Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

For all the laughs in the chamber about the previous speaker's contribution, he did exactly the opposite of what our strawberry farmers are calling for. The member for Longman said that, when she spoke to strawberry farmers in her electorate, they said, 'Just buy what you would usually buy.' If you're not a strawberry eater, don't feel that you have to buy strawberries, but if you are a strawberry eater, continue to buy strawberries. Our strawberry farmers are calling for calm, not political stunts or rhetoric. I've met strawberry farmers in Longman and Braddon. We have some innovative strawberry farmers in our country, particularly in Caboolture in Longman, where they have invested a lot in lifting their strawberries off the ground and growing through a tabletop method. They're at the end of their season. They privately expressed their own concerns about some of the rogue operators in their industry. I flag that deliberately, because we aren't at the bottom of this crisis yet. We don't fully know what has happened, which is why I urge the government to consider what Labor is saying about putting a 12-month review in place to ensure the amendments we move today are targeted at the people who have committed this.

There is some concern about labour-hire gangs and some of the people who might be working in rogue elements of the industry. We need to look at that and ensure we are cracking down on that side of it. As the member for Braddon raised, this has happened at the end of Queensland's season. They have only a few weeks left. If people change their eating habits, the impact will be on the farmers in the south, whose strawberries are coming online as we speak. That is why I urge the government to work with the Victorian government and particularly the Tasmanian government, because, as the member for Braddon said, what has occurred in Tasmania is almost a double whammy. They're coming through the fruit fly crisis, they still don't know if some of their berry-growing—including strawberry-growing—areas will be fruit fly free when it gets to January, and now they have this crisis. There needs to be a coordinated effort to support people in Tasmania.

We need to go further. We can't pretend that this legislation means the crisis is over. Since this government came to office we've had biosecurity crises and threats time after time. We need a rapid action plan where local, state and federal governments can work together when this happens. We still need to look at that framework.

The other point I want to raise about this legislation, the Criminal Code Amendment (Food Contamination) Bill 2018, and about why we need to look at a 12-month review is that there could be unintended consequences with this legislation. It will include the whole supply chain for all of our manufacturing, for all of our food processing. That means our meatworks, that means our chicken processing, and that is hundreds of thousands of workers. I know that the Greens flagged that they were concerned about what this could mean for the protesters, for the people who might come in. I'm actually really concerned about the unintended consequences for the people working in the sector. That is why I want to urge the government to consider putting in place a 12-month review. There are hundreds of thousands of people working in food processing. It is the biggest sector of our manufacturing, and this change to the legislation will impact them. We need to make sure that we are consulting and working with the Food and Grocery Council. There are a lot of people working in these sectors, and we need to know what the impact of this change in legislation will be for them. We want to maintain our safe, clean, green image. We want to make sure that we continue to be a food-processing country and that we are value-adding, and therefore it is sensible to put in place in this emergency, urgent legislation a 12-month review to make sure that our legislation is being targeted.

As a girl who grew up on the Sunny Coast, I can remember going out and picking strawberries on the weekends. It was a big part of what you did if you grew up on the Sunny Coast. I know that the people still in those areas—the communities—still depend on the strawberry industry for their livelihood, including the workers who are directly employed. They continue to use strawberry picking as a way to supplement their household income. They are proud people; they work hard. I urge the government to make sure that it does take on board some of the concerns that we've raised. Building in a legislative review in 12 months will help the sector across food manufacturing come together, making sure that we are targeting the people who put our industries most at risk.

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