Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

A tale of two snack packs: in my left hand a product produced in my electorate of Nicholls by SPC, and in my right hand a generic supermarket brand product imported from China. The SPC product—Do I know who grew this product? Yes. Do I know how much the orchard workers and fruit pickers were paid? Yes. Do I know what was sprayed on this product? Yes. Do I know the environmental impacts of this product, including how much irrigation water was used on it? Yes. Do I know the workers in the factory and their families and how much they were paid? Yes. Do I know the owner of the factory and do I know that that owner is Australian? Yes. Do I know this product has the least possible food miles between the grower and the consumer? Yes. I can't answer yes to any of those questions in relation to the imported Chinese product.

Australian producers are being forced to compete on an unfair playing field with foreign imports with opaque supply chains. Supermarket and government policies are making it incredibly difficult to keep healthy, homegrown fruit on the tables of Australians, and the nation is worse off for it. The Australian product is safer, and it tastes better. If anyone in this place wants to test that, they're welcome to come to my office for a blind tasting.

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