Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to address an issue which I believe is of extraordinary national significance. I believe it is vital that as a nation we ensure that we never lose access to fresh, healthy, natural, locally produced food. Australia enjoys some of the cleanest, greenest food stocks in the world. Our farms are the envy of many nations and, sadly, a growing number of our farms are also the property of other nations. I will say more on that later.

Over the years it has become harder to know what you are eating and whether the food you are eating is actually Australian made. Our current food-labelling laws are a joke. Whereas ‘Product of Australia’ means a product is 100 per cent Australian, the clearer sounding term ‘Made in Australia’ is significantly less clear cut. The current consumer laws state that goods can be represented as ‘Made in Australia’ if ‘substantial transformation’ or a ‘significant component’, which is over 51 per cent of the value of production, occurred here in Australia. That is, ‘Product of Australia’ is quite clear; it needs to be wholly Australian sourced product. But for ‘Made in Australia’ it only has to be 51 per cent of the value of the production that occurred here in Australia.

This means that the packaging on a meat pie, for example, could read ‘Made in Australia’. The pastry, the gravy and the plastic wrapping are included in whether something is made in Australia, whereas the meat could be 100 per cent from another country. Yet you could still call that meat pie ‘Made in Australia’. And, speaking of packaging, believe it or not, packaging counts towards that 51 per cent transformation under our current laws. I do not know about you, Mr President, but I do not eat the box my fruit juice comes in. Why it counts towards whether a product is Australian or not is beyond me.

I had high hopes for the federal government’s Blewett Review of Food Labelling Law and Policy. Neal Blewett is an eminent Australian and was a very capable health minister in the Hawke and Keating governments, but to say that I was disappointed with the result of that review would be an understatement. It was an opportunity lost. All the report recommended when it came to country-of-origin labelling was that ‘a framework be developed’. That position is almost as weak as our current labelling laws. Consumers just want to know straightaway whether the product they are about to buy is actually made in Australia and, if it is not, where it has come from and what proportion of it has come from where. ‘Made in Australia’ should not mean anything but 100 per cent made in Australia.

In my time here in this place I have introduced three private senator’s bills. A couple were co-sponsored by both Senator Barnaby Joyce, the Leader of the Nationals in this place, and Senator Bob Brown, the Leader of the Australian Greens, so this is something that transcends ideology. This is about being genuine and about ensuring that consumers have the information that they deserve. I have also introduced bills for the full and accurate labelling of palm oil and products containing genetically modified materials with my colleague Senator Rachel Siewert, from the Australian Greens. It should be noted the Blewett review did recommend that manufacturers should be required to specifically label palm oil—a small mercy, I suppose, but it is something.

I have also had real concerns about the lack of labelling of genetically modified organisms in food. Once again, on this issue, the Blewett review was very much found wanting. It failed to close a significant loophole when it comes to labelling GMOs. Currently, manufacturers can claim it was an ‘accident’ if traces of genetically modified material are found in their products. Based on the recent cases where genetically modified material was found a number of times in baby formula ‘by accident’ over a number of years, this is an issue that favours the big food manufacturers and not the consumer.

Our food security is also, I believe, at issue due to levels of foreign investment. I am not a protectionist; I believe that Australia should be an open economy, but I think we ought to know the extent of foreign investment that we have in our agricultural farms. In farms that produce agricultural produce, I think it is important that there be a level of knowledge that just does not exist now. Under current rules for a foreign owned company, the threshold for the Foreign Investment Review Board to have any involvement is $231 million, or a billion dollars if it is from the US. That contrasts with New Zealand, where anything over five hectares is subject to a level of scrutiny and approval.

I think the fact that we do not know the extent of foreign ownership of our agricultural assets is something we should be concerned about. There is not a single government department that monitors who owns what, and that is not good enough, especially when we know that many of these corporate entities can be state-controlled entities—that is, foreign-government-controlled companies are buying up agricultural assets. Why are they doing that? Because they are governments that are better at planning for the future.

It is estimated that the world’s population will double by 2050, so what is our government going to do to plan for the future in the way that other sovereign nations are? To date, it has done very little, and this is a problem that has existed for many years. It is welcome that the Assistant Treasurer, the Hon. Bill Shorten, has agreed to conduct an audit into the foreign ownership of Australian agricultural assets, which is a good start. At least for the first time we will know the extent of the problem we are tackling. Right now, to quote a former US Secretary of Defense, it is very much a ‘known unknown’.

This is one of those issues where it seems that the laws of this nation have been out of step with the people. Australians get this. It is a fact borne out in the letters and the phone calls my office receives whenever this issue is raised. This is something that resonates with people. People stop me in the street and want to talk about this. The level of public concern can also be seen in the enormous success of the ‘Don’t Sell Australia Short’ campaign on Facebook, being spearheaded by Adelaide Radio FIVEaa’s Leon Byner—a campaign that has attracted thousands of supporters from right around the country. I recommend, Mr President, that you and honourable senators look at that Facebook site and see the quality of the comments by so many people from around the country expressing concern about issues of food labelling and food security. These are big issues. Even today, on the lawns outside Parliament House, the Australian bee industry was having a campaign in relation to concerns about diseases from overseas. I know that Senator Colbeck, who is in the chamber, has been outspoken on this issue, because if our bee industry is decimated the consequences will be far-reaching for Australian agriculture.

Another area of great concern when it comes to ensuring Australian producers get a fair go relates to our woefully inadequate antidumping laws. Recently Kimberly-Clark was forced to close two tissue mills in Millicent and it will close its pulping site in Tantanoola unless a buyer is found. These closures involve something like over 200 jobs. There is a real issue about Indonesian toilet paper being found to have been dumped at between 33 and 45 per cent below value. In December 2008, the then Minister for Home Affairs, the Hon. Bob Debus, imposed dumping duties on Indonesian and Chinese tissue products following an investigation by the Australian Customs Service which found Chinese imports were being dumped on the Australian market at two to 25 percent below their value on the domestic market. And, as I said, Indonesian toilet paper was found to have been dumped at 33 to 45 percent below value.

Unfortunately, this decision was overturned in 2009 under our current framework of dumping laws. That is why it is important that those laws are reviewed and changed. Too many Australian jobs have been lost as a result of unfair competition and goods being dumped in the Australian market. In international trade forums, we are regarded as mugs by some countries because we have a framework in place that does not protect our manufacturers from unfair competition and the dumping of goods. We need to make it incumbent upon the company suspected of dumping to prove that it is not dumping, rather than the current system which puts the onus on Australian companies to prove, at great expense, that the goods are being dumped in the marketplace.

We also need to make it easier for Australian companies to appeal a decision and include additional information in any such appeal. On this issue, and so many issues when it comes to food security and the protection of our jobs, we need to get smarter. If we are what we eat, we have a right to know what we are eating. We should be selling the milk and not the cow, the food and not the farm. We should take pride in what we produce and label it properly. Our jobs, our health and our national prosperity are depending on it.