Plant Variety Rights Bill

Members, we now come to Part 6. This is the debate on clauses 69 to 100, “Plant variety rights: other matters”. The question is that Part 6 stand part.

Part 6 of the bill gives a wide range of administrative and procedural issues in the plant variety rights (PVR) regime. These include matters such as the registration of assignments, cancellation and nullification of PVRs, and the restoration of lapsed PVR applications, and PVRs cancelled for non-payment of the renewal fee. Comments raised by submitters on Part 6, I’m informed, were largely technical in nature, and a number of changes were made as a result.

I was expecting the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs to carry on and provide a much more comprehensive summary, but anyway.

Obviously, it’s a fairly small part. I think the main question I just want to ask refers to clause 69, and this is particularly subclause (2): “The Commissioner may request an applicant for a PVR in respect of a variety or a PVR holder of the protected variety … to give propagating material of the variety to the Commissioner or to any [other] person nominated by the Commissioner,”. Now, I just want to understand a little bit more about that and certainty around that. I presume—and, hopefully, the Minister can confirm this—this is to be able to do testing—I’m not quite sure the right word; genealogy of the testing, but it’s not the DNA equivalent—to ascertain what is the plant material and to actually understand, I presume, whether, in fact, it relates to other plant variety right applications to verify that that variety is a unique one that’s been developed. I presume that is the case.

But (a) what is the purpose and what circumstances might that take place in; secondly, who might it go to? If we’re talking about going to a research or Crown research institute - type institute to do that type of testing—and I’m not quite sure what it’s called, to be honest—who might those organisations be? If you’re just talking about sending it to some individual—I know there’s confidentiality aspects to this, but is it clear what their purpose is, what the skill sets are, and what happens in terms of the costs of that? Maybe let’s start off with those three aspects.

I think it’s probably helpful for the committee to hear the remainder of clause 69(2), which does contain something of the answer; it begins to spell out. Let me repeat the first part of subclause (2) and then the completed part, which I think does provide something of an answer, for those at home who don’t have the draft bill in front of them. “The Commissioner may request an applicant for a PVR in respect of a variety or a PVR holder of the protected variety, as the case requires to give propagating material of the variety to the Commissioner or … any [other] person nominated by the Commissioner,”—the sentence then continues—“if the Commissioner considers that this is necessary or desirable for the purposes of exercising or performing the Commissioner’s functions, duties, or powers under this Act.” So it has to be for a very clear specified purpose.

Then the next subclause, subclause (3), states clearly that “The Commissioner’s request must be made in writing and specify the prescribed time within which it must be complied”—“within which it must be complied with.”; is that bad grammar, do I detect? It would be terribly embarrassing at this point. I think everybody would be able to interpret it properly. Chris Penk’s going to give advice to the committee shortly on that; it’s good to have someone with the necessary expertise. I think we all understand what that means.

So the very clear purpose here is to make sure that that material is provided so that the commissioner may perform their function properly in respect of the regime.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Hopefully, your trusted adviser is giving you some more information. I understand in the respect of powers, but what does that mean? I’m trying to understand the level below that, Minister. Are you trying to verify that it is a unique species? The role of the commissioner is obviously to grant plant variety rights, in fact, right? So what might be the occasion that the commissioner refers it to someone? Who is the someone, and what’s the cost?

Look, I expect the cost will be spelt out when those regulations are developed. I will consult with my colleagues over here, but this is a cost recovery regime. The first two questions that the member Andrew Bayly asked, he did allude to this himself. I guess I probably should have explicitly addressed it, but, yes, it is so that experts can test whether an entity is similar to another existing entity. It enables the commissioner to get the relevant people with the relevant expertise to do the testing—

💬 Andrew Bayly: Who might that be?

—necessary. I would imagine that might be a lab. The member’s clutching at straws here. I think we can imagine who that might be.

The other point that’s been made to me that the officials have kindly passed on is that the commissioner, in terms of specifying the time frame for doing it and passing it, might not have space to store the material. So there’s time frame specifications around this so that the testing can be done in an appropriate way.

I guess the other wider point to make is that this carried over from the current Act; this is not a new thing we’re introducing here.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 6 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 132 be agreed to.

Mark Cameron’s amendments to Part 6 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 186 are out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

The question is that Part 6 as amended stand part. All those in favour will say Aye; to the contrary, No. The Ayes have it. The question is agreed.

💬 Hon Eugenie Sage: Party vote.

💬 Andrew Bayly: Point of order.

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): Oh, sorry. Did I miss a vote? I did. Sorry. Was that a party vote call?

💬 Hon Eugenie Sage: Party vote, please.