Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I was still farming, my wife and I holidayed in Vietnam. When we were in Ho Chi Minh City, a young girl came up to us and she was begging. We went with her, and she wanted us to buy her some milk powder and, even though the Chinese milk powder would have been substantially cheaper and we could have got more, she insisted that we buy her Australian milk powder. And that was because she had learnt, even in Vietnam, that the cheapest is not always the safest. We see this now in Australia: we have had a scare with hepatitis A in berries. The government needs to look at this, very firmly, and to make some changes. Yesterday I was flying from Mildura, the dried fruit capital of Australia—the place where we grow 62 per cent of Australia's almonds—and, as I travelled on the plane, I was given this little snack—it is not a prop, Mr Deputy Speaker!—and it said on the packet, 'packed in Australia from Australian and imported products'. It just astounds me that I was leaving the dried fruit capital—leaving the place where we grow almonds, where we grow cashews, where we grow sultanas, and where we grow raisins—and flying on an Australian plane, yet I was eating food from other parts of the world. I think we can do better as a country.