Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, Evans & Tate; it's a good brew—wine.

The tourism hotspots of the Swan Valley and Margaret River are beacons in the domestic wine industry and popular places for visitors from everywhere. Margaret River is a treasured destination of mine with an amazing expanse of natural wonders, caves, forests and amazing beaches—with some pretty dangerous surf that will certainly wake you up in the morning if you had an overindulgent wine tour the day before. There are a wide range of activities: surfing, mountain bike trails, hiking, the various national parks, the Munda Biddi Trail, the Bibbulmun Track, vineyards and wines of course, and, I might add, breweries as well.

You haven't tasted wine, I don't think, until you've had some Margaret River wines from the cellar door. I'm going to talk about a couple of my favourites—I have mentioned them here before but I can't help myself. Rosily Vineyard is a great little family owned vineyard where they hand-pick their grapes every harvest season. Another excellent vineyard in the region, some find it hard to get to but I assure you it's not, is Ashbrook Estate. It's another family owned vineyard that's been there for a long time, operated by the Devitt family. They've been running it for over 40 years. Similar to Rosily, all the grapes are harvested by hand from their own vines on their own property, and all the wine is made on the estate, all in their own vats and with their own equipment and bottling. It is acknowledged as one of the highest performing and brilliant little vineyards in the country. It's 2016 semillon and 2016 verdelho won silver in the International Wine Challenge 2017. I congratulate the Devitt family for their combined efforts in the work they are doing.

Of course there is the great Cullen Wines on Caves Road that many are familiar with, built by Dr Kevin Cullen and Diana Madeline Cullen, both remarkable Western Australians who have contributed greatly to their state. I have mentioned before how Mrs Cullen was the first person to import merlot and cabernet franc cuttings to Western Australia. She was part of the first trial of vine growing in Wilyabrup in 1966 and established the Cullen vineyard in 1971. She is rightly acknowledged as an important pioneer of the industry.

The Cullens established their remarkable vineyard and the Margaret River wine industry on the back of their own research and on the advice of Dr John Gladstones, who in the 1960s first identified the potential of Margaret River to become one of the world's greatest wine regions. This is a perfect example of science and research being applied to create a whole new industry. Without the research and the science undertaken by Dr Gladstones and the enthusiasm of the Cullens for that research and acceptance of the science in it, we might not have the Margaret River wine region that we do today. Today, Cullen Wines prospers and, among other great wines, it produces the iconic Diana Madeline bordeaux blend that is highly sought after around the world.

In my electorate of Brand I have a few vineyards. Peel Estate vineyard is a favourite. It's down on the southern end of Baldivis, on the way to Mandurah. Peel Estate was started in the same year I was born. Although you might think I'm younger than I am, that means their first vines were planted in 1973. The winery has added varieties as the years have progressed and the Australian palate has changed. I went down to Peel Estate recently and in the upcoming spring and summer they will be having a great many events. They have jazz music under the trees, and you can see a lovely bush sunset from the Peel Estate vineyards. When I was at the cellar door recently, I was informed that Peel Estate have the oldest zinfandel vines in Western Australia, having planted them in 1976. That makes the vineyard at Peel Estate, in Karnup, towards the end of Baldivis, amongst the oldest in Australia to have zinfandel wines.

Small, often family-run, businesses like these are adapting and changing to meet the demands of consumers. The wine equalisation tax needed changing. Government support needs to adapt but it should not do so to the detriment of the industry. We came close to that but ultimately the bill has been much reformed, so we are supporting the $60 million in grants programs today and look forward to working with stakeholders to ensure that this money is well spent in the future.

See this speech in context