John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is pleasing to see that the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Mr Burke, has done what I call the right thing by ordering an import risk analysis. This issue as to whether an analysis was necessary was argued very strongly in Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee hearings. The point here is that we are an island nation. We all know that the clean, green image this nation has in producing food and exporting food is essential so that people overseas can buy Australian food with confidence. To have had this decision by the Minister for Trade, Mr Crean, the Minister for Health and Ageing, Ms Roxon, and Minister Burke to allow the importing of beef from countries which have had confirmed outbreaks of BSE, or mad cow disease, without an import risk analysis was simply putting at risk our nation’s clean, green image.

We now have a backflip by Minister Burke, and I welcome that. There are three parts to the Food Importation (Bovine Meat Standards) Bill 2010, which was presented in the Senate today by Senator Colbeck. One is that a complete import risk analysis be carried out to see what risk, if any, Australia’s beef industry and the Australian people may be put at as a result of the importing of beef from these countries. The second issue is that a national livestock identification scheme equivalent to that in Australia should be essential for all countries that we are going to import beef from. This was very controversial when it came in several years ago. Many of the beef producers in Australia did not go along with it, but now they see the advantage of having a proper trace-forward, trace-back identification scheme in Australia. We should not be importing beef from any country that does not have a system equivalent to that which we have in Australia.

It is good to see Senator O’Brien now talking about labelling. Being a former pig farmer myself, I know the effects of importing pig meat. When importing pig meat was allowed many years ago under the Hawke-Keating government, the comment was made, ‘Don’t worry about it, we won’t import much pig meat’—the same sort of comment that is being made now about the beef industry. We imported 49,000 tonnes of pig meat into Australia in 1999 and last year a massive 219,000 tonnes of pig meat. That in itself is a concern. If we are going to import beef, we must see that we protect our nation from diseases and that we protect our clean, green image, as it is a major marketing tool for exports, especially in the beef industry.

I would like to make special mention of the Cattle Council of Australia and Mr Greg Brown, who called the committee mischievous. Mr Brown, representing the Cattle Council, should take note of public opinion—of what people actually think. I refer him to the poll at my website, where 3,191 people voted: 98.7 per cent opposed the ministerial decision to allow the importing of beef into Australia from countries that have had confirmed outbreaks of BSE. Of the people who voted, 1,043 were beef producers and just 18 of those beef producers agreed with the ministerial decision. Yet Greg Brown of the Cattle Council says that we are mischievous, we are out of touch and we are running a fear campaign. Have a look at the results from the general public and the beef producers and what they have had to say about this.

There was a beef forum in Armidale in northern New South Wales just a couple of weeks ago. It was run by Bindaree Beef, in my home town of Inverell, which employs almost 600 people. They have a magnificent works. It is an industry that our local community is so dependent on. The employees are so concerned that they are signing letters to Ministers Burke, Roxon and Crean telling them that they do not want their industry and their jobs put at risk. No doubt the minister has changed his mind and has now ordered an import risk analysis because of public pressure. I thank people, as Senator Nash mentioned earlier, like Leon Byner on FIVEaa Adelaide radio, Alan Jones, Graham Gilbert and many others around regional Australia who have brought this issue to the public’s attention.

We must protect our nation from disease. That is the right of all governments. Now that the import risk analysis is in place, it finally looks like the government is doing the right thing about labelling so that Australians can at least identify what they are eating. It is essential that all other countries have an NLIS equivalent. (Time expired)