Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to support the Grape and Wine Legislation Amendment (Australian Grape and Wine Authority) Bill 2013, the Primary Industries (Customs) Charges Amendment (Australian Grape and Wine Authority) Bill 2013, and the Primary Industries (Excise) Levies Amendment (Australian Grape and Wine Authority) Bill 2013. You will note that there is no contention when we come to debate this cognate set of bills. All of us both in the opposition and the government are in agreement that the creation of a single authority is a great idea. It was carefully consulted on by the previous government. There were more than 16 public meetings, 23 letters of support and no formal letters of objection, I understand, during the consultation period. In fact, the idea of this single authority, through these bills, was working its way through the previous government without contention when time ran out.

So we stand today to put these bills through parliament. We are going to merge two existing statutory corporations: the Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation and the Wine Australia Corporation. Out of that will come the Australian Grape and Wine Authority. The GWRDC, which was part of the previous landscape, focused very much on market development, compliance with the industry's regulations, trade knowledge, and development; it also looked at geographic indications, integrity and labelling. It will go on to do that important work, I am sure, but as well it will deal with the issues of levies, and it will reduce red tape, by having a single authority instead of two. It will also make sure that, if you want to take up any particular part of this industry, in terms of being licensed or understanding regulations, there will be fewer bureaucrats to deal with in the system. Certainly anything we can do to cut red tape in industry in Australia is to be welcomed; we are overburdened with red tape and compliance regulation in this country.

There should be no extra costs other than that already agreed to by the Grape and Wine Authority research and development funding. I am aware that the winemakers in Australia, their federation and the Wine Grape Growers Australia group welcome this merger. So this is all good news.

There are two schedules as part of this cognate bill. The first deals with amendments to the Wine Australia Corporation Act 1980 which will start on the day of the royal assent, and schedule 1 and 2 amendments to the Freedom of Information Act 1982. That is, in particular, to make sure that there is appropriate provision for the new governance arrangements. Schedule 2 of the principal bill contains the provisions governing the merger of the two corporations, and actually establishes the authority, including issues like the transferring of staff.

All around, the merger seems a far better idea than having two agencies. They are to be merged into one, and we would expect out of that merger greater efficiency and effectiveness and a single voice driving our great grape and wine industry forward. The industry is not small; it earns $3.4 billion annually. But as an agriculture based industry it faces the usual, very high risks of frosts, hail, drought, flood, smoke damage from fire, fire itself or disease. None of us in grape-growing areas will forget that we had a brilliant winegrowing industry in the 1800s in Australia and into the early 1900s, when phylloxera arrived. In my part of the world—in the Strathbogies and the Dookie area—very old vineyards, which ceased to be during the onslaught of that terrible disease, are now being re-established with disease-free stock, and once again their wines are delighting Australia with the very special flavours they have as a result of their great soils, great climate and very clever winemaking skills.

We do have a number of issues, though, with our wine industry. One of them has been touched on by two previous speakers. Globally we are about the fourth biggest exporter, and in the emerging market of China we are about the fourth biggest supplier of wines. There, our export industry has grown from $57 million in 2007 to $250 million in 2013. However, our near neighbour New Zealand is doing much better in the Chinese market—as it is in other markets, where you would expect the connoisseurs of wines to understand that Australia can more than compete with wines from across the ditch. The problem is that we do not have the free trade agreements in place that New Zealand or some of our other closest competitors do. So, in China, our wine is trying to compete with one hand tied behind its back.

When I was recently in China, people asked me about our wines. They said, 'Surely you must produce great wines.' I said, 'Of course we do.' They said, 'How come they are so much less accessible to us than those from New Zealand—and, of course, the price is very different?' That has everything to do with a free trade agreement, which is not yet in place between Australia and China. We know that the previous government had it in mind, but it will be our government which will have to deliver it—and urgently. I say: all strength to the arm of our DFAT officials who are pursuing the free trade agreements not only with China but also with Japan and South Korea. Without free trade agreements, our wine is made less competitive—not only because of the lack of agreements to bring down the tariffs but also because of the very highly valued dollar—with the dirt-cheap imported wines which look good in the bottle and which come in to flood the supermarkets, particularly the ALDI, Coles and Woolworths liquor outlets. It is very difficult for our own, home-grown wines to compete without a level playing field.

