Michael Ferguson (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to begin by congratulating my parliamentary colleague from Tasmania Mr Adams, the member for Lyons, on at least part of his private member’s motion—that is, his offer to congratulate that fine group of Tasmanians on their bid to bring the plight of all Australian farmers to the attention of the community.

I too was proud to stand on the lawns of Parliament House with those men and women from rural Tasmania and from all over rural Australia who brought their message to Canberra with their Fair Dinkum Food campaign. Indeed I stood there with Liberal and Labor colleagues, which was refreshing. May I take this opportunity to also congratulate my colleague the member for Braddon, who has demonstrated outstanding leadership in this regard.

The convergence on Canberra was the final part of a long journey by the campaigners, who had travelled through rural and city Australia, calling for better food labelling laws for fruit and vegetables. Leading 130 tractors and thousands of campaigners was Tasmanian farmer Richard Bovill, who deserves special mention for his drive and initiative.

The Fair Dinkum Food campaign was so successful and attracted so much community attention because people in Australia do care about where their food comes from, and they deserve to be given an informed choice. Last year I raised the issue of food labelling relating to country of origin with the parliamentary secretary for health, and may I say that this was prior to it becoming a media issue at all. I wanted the government to give more practical action to this issue.

Food labelling is a pressing issue in Tasmania, particularly in important primary production areas such as the north-east, which is in my fine electorate of Bass, and the north-west. It is about consumer choice: people do want to know if their potatoes are coming from Scottsdale or Slovakia. To me this seems to be increasingly important given the potential for an influx of primary produce from developing nations as a consequence of free trade agreements. I do not propose that in principle we ought to argue with that. As a nation whose economy relies in large part on the export of minerals and primary produce, we do not prevent other countries from selling their goods abroad. However, our consumers, our community, deserve to be able to make their choice at the supermarket in the full knowledge that food is safe and in the full knowledge of the country it was grown and processed in. I am very supportive of moves to improve the level of information made available to consumers so that the name of the country of origin is obvious.

But where I must now disagree with the motion from the member for Lyons is on his attempt to condemn the federal government for not doing enough on the food labelling issue. The previous speaker, the member for Batman, did make a very salient point: this ought to be a bipartisan issue. I put to the House that the member for Lyons, in his attempt to condemn the government, is just playing politics. He says that consumers are not able to make their own decisions on the purchase of fresh food, and he is calling for legislation. On these points I today stand quite happily to defend the Australian government and the minister responsible in this regard. The Australian government is continuing to consult and has made substantial developments in the food labelling area, which have also involved the cooperation, to different degrees, of the states and New Zealand. The Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code contains a standard requiring all packaged food and unpackaged fruit, vegetables, seafood and pork to display specific origin information, not just that the product is imported.

This came about when state and Commonwealth ministers agreed to the country of origin labelling standard at a meeting in October last year. This was gazetted into law around the country last December and will become legally enforceable in June this year. In further recognition that additional support is needed the Australian government has committed $3 million to help industry tackle the serious challenges that the horticultural industry faces.

I would say that we have made significant progress. Fair enough, perhaps more is needed. But I would say that I am personally very proud of the progress we have made. The motion of the member for Lyons is based on a sensible premise, but his criticisms are very much misdirected, ill-informed and running well late of his opportunity to have been a constructive player in addressing this issue of importance to rural communities like mine and that of my colleague the member for Braddon.

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