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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 9 Hansard (26 August) . . Page.. 3158 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

associations, the Oil Seed Federation, the Canola Association, the Organic Association, the Seed Industry Association, some technology providers, some state farm associations and other groups, including the CSIRO and the University of Western Australia. Representatives from both the federal and state governments were also observers.

I guess you could say that some of the agricultural associations, the state farm associations, represent farmers. But what we heard in the committee-and if you read the Land, the Weekly Times or any of the local newspapers, what you'll see is the same-was a lot of angst from farmers who actually are organising themselves because they don't believe they're being heard or being represented by their state associations. When you get farmers as individuals coming to the committee to make this point, then I think you do need to take this seriously.

So it's agreed in principle. To this end, the government will write to the grains committee passing on the concerns. I hope they do so and do so in the strongest terms, because by no means is there a clear consensus in the agricultural community over the importance of whether gene-technology modified crops should be allowed or not allowed. The split opinion coming from the operators on the ground is that you've got problems because the framework hasn't been set up properly.

Mr Speaker, recommendation 7 is, again, a golden opportunity for this government that is missed. I would ask the minister: has recommendation 7 been run past the Office of Sustainability? Recommendation 7 states:

That goes right to the heart of sustainability. As the drought deepens, although in some places it seems to be breaking-and we are thankful for that-and we get to the stage where the ground cover is actually denuded entirely, we run the risk of a repeat of what happened in, I think it was, the mid 1980s where huge windstorms lifted most of the topsoil of western New South Wales and promptly deposited it in New Zealand. The country recovered from the drought, but the problem was that they had destroyed the country in the interim.

I don't think you can blame farmers for what's happened. We transported European technology 200 years ago. But a lot is now known and a lot of farmers are doing the right thing in attempting to change their practices, and they'll actually be the successful farmers into the future. They're cultivating less land for higher crop and produce returns and are actually protecting their environment, restoring trees and doing all the good, commonsense things they should.

But here's a recommendation to the government. Here's the golden opportunity in the context of this report to do something constructive. And what does the government say? It's really interesting. I'll read it again. The recommendation says:

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