Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I, my office and my agencies have certainly spoken with a number of different seafood industry representative organisations, businesses and the like. In terms of the particular one you have referenced, Senator Griff, I will have to just double-check the consultation or engagement we have had there.

There is no doubt that this is an industry facing a very stressful and challenging time. I addressed some of those issues in this place yesterday, as I have publicly on a number of occasions. We take very seriously the interruption to the timely passage of live seafood through Chinese ports. The absence of timely passage is obviously threatening to an industry that has time-sensitive, high-value products that require such timely passage through customs processes. We don't deny the right of any importing nation to undertake appropriate quarantine and safety checks. Australia does so and we respect the right of others to do so. But it needs to be done in a way that doesn't impede the ability of that trade to occur. They are the representations that we continue to make to China in relation to this issue. We will certainly maintain pressure in terms of our expectations that any such processes or checks applied to any of our products—in this case, the live seafood trade—are undertaken in a manner that doesn't operate as a non-tariff trade barrier and effectively impede the trade, as appears to be occurring right now in relation to those products.