Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Economics References Committee on Australian food certification schemes and certifiers together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the report be printed.

Before I get to some of the content of the report, I want to begin by acknowledging the opportunity that I was afforded, as chair of this inquiry for almost all of its duration, to work with Senator Bernardi. Senator Bernardi and I worked, I think, quite well together. I want to acknowledge and thank Senator Bernardi's staff, who are an outstanding team. There is not much that Senator Bernardi and I necessarily agree on what it comes to policy but rarely do I find Senator Bernardi disagreeable. While people in this chamber can come to some very different views, it was an opportunity to be able to work well with someone from whom I have a very different world view.

I am going to say nice things about him to kind of ruin his reputation, which is a hard thing to do. We had the opportunity to travel around the country. We spent some time together. A couple of journalists pointed out that you and I together was a bit like that 1988 classic, Twins, with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. I thought that was very mean to Senator Bernardi because while the physical resemblance between myself and Arnold Schwarzenegger is clear, I think it is also clear that Senator Bernardi looks nothing like Danny DeVito, and I think the references were misplaced.

There is a lot of agreement on some of the substance around how you can improve the domestic certification scheme. To put it quite simply, as the report says, firstly the government should consider taking a more active role in the monitoring and compliance of halal certification to ensure that goods in the domestic market comply with the same standard as the export market. Secondly, that the halal certification industry should consider establishing a single halal certification authority and a single national registered trademark. And thirdly, that all food products should be clearly labelled.

Obviously, there is a lot more detail in the report that I will not have the opportunity to go to now. Really what there is this great gap between what is a well regulated, well-run export market and a domestic market in which there has been the opportunity for a handful of scammers to take advantage of well-meaning businesses. There was a real disappointment for me that at the heart of this inquiry. there was an incredible amount of Islamophobic hate and race mongering that, I think, comes at the heart of some of the views that were presented here, barely disguised or concealed under the guise of freedom of choice and freedom of religion.

My staff and my team put up with all sorts of abuse during the inquiry. I am sure I speak for all senators and their staff when I reiterate that we do not appreciate being directly confronted by those types of extreme views. I note that the Food and Grocery Council also advised the inquiry that their members had been subjected to abusive mail and to abusive phone calls.

That being said, I want to extend my sincere thanks to the incredible staff who were co-opted onto the Senate Economics Committee for this work. Mark Fitt, who was the secretary, is an incredible man. He is incredibly talented and it was a pleasure to work with him. Not only have they done an excellent job drafting this report but also they waded through almost 1,500 different submissions. The committee would have preferred to publish all submissions but a regrettably large number were simply anti-Islamic and some will remain confidential largely as a result of that. The committee welcomed the input from all witnesses at its hearings but it is careful to dispel the assertion that the views expressed by any individuals necessarily represented the views held by the senators.

I briefly want to touch on the issue of terrorism. A significant number of submitters speculated that a link might exist between halal certification in Australia and terrorist activity. The committee considered the serious allegations very closely and sought the clarification of a number of government agencies with expertise in anti-money-laundering and in counter-terrorism financing. AUSTRAC stated that, despite these allegations, such a link does not exist. Representatives of the Australian Crime Commission confirmed that no direct link exists, in their opinion, between halal certification in Australia and the funding of terrorism. That being said, however, and while I strongly hold the view that the evidence provided made it clear that not only does that link no longer exist but it does not say that there are not simple, practical reforms that can be undertaken to improve the halal certification industry.

It is an inescapable fact that halal certification is poorly understood and, arguably, under regulated certainly in the domestic market. This compromises the integrity of the system and has allowed questionable conduct by certifiers of questionable expertise and questionable intent. They are certifiers out there, particularly in the domestic market, who are nothing more than scammers. This has undermined public confidence and, in the view of this report, amplified be perceived seriousness of any shortcomings which may exist. But, improvements can be made and there are reforms that can happen. For this to happen, Australian businesses, halal certifiers and government agencies should work together to design, implement and oversee an authoritative, consistent and transparent standard and an authoritative, consistent and transparent system of certification. The committee hopes and a I certainly hope that this opportunity will not be missed. I commend this report to the Senate.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In speaking to this report, may I extend my thanks to the Economics Committee. I understand the workload they had was extraordinary and almost unprecedented for them to accommodate this inquiry and this report is gratefully received. I also thank Senator Dastyari. This is not a mutual admiration society today, but I know he did not want this reference and he did not agree with it. We certainly had battles during the committee but I have to say he was very cooperative. We reached mutual agreement in many areas of this report. That is not to say we reached agreement in all areas of the report and that is why I have provided additional comments. There are interpretations in some of the evidence put forward where clearly Senator Dastyari and I disagreed.