So I stress that we in Australia need to understand that it is not enough to simply produce the cleanest, most flavoursome and most superb wines of any in the world; we have to make it possible for our winemakers to compete on a more level playing field than that on which they currently do. It is not their fault that we do not have free trade agreements in place; it is the fault of laziness in the past. We have to get over that laziness and get ourselves into the 21st century so that the tariffs and duties we encounter look more like those of our neighbours.

We also have very difficult circumstances in the concentration of retail ownership. The big Woolworths-Coles duopoly owns a substantial proportion of the retail liquor outlets in Australia. They make it difficult for our winegrowers to put new products on the shelves, they make it difficult for smaller, boutique vineyards to break into the marketplace and they certainly expect to pay cutthroat prices for wine suppliers. It is the same for all agribusiness, of course—whether they are supplying vegetables, milk or fruit to the big duopoly. I am very pleased to say that the government is making a very serious effort to bring about less unconscionable practice in the concentrated buyer power we find in Australia's food and beverage retail markets. It is not fair, however, to expect our wine producers to do a brilliant job and produce some of the world's greatest wines but then find that it is almost impossible to sell them beyond the internet or their winery gate because in our marketplace buyer power is concentrated.

Finally, I want to say in relation to labelling that it is amusing to see how carefully France guards its names and labels, like 'champagne', and how you have the sherries, the moselles and so forth clutched very closely to the bosom of other nations, who say that they describe geographies rather than types of wine. That is okay; we can do just as well in Australia with our types and our geographic locations. So let me stress that in my part of the world we have brilliant wines from the Strathbogies, from the Dookie region and from the Goulburn and Murray valleys. We have wines near the Pyrenees, where our Mallee country comes close to where the wines are grown. So I think it is important that in Australia we do not feel that somehow we have a problem with not being able to call our magnificent sparkling wines 'champagne' anymore. Let us make sure they become internationally known for their own geographic derivation and have their own names proudly displayed on the bottle.

Having said that, I note that a lot of our wines are exported with labels which warn of less-than-responsible drinking. As we know, wine is a magnificent product, but like all good things it can be abused. We quite happily put those labels on the exported bottles as they go to California or parts of Canada. Already in Australia there has been much discussion, and notice has been given to the beer, wine and spirits industry that, in the first instance, we expect warning labels to be voluntarily placed on our alcohol containers but with a view to mandating labels in the future if the voluntary codes do not work. Perhaps with this single entity coming through in the future it will be easier for the grape and wine industry to be able to engage in the debate about what are the most appropriate labels to put on our wine bottles. Perhaps we should adopt the international labels and make sure that they are at the right place and are the right size so that they are meaningful and not just a joke when it comes to warning the drinker of abusing or overconsuming alcohol at the wrong time or in the wrong place. I also stress that it will be important that we have on those labels the warning, 'Do not drink alcohol when you're pregnant,' which is an important part of wine labelling in France, Canada and most parts of the United States.

So I very happily commend these various pieces of legislation in this cognate debate to the House. I think it is one of those cases where common sense is prevailing for an industry which has so many very small players—over 2,500 wine producers across Australia. There are over 6,000 wine grape growers. Many of them are now finding it extremely difficult to make ends meet as they compete with the high cost of labour; the high cost of any of their chemical inputs; the high cost of irrigation water; the very high dollar, which brings their competitors into the country at dirt-cheap prices; the concentrated ownership of a lot of the liquor outlets in Australia; and, of course, our lack of free trade agreements with some of the most important emerging markets globally. Put all of that together and our wine industry needs all the help it can get. I wish this single entity, the Australian Grape and Wine Authority, the greatest of fortune, and I am sure our government will make sure a lot of those barriers to future success and prosperity in the industry are removed.

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