Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

No, I do not. The last part of that, I reject.

I do understand that many in the citrus industry are doing it tough, and for many and varied reasons right across the regions that grow our wonderful product. The best thing that we can do as Australians is to eat Australian apples—use them, buy them and juice them.

I acknowledge, though, that the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code mandates country-of-origin labelling for packaged food and unpackaged fresh and processed vegetables, seafood and pork sold in Australia. The government has already made changes to the Australian Consumer Law to provide a 'grown in' claim in addition to the existing 'made in' and 'product of' claims. You can identify 'grown in' oranges in the supermarkets and, as Australians, you can purchase them. Using the 'grown in' gives industry another way of meeting the mandatory declaration of country of— (Time expired)