Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Imported Food Control Amendment Bill 2017, as my colleague the member for Makin just did. The bill is designed to make changes to strengthen Australia's current risk-based management approach to food, as we have seen through the many media stories that have been highlighted on the news and everywhere else about all sorts of things going terribly wrong through produce et cetera that's been imported from some overseas countries, and to better protect the health of consumers across Australia. When you think of better protecting the health of consumers, it is paramount that that is done through the systems that we have. When people are sourcing and buying produce they need to know that it's safe, that it's grown in a proper manner and what's in that particular product.

On this side of the House we support the bill because it recognises that, while we have a robust imported food safety system, it needs to be improved. I say that because we have seen some of the outbreaks that have occurred in my own home state. We need to strengthen that system as much as possible so we don't have those media stories that we saw about all sorts of produce that was infected and caused illness in our community.

As a supporter of free but fair trade, I believe that we also need a robust system in place to screen the food we import and ensure we have a level playing field for our producers here in Australia, who go through very stringent regulations to ensure that the food they produce and sell is in accordance to with safety rules.

In 2015 and 2016 Australia imported $16 billion worth of food from every corner in the world. While this figure is great for free trade fundamentalists, it is staggering to think that there were 4.1 million episodes of gastrointestinal food-borne illnesses in Australia and 86 deaths in that period. That is clearly not good enough. One death is not good enough. Recent figures from SA Health, the department in South Australia, show that there were 3,150 notifications of food-borne illnesses in 2014. This includes notifications of 10 food-borne diseases under surveillance in South Australia, including salmonella, listeriosis and even typhoid, from foods that were purchased by consumers in South Australia. Some of the others were E. coli infection, and we heard about hepatitis A infection. That's just to mention a few.

In 2015, the well-publicised outbreak of hepatitis A which was linked to imported frozen berries at the time exposed limitations of the current imported food regulatory system. We heard the member for Makin mention this particular outbreak of hepatitis A. Staggeringly, these same 2015 contaminated berries made a cameo resurgence last year. They were again linked to new cases of hepatitis A, including in Victoria, Queensland and again in South Australia, my own home state. This is two years later. They weren't picked up, for some reason. Even though we went through this process two years earlier, they weren't picked up. I suspect the lack of resources to the departments and agencies that patrol had something to do with that. We need to be better resourced. It's one thing to come up with legislation, and it's a good thing that we're strengthening our laws, but we need the resources in the departments, the ministries and the agencies that ensure all of this works. I suspect that that hasn't been done. In fact, I'd be really interested to see what outsourcing has been done, as we have seen in ministries across the board where a lot of outsourcing has been happening and where there have been cuts to public servants. This was two years later.

In addition to this being a food safety concern, as I said, we also need a level playing field for our own producers here in Australia. Unfortunately, the production of food grown and/or processed overseas can often occur in substandard conditions, where they don't have the regulations we have, and this causes problems. Of course, conditions and regulations that would not be tolerated in Australia can send innocent Australian consumers of overseas products to hospital. Why should a parent feel like they're playing Russian roulette with their families', their children's and their loved ones' health every time they visit the supermarket and buy substandard food produced overseas that the government says is okay when we can produce a lot of those products here in our very own backyards with proper regulations and safety? It's clear that they shouldn't feel this way. The economic costs of foodborne illness in Australia are substantial. From doctor visits to time off work and treatment, the reported cost is $1.2 billion per year. This puts pressure on our hospitals, doctors' surgeries, schools and families.

While I support the Imported Food Control Amendment Bill, it's disappointing that it took the government this long to put the legislation forward. Previously, the current Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources took aim at the importing countries and turned his attention to country-of-origin labelling, which was a good thing because consumers need to know where their products are sourced, where they were produced and where they have come from, but we also needed to strengthen Australia's imported food regulatory system. I'm pleased this is finally happening. Back then, the Deputy Prime Minister said he believed there should be clear country-of-origin labelling on all imported foods so consumers knew exactly where a product was coming from, and we agree with that. He said there was a review currently underway and that he would be pushing for proper labelling to be implemented as quickly as possible. Of course, we should have proper country-of-origin labelling. That's a good thing. But maybe other countries around the world are not as concerned as we are about food safety, so we need to seek out—even the Deputy Prime Minister said this back then—locally made products. I support that and encourage all Australians to buy Australian and save themselves a pain in the guts—literally, in some cases.

I think what this government should have done was ensure that this particular legislation came in a lot quicker. Perhaps we would not have had the contaminated frozen berries, which were clearly labelled with country of origin. While the new country-of-origin labelling laws have strengthened consumers' ability to know where products have come from, they didn't do much to ensure that we didn't have these outbreaks again.

The discussion of strengthening our imported food regulatory system started back in 2015 when the Deputy Prime Minister chose to criticise our trading partners, throwing the foreign minister under the bus instead of looking at regulations to strengthen the regulatory systems. We need the government to look at dodgy overseas practices. Particular producers in my electorate have shown me different things that they produce and then they've shown me inferior products that come out marked 'Australian standard' but are truly under standard compared to our own products.

That brings me to my electorate and to the retail success of some of the good retailers in my electorate who are selling good Australian produced products—for example, Romeo's Foodland in South Australia, a great retail group which has gone from strength to strength, and Drakes Supermarkets, another great retail supermarket chain that sources and promotes Australian products. They're both great companies, employing many hundreds of South Australians. Romeo's and Drakes have outlets across Adelaide, including my own local grocery, Foodland at Torrensville, where I source a lot of my family's food. We have been shopping there for many years and in Glenelg South, where Romeo's has an outlet as well.

There is absolutely no substitute for produce bought, supplied, resourced and grown here by local communities. Local producers and suppliers know their reputations are on the line. They know that if they do something wrong it will affect their entire business across the state or across the nation. They also provide local jobs, which are needed desperately in Australia. Local jobs are a benefit of local produce. Providing local jobs is something that can't be outsourced to another country. If you're producing it here, selling it here, growing supermarket businesses and retail outlets, those jobs certainly can't be outsourced to another country, and that is a good thing. Compare this to produce that's shipped in from overseas, sold to the consumer weeks, and sometimes months or even years, after it was harvested, with zero accountability—a product often produced in a country thousands of miles away, where they have completely different regulations to us and a different understanding of food safety.

Another reason that I support this bill is the legislative requirement for documentary evidence from importers to demonstrate they have effective internationally-recognised food safety controls in place—not just for their product but throughout the whole supply chain. As we know, border testing alone is insufficient to provide assurance of food safety. This bill also broadens Australia's emergency powers to allow food to be held at the border. If there is a suspicion of something not quite right, if there's uncertainty about the safety of a particular food, or if the scientific approach to verify its safety hasn't been established, the bill will allow us to hold the food at the border. The bill will provide additional powers to monitor and manage new and emerging risks.

In closing, I would like to say that even though I don't agree with the time it has taken to get this before the House, I do agree with this legislation. It should have been done a lot quicker, but it's an important step forward in keeping our communities safer from food-borne illnesses and diseases, and that should be the case. We should know where the food's coming from—where it's been sourced. Consumers need to feel safe. I think this bill is a step forward in keeping our communities safer.

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