Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

Having some of the most stringent food standards in the world provides a high level of protection for Australian consumers. Consumers expect that food imported from overseas meets the same standards as food produced in Australia. I disagree with the member for Hunter's comments that the Auditor-General's recent finding on the effectiveness of the imported food inspection scheme was seriously flawed. In fact, the Auditor-General found that the Department of Agriculture administration of these arrangements had been generally effective. Three recommendations have been made, all of which the department has agreed to. The department has commenced work to address the recommendations and this work will further improve the inspection of imported food. Maintaining community confidence in the safety of all food is of great importance to the government. This report will further support the improvement of food safety and compliance with Australian food standards.

To reassure the member for Hunter, actions have been taken in response to recent food safety incidents. The Auditor-General's report highlights the responses linked to hepatitis and imported frozen berries and food poisoning in imported fish. Inspection rates of these products have been increased. Food Standards Australia New Zealand has reviewed the disease status of frozen berries, and a testing protocol has been developed for E. coli in berries as an indicator for process hygiene. The department has also notified importers of frozen berries that they must ensure that their supply chains are underpinned by good agriculture and hardy manufacturing practices to manage food safety risks.

Having appropriate cost-recovery mechanisms in place to support the activities that ensure compliance with the scheme is essential. These standards are a critical part of an imported food system. The government is committed to maintaining and improving these arrangements. The Imported Food Charges (Imposition—General) Bill 2015, the Imported Food Charges (Imposition—Customs) Bill 2015, the Imported Food Charges (Imposition—Excise) Bill 2015 and the Imported Food Charges (Collection) Bill 2015 will enable cost-recovery activities that benefit importers of food. Constitutionality requires us to do all this in separate bills. This includes the recovery costs for administering the imported food regulatory framework, including the development of audit and compliance standards for third-party arrangements.

These bills are not about the country-of-origin food labelling. I know this is an important issue for many Australians. This is why the government is providing consumers with the opportunity to have their say on simpler and more logical ways to label food. I call on those who are currently listening to make sure that they get their responses in, and currently we have around 8,000 responses on our website. The Australian people have asked for a food-labelling system that: is simple; reflects proportionality of how much of the food actually comes from our nation of the substantive ingredients; is diagrammatic and can be understood at a glance; and is compulsory. This is something within the National Party and the Liberal Party that we have been fighting for for a long period of time, and it is great to be part of a government that is actually going to see this introduced.

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