Wheat growers would lose a $607 million asset if the single desk is stripped from AWB in the wake of the Cole Inquiry.

Queensland Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce has expressed concern at Liberal MP Wilson Tuckey's private members bill saying it punishes growers for the actions of 11 executives who have now left the company.

"We should be looking at rehabilitating the AWB, not the politics of retribution," Senator Joyce said.

"The AWB was privatised with the Australian growers in mind, utilising $607 million of their compulsory Wheat Industry Fund levies.

"The privatisation prospectus stated this company had, as an asset, the rights of the single desk, backed by this grower-funded capital base.

"To take that asset away without compensation to the growers could quite naturally be challenged in court. It would be a complete deceit to all those people who were issued and purchased AWB shares in good faith.

"It would be like saying to Telstra shareholders, in a couple of year’s time, that we are going to take away its’ telecommunications licence."

Senator Joyce said Mr Tuckey was acting in the interests of WA's CBH which was offering a higher price than the AWB's not yet finalised pool price. CBH was looking to cherry pick markets developed, on behalf of all Australian growers, by the AWB.

Senator Joyce said Mr Tuckey was forgetting the single desk gave Australian growers a huge market advantage in the corrupt world grain market.

"It seems like Mr Tuckey has joined the Americans and the EU in wanting to take away our only advantage against their subsidies by giving up the single desk."