Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to place my heartfelt, personal thanks on the parliamentary record for the courage, the commitment and the sheer hard work of Peter Kelly. Peter Kelly has been in the role of managing director of SPC Ardmona since April 2013. He will be retiring at the end of March 2015 after a stellar career. He has been with Coca Cola Amatil for 25 years. Peter Kelly came into the role at SPC Ardmona at a time of crisis. The surrounding orchards were in a haze of dust as bulldozers pushed through what often were prime orchards—the pears, the peaches, the apricots. He had to share the agony of the growers as they understood that 50 per cent of them would no longer have any market for their preserving variety fruit that would be typically used by SPC Ardmona, and, of course, there were no other alternatives. SPC Ardmona was the last fruit manufacturer in Australia.

So we had to do something extraordinarily important because the City of Greater Shepparton, with its economic analysis, showed that the impact of the closure of SPC Ardmona would be some $165 million per annum, and that is in a small, regional economy. There were three factories at the time servicing SPC Ardmona, between them employing over 800 effective full-time employees, with more than 4,000 others directly associated with the operations of that factory. Peter Kelly was, in fact, an acquisitions and mergers specialist, and that put fear and terror into the hearts of those who heard what his specialisations were. They imagined he had come to sell the whole business up. After all, they had been putting write downs of $48 million in goodwill and $98 million in inventory and other assets that had all been marked down by the owner company, Coca Cola Amatil. But Peter Kelly and others were able to negotiate a $100 million innovation investment deal with the Victorian state government and the parent company, Coca Cola Amatil itself. They were talked into hanging on, giving the company a chance. They wanted to transform the business from a cannery into an innovative snack food company to take it away from dependence on just the supermarkets in Australia, which, as we all know, with 80 per cent share, make it very difficult for suppliers to make a decent margin.

He led also SPC Ardmona through successful antidumping cases. He brought the case of the Italian dumped tomatoes to the antidumping authority, and we won. Ninety per cent of all the importers of processed tomatoes from Italy were found to be illegally dumping their products, and that put the Australian canned tomato business back on the map. Today our tomato industry is again thriving, and we have a second industry in Echuca, where Kagome is producing superb tomato based products as well.

Peter was able to negotiate a significant five-year, $70 million partnership with Woolworths that would see an extra 24,000 tonnes of fruit, tomatoes and locally sourced navy beans back into products. He advocated and advanced the need for consumers and government departments to buy local. He led a social media campaign which had ordinary Australians put more than 22 million hits on those social media pages showing that, yes, we want to buy local, we want to buy Australian product and we will. Peter Kelly led SPC on a project to join forces with other prominent members and supporters of the industry, including AUSVEG, Australian Made, the Australian Food and Grocery Council and the Victorian Farmers Federation. Together they developed the Full Value for Victorian Food Procurement Policy, a proposal that urges a government to put locally sourced food first on the procurement agenda for the state. Peter has led Ardmona through a rebranding exercise that sees the real, live orchardist on the product itself. You can look at the man and the woman who grew your fruit. He has led the campaign to make Australians proud of their product.

Without Peter Kelly I do not think we would have made it. So, I am going to miss him hugely as a personal friend and as someone I work with most weeks month after month. I commend Peter for his spirit and his courage. I know it was a huge family sacrifice for him to put in the time he did away from family who were based in Sydney. Peter Kelly, I congratulate you. I trust the rest of your life is as productive as your time has been in the great Goulburn Valley.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It being 9.30 pm, the debate is interrupted, and the House stands adjourned until 9 am tomorrow.

House adjourned at 21:30