Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight I rise to draw senators’ attention to the hard work and dedication of members of the King Island community, which is being seriously undermined by interstate pirates who are selling inferior quality produce falsely labelled with the geographical brand of ‘King Island’. King Island is situated 100 kilometres from both mainland Australia and Tasmania in the treacherous waters of Bass Strait. Should you need convincing of the dangers of this passage of water, the wrecking of the Cataraqui in 1845 remains Australia’s worst civilian maritime disaster. Four hundred immigrants drowned when the ship struck rocks only a few hundred metres offshore of the west coast of the island. King Island holds the dubious honour of having more known shipwrecks per kilometre of coastline than anywhere else in Australia.

The island’s European history began with maritime explorers, sealers, hunters, shipwrecked castaways and great-hearted farmers, who set the scene for a community which to this day continues to produce some of the finest quality primary produce in the world. As well as beef, most would have heard of or experienced the exceptional products of King Island Dairy—producers of the famed King Island double cream amongst other delectables. But this island also produces or harvests in commercial quantities smallgoods, seafood, pepper, bottled water, honey and kelp.

King Island’s bakery ranks among the best in Australia and its Christmas puddings, made from a 200-year-old recipe, are legendary among foodies. The natural blessings of this environment are being utilised to their fullest capacity. The trademark King Island winds, as well as solar rays, have been harnessed to provide power, and I understand that by next winter the ocean around King Island will also be contributing to the energy banks through wave and tidal power generators.

This vibrant community has rightly recognised diversity, excellence and innovation as the keys to success and, indeed, to survival. As well as developing primary industry, the island established a tourism association in the 1920s. Now, in a day and age when so many of us seek rest and recreation in relaxed and naturally spectacular settings, King Island’s tourist numbers continue to grow. Visitors can enjoy King Island’s natural features through walking trails, surfing trails and even shipwreck trails—so you can see I was not embellishing with my earlier comments about the treacherous waters. It is hardly surprising that King Island’s inspiring surrounds have fostered a lively arts and crafts scene, which visitors can also enjoy.

There are a host of reasons to visit King Island today but we cannot go past the prime opportunity to feast on the island’s highly reputed food in its very own backyard. There is no doubt that King Island’s produce is a powerful national and international advertisement for visiting this piece of heaven on earth. I hope that you all would be at least aware of or even have been lucky enough to sample some of the high-quality fine food that King Island is widely recognised for, both in the domestic and in the international marketplaces.

In fact, according to recent research by ACNielsen, King Island Beef has the strongest branded beef awareness in Australia. It is therefore not unreasonable for consumers to believe that, if a product carries the King Island name, it is actually produced on the island. However, decades of hard work is being undermined, undone and damaged by misrepresentation of King Island Beef in the marketplace. Unscrupulous opportunists are deliberately attempting to cash in on King Island’s established market reputation with their inferior products. It has become an industry joke—quite unfortunately—that King Island must be larger than mainland Australia due to the amount of King Island Beef that is available on the market. This would be an amusing little story if maintaining strong brand awareness and market share was it not so vital to this island’s economy.

This activity also clearly undermines the Tasmanian government’s legislation regarding hormone growth promotants or HGPs. Currently, Tasmania is the only state in Australia where the use of HGPs is prohibited through government legislation. As a result, beef processed on King Island is guaranteed to be 100 per cent HGP and antibiotic free, and this attracts a large customer base. Key to the overall economy of King Island is the protection of its geographical marketing advantage. Wholesalers and consumers of King Island produce are prepared to pay a premium not just for the brand name but because produce originating from this island is perceived to be of the highest quality and finest taste—and because these intrinsic qualities are backed up by strong quality assurance practices and the HGP status that I have just mentioned.

The authentic, original brand name, which inherently guarantees geographical origin, is a major reason for the island’s largest employers, National Foods, who are the owners of King Island Dairy, and Swift Australia, who are the owners of King Island Beef, to continue operating processing plants on the island. These companies have invested significantly to maintain operations on the island and therefore need to command a premium price to offset the high operating costs to remain viable. National Foods and Swift Australia, along with the other small-business producers I mentioned earlier, employ a large percentage of the island’s population. It is very plain to see that primary industry is a vital economic and social contributor to King Island’s people today, and a vital contributor to the island’s future economy.

Also critical to the ongoing success of the King Island brand name is maintaining a baseline population through the continued provision of supporting services such as transport, health care, social services, retail services and tourism. I am delighted that King Island now benefits from the extension of the Freight Equalisation Scheme. Originally proposed by the coalition prior to last year’s federal election, it is pleasing that Labor thought our policies were so good that they adopted these coalition commitments as their election promises. The extension of the Freight Equalisation Scheme to King Island now means that financial assistance is available when intrastate sea freight is shipped between King Island and the mainland of Tasmania. The scheme assists in alleviating the sea freight cost disadvantage incurred by shippers of eligible non-bulk goods, with the objective being to provide equal opportunity for commercial competition.

When you consider that consumers all over the world are showing more interest in the provenance, traceability and health benefits of what they are consuming, the continual misrepresentation in the marketplace of inferior, counterfeit items as legitimate King Island produce is very disturbing. Because of its size, the King Island community does not have the financial resources to legally pursue the alleged misuse of their good name through legal civil proceedings. This inability has unfortunately allowed a free-for-all, nil-ramification environment in which impostors get away with their false claims scot-free.

So what can be done? How can a small, isolated, rural community which has worked hard to develop a sustainable economy using their unique geographical location be protected from unscrupulous operators? With increased internationalisation and mass-produced food, consumers worldwide are showing more interest in geographical indications. Notable examples of products protected by geographical indications are Champagne wine from France and Ceylon tea from Sri Lanka. But geographical indications only work when they are backed up by quality products—thus King Island’s concern with the current practice of impostor products being deliberately and misleadingly branded such that consumers will confuse them with genuine King Island produce.

In Australia, the Wine and Brandy Corporation protects their geographical indication through the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation Act 1980. This act deals specifically with the place of origin issue and takes into account methods of production, explicit varieties and strict control on the quality and volume of production. While the old world wine producers such as those in Tuscany in Italy have been successfully undertaking this marketing approach for centuries, new world producers such as those in the United States and Australia are increasingly using geographical indicators to differentiate themselves from competitors. Geographical indicators are also linked to tourism industries, which in turn create flow-on benefits for the regions in which they are based. However, for geographical indicators to be used to their full potential, they must be properly protected from imitation and reproduction by producers outside the defined region.

In the case of King Island, this community is concerned that decades of hard work and dedication to produce high-quality meat products is being exploited by interstate pirates—pirates who contribute nothing to the economic sustainability or to the people of this stunningly beautiful, remote rural community. This is a case where an important geographic indicator is being denigrated by opportunists, because no protection mechanism exists. Recently, members of King Island Brand Management Group made a submission to the Senate Standing Committee for Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport meat marketing inquiry. I seek leave to incorporate the rest of my speech.

Leave granted.

The remainder of the speech read as follows—

The Group believe there is an urgent need for legislation to be introduced into the Federal Parliament, similar to the existing Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation Act of 1980, which would deal specifically with Geographical Indications. The group believes this is the only way forward in order to protect all geographical indications within Australia, not just that of King Island, which are affected by similar issues, especially within the meat industry.

On behalf of the Tasmanian Liberal Senate Team, I would like to acknowledge in this Chamber today that we fully support the King Island community’s endeavours to protect their community from the unscrupulous practices of interstate competitors.