Bennett DavidHon DAVID BENNETT (Chairperson of the Primary Production Committee): Thank you. It gives me great pleasure to take this speech at this time but at a very difficult time for farmers. This has been the worst attack on our agriculture horticulture and primary sector that farmers have known in any time through this parliamentary history of this place. They are under attack from a Government that doesn't want them in business and has taken it upon themselves to do that.Kieran McAnulty: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. This is not the first time I've had to raise this point of order against this particular member. There is a convention in this House that when the chair of a select committee—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Yeah. I'm sorry. Yes I do appreciate that the chair of the select committee is supposed to make a neutral speech reflecting the discussions of the select committee. I do apologise that I was otherwise distracted—otherwise I would have stopped the member myself.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Thank you Madam Chair. I was being neutral in that case. If I had really said what I thought about the Government of the day they wouldn't be sitting there so nice and quietly. But the reason I did raise that is because there are a number of points—five main points—that have come out of the discussions and they are the most important part of these discussions that I think we should draw to everybody's attention because they are the points where we have seen what has been happening.The first is in regard to Mycoplasma bovis. That is the first attack on farmers. The Government came out and said that they were going to pay for this. There was a great hurrah around Look at us standing up for our farmers standing behind them in a time of need"—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I'm sorry to interrupt the member but can I just ask him to report on the discussions in the select committee without the personal reflections that he's making on the worth or merit or otherwise of those discussions.Hon DAVID BENNETT: So one of the major discussions was the biosecurity levy that was suddenly going to come upon farmers that the Minister and his officials had made clear that they had been working on but hadn't made public under the discussions of that committee. We grafted it out of the Minister that there will be a biosecurity levy that will be coming on farmers and that biosecurity levy will be to refund the Government for the money that they've spent through the Budget in looking at the Mycoplasma bovis issue. So it is a direct relationship and it was part of the major questioning in the committee and it's important that the public out there listening know the facts about those issues that were discussed in the committee and that is the first one that I think should be drawn to attention.The second issue that was of importance on page 255 is around the National Animal Identification and Tracing (NAIT) system. That is an important part of the traceability of farm animals and that's very much related to the first issue of the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. Now the big issue around NAIT is the database of information and that information is now held by the organisations that represent farmers namely Livestock Improvement and suchlike. The Government of the day is proposing that that information is now owned—not accessed but owned—by the Government. So that is a second crucial issue that came up in the Ministry for Primary Industries debate and it is the second way that the Government is looking at having control through ownership—not access—to information that farmers already own and that is sensitive to them in the sense that other competitors now and other Government departments can easily access that information through this Government.The third area that came up was in regard to forestry. That was another huge issue for members of the committee and we looked at the forestry issue in regard to the one billion trees programme. The Minister of Forestry is in the chair and I'm sure he's going to talk about it. It was raised in the committee why there is an exemption for foreigners to come in and buy land just for forestry and what effect that will have on farming communities as that land is taken out of sheep and beef farming or dairy farming and put in forestry. That was a huge issue that was raised by members in the committee because they see a loss of jobs; they see forestry that will not necessarily be cut down and used for wood products but sits there just to get carbon credits. That's the incentive that is in the market and there is an exemption for foreign buyers to come in and access land without any requirements. Kieran McAnulty: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. Hon DAVID BENNETT: And I know that speaker's going to say the same thing but it's just reflecting what the committee held. Kieran McAnulty: The member is reflecting his party's view as that of the committee. I think that is a misrepresentation of the committee's views.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): No no—I'm listening very carefully. He's on the edge—he is on the edge—but I am following the report that is in the journal so I am making sure that he is debating the issues that are in the journal. But I have already warned him and he is close.Hon DAVID BENNETT: Yes and Madam Chair if you look at page 260 it says that the committee says that we are interested—we remain interested—in various aspects of that scheme. So we want to see what is going to happen in forestry in that area.The last part on page 4 of that is the emissions trading scheme.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I'm sorry but the member's time has expired."