - for the moment, anyway. The amendment that will allow milk vendors to sell other brands of milk apart from Canberra Milk appears to be good for the vendors as it will broaden their range and improve their viability, although what impact this will have on sales of Canberra Milk products is uncertain.

The Greens have always supported local businesses in the ACT in their competition against the big businesses from interstate and will continue to do so for the local milk suppliers and vendors. I am pleased that the Government has not supported all the recommendations in the much criticised Sheen report, but it still seems to have adopted the general direction advocated in that report. The future of the local milk industry is anything but certain with the continuing moves towards deregulation contained in this Bill and the lack of strategic direction being given to the industry by government.

The question arises whether this Bill is an improvement on the existing legislation. The extension of the Trade Practices Act exemption for another year is obviously good in that it will maintain some of the status quo for a bit longer. The rest of the Bill, however, contains some good and bad points. I find it difficult to support this Bill when the future of the milk industry is still so uncertain. I have great concerns about the Government's relentless drive towards deregulation, fuelled by national competition policy, without a full assessment of the human and environmental costs of this deregulation. The Sheen report on which this legislation is based has been broadly criticised as being an inadequate assessment of the public benefit of deregulation of the industry, yet I have not seen any evidence of the Government undertaking any further work to address the inadequacies in this report.

Those were the reasons why I voted against this Bill when it was first debated in the Assembly last December. I would have preferred that the Government go away and think through its handling of the local milk industry more thoroughly and come back with a fuller plan for the future direction of the industry, rather than passing this legislation which seems just to continue the uncertainty that people in the industry are facing.

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