Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

As Senator O’Brien said, we certainly got our teeth into this one. This reference is in relation to meat marketing, with particular reference to the need for effective supervision of national standards and controls and the national harmonisation of regulations applying to the branding and marketing of meat.

While the committee’s terms of reference relate to meat marketing generally, the committee decided to focus the inquiry in the first instance on issues relating to lamb marketing, particularly in light of concerns that some processors are substituting hogget and young sheep for lamb. Organisations and individuals who provided submissions were advised of the committee’s decision in this regard. The committee notes that the submissions to the inquiry have raised a range of similar issues in relation to the marketing of other meat products. The committee intends to extend its inquiry to consider those issues.

Although misdescription and truth in labelling allegations are very, very hard to prove, there were a lot of accusations flying in the two public hearings held in Canberra. One thing that stuck in my mind was that there were references to sheep sales in New South Wales being flooded with buyers from Victoria, who were shooting over the river, and all of a sudden there seemed to be a lot more lamb on the market than what might have left New South Wales.

Although we had an enormous number of submissions, it was very disappointing that PrimeSafe in Victoria did not front the inquiry. Phone calls were made to PrimeSafe in Victoria and on each occasion they refused to come and visit the committee, which grieves me. If someone or some state is being accused of misdescription or not having truth in labelling, you would think that they would be tearing down the borders to get to the inquiry to put their case forward. But PrimeSafe did not, which was quite disappointing.

Despite that, the hearings were interesting. The committee held public hearings in Canberra on 10 June and 9 July 2008. We heard evidence from a number of witnesses, including representatives of the Sheepmeat Council of Australia, the Australian Meat Industry Council, Meat and Livestock Australia Ltd, AUS-MEAT, a number of New South Wales meat processors and three state authorities—the New South Wales Food Authority, Safe Food Queensland and the Western Australian Meat Industry Authority. Mr Acting Deputy President Bishop, as you and I are both loyal and patriotic Western Australians, may I say that the Western Australian model—