Legislative Assembly

7558 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY Wednesday 14 May 2008 ______ The Speaker (The Hon. George Richard Torbay) took the chair at 10.00 a.m. The Speaker read the Prayer and acknowledgement of country. AUDITOR-GENERAL'S REPORT The Speaker tabled, pursuant to the Public Finance and Audit Act 1983, the report entitled "Auditor-General's Report—Financial Audits—Volume Two 2008", dated May 2008. Ordered to be printed. BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE Notices of Motions General Business Notices of Motions (General Notices) given. HEMP INDUSTRY BILL 2008 Agreement in Principle Debate resumed from 7 May 2008. Mr ANDREW FRASER (Coffs Harbour—Deputy Leader of The Nationals) [10.10 a.m.]: The Coalition will not oppose the Hemp Industry Bill but has some concerns about the way it will be administered. We want guarantees from the Government that the inspection, regulation and licensing of growers will be through a regimented process. As members are aware, the north coast has had problems for many years with the cultivation of Indian hemp for drug use. Within the electorate are concerns, and I must reflect those concerns, that people will seek licences for an opportunity at some stage of mixing the crop. But I note that since its introduction in Queensland about six years ago, where 60 licences were issued, only two breaches occurred, and both breaches were referred to the police and prosecutions ensued. We must remember that varieties of hemp such as skunk are derivatives of industrial hemp. Industrial hemp has been used for many years in commercial areas across the world, including clothing, fuels, plastic, cements, stationery and rope. From the limited research that I have been able to do in the past few days, industrial hemp has advantages. It requires very little in the way of pesticides, which I suggest is a positive factor across the agricultural community, improving soil and other conditions, and the indication is that it may be more water-efficient than other crops. I was somewhat concerned some time ago when the now Federal Labor Government in Opposition were promoting the utilisation of hemp as a crop in the Riverina area and suggested that crops such as rice would have water allocations taken from them and applied to hemp production. If hemp is going to be utilised as a crop that can be grown in Australia for commercial purposes, we must not divide the farming sector. We must not turn around and say that crops such as rice and cotton, which are great income earners for regional and rural New South Wales, are going to be disadvantaged by the growth of hemp. We do not want to see the Government encouraging people to move away from industries where farmers have made a huge investment, for example, in rice, especially in the Riverina area, and in cotton, in Narrabri and the north-west. We do not want to see farmers being given favourable treatment in relation to water because they will be planting hemp crops. The science is not yet evident on how water-efficient hemp is and one sometimes wonders whether the lobby groups that want the hemp crop are pushing that line without having the science to support it. We caution the Government in relation to that. We do not want to see a licensing regime where water allocations are taken from other producers in New South Wales. The commercialisation of hemp has long been pushed, probably more so by the extreme Green element or those from Nimbin— Mr Steve Whan: A completely different type. 14 May 2008 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 7559 Mr ANDREW FRASER: As the member for Monaro says, a different sort of hemp. The unfortunate reality is that those who have been most vocal in promoting the commercial use of hemp are those who smoke the variety that is illegal in New South Wales. That is a grey area and raises a question mark and suspicion across society generally. It is the thin edge of the wedge. The Coalition is only supporting the industrial use of hemp that has a tetrahydrocannabinol [THC] level of less than 1 per cent. Seed producers in Queensland have a level of .05 per cent THC. We want varieties that do not have flower heads that can be utilised by others or, for that matter, can be hived off. As I said, skunk is a derivative of the original hemp plant and it is one of far greater strength. A number of years ago, at Grafton jail they could not work out why prisoners were so interested in the garden. They had a nice little crop of skunk in the jail garden. Because of its strange look by comparison to ordinary hemp plants, no-one really picked it up until the crop was well and truly underway and the so-called benefits of it were being utilised within the prison system. That was quickly scuttled and a large number of those doing the gardening suddenly lost interest. We want assurances that sufficient levels of Department of Primary Industries staff are available to police it. We want assurances that the scrutiny process, as outlined in the bill, is upheld. Clause 16 of the bill states: (1) A licence may be revoked by the Director-General … I would like the Parliamentary Secretary to indicate that the director general will revoke a licence if the licensee contravenes any provision of the Act or the regulations, whether or not the licensee has been convicted of an offence for the contravention. If licensees contravene the conditions of their licence, the wording should not be "may be revoked", it should be "must be revoked". The bill continues in other sections as follows: (2) The Director-General must revoke a licence … I believe it should be "must" in clause 16 (1). We cannot have people saying, "We accidentally contravened our licence conditions". When the licence is granted, the conditions must be made very clear to the person wanting it. The indication from this Parliament should be that the licence "must be revoked", not "may be revoked" should any conditions within the licence be contravened. This also gives an opportunity for the farming of fibre products in the marketplace, which have long been sought. Only a couple of weeks ago I was speaking to a farmer of long standing in the Dorrigo region who was looking to plant industrial hemp. He has great belief in it in a number of areas. I assured him that the Coalition would look favourably on the legislation when it came through, and coincidentally the legislation has come through not long since I spoke to him. It gives an opportunity to growers who want to expand their operations and make their profitability more versatile across the farming sector. As long as it is well maintained, well managed and well overseen, we should not have too many problems with it. The Coalition does not oppose the legislation on the basis of guarantees that it will have the proper oversight. Mr PAUL PEARCE (Coogee) [10.19 a.m.]: I speak in support of the Hemp Industry Bill 2008. This bill will allow New South Wales farmers an exciting opportunity to develop a different, versatile and very useful commercial crop. The bill provides a licensing scheme to allow the commercial-scale production of industrial hemp in New South Wales for the first time in many years. Historically, hemp was grown in New South Wales from the early 1800s. By 1938 it was wrongly considered a drug crop and was banned in many countries including Australia. A reasonable assumption is that the driving force behind banning industrial hemp was a response to events in the United States of America. For the purposes of this bill, "industrial hemp" is defined as cannabis that has a concentration of tetrahydrocannabinol [THC] of up to 1 per cent. This means that industrial hemp has no psychoactive effect. Industrial hemp not only has significant economic potential but it also has a number of environmental advantages over other fibre crops. Hemp has a long history—it has been grown for more than 12,000 years for its fibre and seed. Until the late nineteenth century, industrial hemp was one of the world's largest agricultural crops and a highly traded commodity. Because of its fibre strength, hemp was the main source of fibre for sailcloth, rope, fabric and paper. In fact, I understand Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper. However, the mechanisation of cotton processing and the decline of sailing ships reduced the demand for hemp fibre. One suggestion as to why the use of the product declined in paper production was the influence and control that the chemical companies, in particular, Du Pont, had over the process of wood-pulp paper manufacture for which their products were essential. It could also be suggested that the growing size of such 7560 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 14 May 2008 corporations meant that they held considerable influence over United States industrial policy at that time. In any event, this decline continued into the 1930s and 1940s with the introduction of synthetic fibres such as nylon, which is a product patented by the chemical companies. In the United States the industry was effectively doomed by the passage in 1937 of the Marijuana Tax Act, which placed an extremely high tax on industrial hemp and, effectively, made it impossible to grow. In addition, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the successor organisation, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, lumped industrial hemp with its psychoactive cousin. I referred earlier to the suspected role of industrial capital in the decline and legislative response to the hemp industry in the United States.

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