Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health, Aged Care and Indigenous Health Services) Share this | Hansard source

It's been a tough few years for our Australian beekeepers. They've been hit from all sides: droughts, bushfires, floods, varroa mite and New Zealand's trademark attack on Australian beekeeping using the term manuka. These are all significant headwinds that our world-best beekeepers have faced head-on. We thank them for their ongoing resilience because our honey bees are irreplaceable in our food production system. Honey bees pollinate over 65 per cent of all food grown in Australia. We must support this crucial industry.

I recently received an email from Nicola Charles from Mawbanna Blue Hills Honey, in my electorate of Braddon. Nicola is a senior player and voice of reason for the industry. In her email to me, Nicola said that all of threats and challenges the industry has faced pale into insignificance when compared to the importation of artificial honey and the impact that that is having on our industry. Put simply, we're talking about international food fraud. Beekeepers have told me that the importation of artificial honey into Australia is of such a high quantity that it threatens the ongoing viability of our honey beekeepers in Australia.

Currently, 40 per cent of all imported honey comes from—you guessed it—China. A further 15.8 per cent comes from Thailand. You might ask: what is artificial honey? Surely honey is honey. The answer is no, it's not. Artificial honey involves feeding bees sugar water, which is a process of passing syrup through the hives when they're extracted, similar to nectar. But in this process there is no need for flowers, nectar or the natural work of bees. The sugary sweet substance is then transferred to a factory where it is artificially dehydrated and often blended with further, other low-cost sugar-blend syrups in order to effectively cheat or fraud detection tests.

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