Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Capricorn Coast's booming pineapple industry is set to become the talk of Parliament House this week. Tomorrow, I will distribute 300 Capricorn Coast pineapples—one to every MP and senator. The campaign is dubbed Pines for Parliament and aims to showcase the diversity of my electorate of Capricornia. We are world leaders in coal and beef production, crocodile farming and intellectual research, through CQUniversity. But you may not realise that Capricornia is a key player in Australia's pineapple industry. The 300 pineapples delivered to Parliament House are supplied by Tropical Pineapples. Tropical Pineapples has its headquarters in Yeppoon and supplies 45 per cent of the nation's demand for fresh pines. Up to 30 per cent of these are grown around Yeppoon itself.

As a pineapple packing and pine marketing company, Tropical Pineapples supports 22 Queensland farms. My Pines for Parliament campaign is designed to highlight the diversity of Capricornia's agricultural sectors at a national level, bring key local industries to the attention of federal politicians, provide media exposure to the region's diversity and highlight the importance of the local pineapple industry.

This year, Tropical Pineapples launched a new Yeppoon Pineapple brand. Tropical Pineapples' marketing manager, Joe Craggs, tells me the new brand is a selection of some of the best fruit from the Central Queensland region. It is grown on the northerly slopes of selected farms to utilise all of nature's most favourable assets. This creates Yeppoon pineapples that are perfect in size, shape and most importantly flavour. Pineapples from Yeppoon have been famous for years.

Like produce in France, the new brand celebrates the provenance of Yeppoon pines and promotes the region's excellent growing conditions. The local pineapple industry is concerned about the disease risk posed by the importation of fresh pineapples from overseas. The Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport have had an inquiry underway into the effect on Australian pineapple growers of importing fresh pineapple from Malaysia. They are expected to hand down a report on 31 March. Importantly, you should know that 100 grams of fresh Australian pineapple provides your total average daily intake of Vitamin C.