Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I think the member for O'Connor is being a little bit modest. I am sure he had a big part to play in this very important report from the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Industry. This food labelling report is important, and I know how important agriculture and food labelling is to the member for Durack and her constituents. I represent the Riverina, one of the great food bowls of this nation—I would argue the greatest food bowl of this nation, but it is certainly one of the most important. There is very little that we do not grow in the Riverina. Pawpaw, pineapples and sugar are excluded, but we grow just about everything else, and much of it is sent overseas. There are a lot of people in my electorate, some very vocal, who are very, very concerned about food labelling—as they should be. Bart Brighenti is one, a citrus grower in the Murrumbidgee irrigation area who emails me on an almost daily basis to decry the food labelling of this nation.

There have been a number of inquiries into Australia's food labelling over the past decade. I am sure that this report is going to go some of the way to clearing up the anomalies, that it is going to go some of the way to helping to improve the situation. We will never get something that is absolutely perfect for everybody; we will never get something that all the citrus growers, all the wineries and all those important food-processing factories are ever going to be entirely comfortable with—obviously, in conjunction with our supermarkets. Whenever we change food-labelling laws it comes at a cost to supermarkets, they claim. Then that cost is put on to the products on the supermarket shelves, and obviously is then borne by shoppers, including families, who go to buy their daily and weekly supplies.

The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Industry has produced a report which sends a clearer message for consumers into country-of-origin labelling for food. I would like to commend the committee, which was very ably led by the member for Grey—a very good member and a very thorough member who is very particular about detail—on this comprehensive inquiry and this very useful report. I note that Michelle Landry, the member for Capricornia, was on the committee. She too is a very good member. I was in Rockhampton the other day. The agriculture that they are producing there also needs good food-labelling laws. I had the good fortune to conduct an infrastructure roundtable meeting in Rockhampton, and the member for Capricornia played a vital part in that. She is to be commended for her ongoing role to better food-labelling laws and for her ongoing commitment to agriculture.

As the committee noted when embarking on this inquiry, the regulation of country-of-origin labelling for foods has been subject to reform in recent years, but confusion remains. Indeed, in his recent green paper on agricultural competitiveness, the Minister for Agriculture noted that the public still finds country-of-origin labelling confusing. When you go into a supermarket and look at the various food labels on all the products, I can appreciate what it is like for mums and dads. They have got their kids with them; they want to buy Australian goods that are grown here, made here, packaged here, canned here; but the trouble is sometimes you are damned if you can actually even find out where the product comes from. You have kids screaming at your hip, you are trying to push a shopping trolley around, you are trying to make sure you get all the things on your list, and of course you need to get home and cook dinner and do all those sorts of things. There are lots of pressures when you go to the supermarket without having the added burden of understanding the food labelling. Sometimes it is in a particular type size and you can hardly read it. It is all very confusing. The objective of any country-of-origin labelling framework must be to give consumers clear and discernible information about where their food is grown without imposing unnecessary red tape on agribusinesses, unnecessary red tape on supermarkets, unnecessary red tape that is going to cost the person at the end of the line—that is, the consumer—even more money.

It is easy in principle, but it can be challenging in practice when a mix of imported and locally-grown produce is involved. To that end, I would commend the work done by Senator John Williams, the Nationals senator for New South Wales, who has been on the case of country-of-origin labelling for as long as I can remember. I am not speaking out of turn here: he has often gone into the party room and made good submissions, and I know he too would have talked to the member for Capricornia about this report. He would have had input into making sure that food is correctly labelled and making sure that those people who are producing the food and canning the food understand that their concerns are being heard in this, this parliament of the nation.

The committee is to be commended for its first recommendation which, I believe, makes some quite sensible delineations between produce that is grown in Australia—being 100 per cent content—to that made in Australia from imported ingredients, which involves less than 50 per cent Australian content. The use of a sliding scale as a system of safe harbours—as set out in recommendation 1—strikes a good balance between clarity for consumers and minimisation of red tape for business. Such a system of safe harbours would, I think, be assisted by the use of visual descriptors, as the committee has recommended in recommendation 4. Of course, symbols can be misused, and a recognition of this no doubt sits behind the committee's recommendation that greater scrutiny of misuse is required.

Increasingly, people want to know where their produce is coming from. More often than not, people want to buy local whenever and wherever they can. There are a very good recommendations—eight in total. Recommendation 3, for example, recommends:

...that the Australian Government increase its scrutiny of products with mostly or all imported ingredients that use misleading Australian symbols, icons and imagery.

That is so important. We should not have foods coming in that are pinching the good old kangaroo, or other similar Australian symbols—the outline of the nation, including Tasmania of course—and trying to pass them off as, or con consumers that they are, Australian made or Australian grown. In recommendation 5, the committee recommends:

…that the Australian Government, in conjunction with industry and consumer advocacy groups, develop and implement an education program designed to raise awareness of country of origin labelling rules, regulations, requirements and impacts, for consumers and industry. The program should be developed and implemented following any changes that have been adopted in response to this report.

That is important. We need to get the message out there. We need to be educating everybody from youngsters up about the importance of home-grown food, the safeguards that are in place, and the fact that it is best in most cases to eat produce that is coming from local areas.

As the member for Solomon takes the chair, she will be interested to know that recommendation 7 of this particular report recommends:

…that the Northern Territory’s country of origin labelling of seafood in the food service sector be referred to the Council of Australian Governments for consideration.

That is important. I know what a great advocate the member for Solomon is for Northern Territorians. I know also how important it is that food labelling is correct, because we have discussed a number of times how important it is to have correct and proper food labelling. I know that as a mother the Deputy Speaker would also know how important it is on most occasions—if not all occasions—to be seen to be and to be doing the 'buy Australia' thing, and to be loyal to our Australian producers and our Australian farmers, who are the very best at what they do. We grow the freshest and best food available. We all know that. But it is also important that we get the labelling right. I cannot stress that enough.

I again commend the committee and all of those on it, including Labor members opposite and the Independent member for Indi, for the work that they have done in endeavouring to get better food labelling laws in this country. It is so important. It is important for farmers, it is important for agribusinesses and it is also very important for the supermarket end of the chain.

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