I want to put on the record my motivations by going through the process of having a food certification inquiry. The purpose was to contrast and compare the different food certification schemes operating in Australia in an attempt to allay fears and concerns which are widespread about, principally, halal certification in this country. The reference itself was welcomed by many in the grocery industry, in the kosher certification industry, in the organic certification industry and, allegedly, by those in the halal certification industry, too, on the basis of clearing up misconceptions. This report goes some way to doing that but I regret that the lack of cooperation from many in the halal certification industry means that this report does not answer all the questions which are important. Let me give you some examples of this.

With respect to the appearance of halal certifiers, AFIC appeared and we also had an independent consultant to the certification industry appear. They gave interesting evidence and I thank them very much for their appearance. However, many of the other certifiers—and we do not know how many there are in this country—refused to appear. People like Mr El-Mouelhy, who boasts on Facebook and Twitter about how much money he is making and all those sorts of things that are going on and how dominant he is in the practice and how 'infidels' were being conned by Mr El-Mouelhy and his gang, yet he refused to appear to give evidence to clear up any misconceptions. I have had something to say about this man in this place before because he has told out and out lies about me which were defamatory. He is a very litigious person but it is not up to me to pursue him. I do not care what he says about me, basically, but for a bloke who purports to be a serious businessman to refuse the opportunity to attend and to tell lies about senators is really quite extraordinary.

In the absence of that cooperation, there are three key areas on which I think that the report needed to be a bit stronger. First of all, the evidence provided on the level of corruption in this industry appeared to be quite strong. We had acknowledgement that money has been sent overseas to Indonesia. We have had acknowledgement from people like Mr El-Mouelhy, through his social media and through some interviews he has done, that he effectively has paid bribes for international certification. We have had allegations of bribery and corruption taking place in the domestic market as well is in the international market. We have had effective cartel arrangements being operated by sovereign nations saying, 'Unless you use this certifier, which costs more than other certifiers, you will not be able to export to our nation.' That is a reverse tariff, if you will, on the basis of certification. For the sake of the industry and for the sake of our meat exporting industry and, quite frankly, to ensure there are no rorts in this area, we need to make sure there is a single, coherent, reliable process which cannot be taken advantage of.

The second point I would make—and this is where Senator Dastyari and I principally disagreed—was in regard to what happens to the money

We did have AUSTRAC there, and AUSTRAC said that there is no direct link between halal certification and the financing of terrorism, but AUSTRAC also said they had never investigated whether there was a link or not, so they are making a statement about something they have not even investigated. But what we do know about international terrorism financing and financing of proscribed organisations is that, by AUSTRAC's own words, a major means of funnelling money out of the country is through charitable organisations, particularly Islamic charities. We have a circumstance where we have a halal certifier, Mr El-Mouelhy, who has admitted to funding an organisation called Human Appeal International. Human Appeal International is quite proudly sending money overseas to fund and sponsor extremist groups like Hamas. Hamas organise rallies with a Human Appeal International logo there, and we have an Australian certifier openly admitting to giving them large amounts of money. If I can get that information through a Google search, I wonder why AUSTRAC, with all their concerns about international financing of terrorism, cannot be bothered to put it together themselves. So I agree with Senator Dastyari about what AUSTRAC said, but I do not agree with the conclusion that AUSTRAC have reached as a result of it.

There is also the issue of domestic funding. A lot of money is made by halal certifiers in this country, and the evidence from their own financial reports provides that AFIC made somewhere between $600,000 and $800,000 or $900,000 from halal certification each and every year over the last four years. They have since backtracked from that, but that is not what their financial reports say. They then maintain that that money does not find its way into mosques, does not find its way into schools and does not find its way into the dawahs and the proselytisation of Islamic causes—some of which the extremists have been capturing. For example, we have seen AFIC schools captured by extremists where they are segregating boys and girls in the corridors, where girls are not allowed to play sport because apparently they are going to lose their virginity, and all sorts of things like this. It beggars belief that AFIC tell us that the money they make—the $900,000 or $800,000 a year—out of halal certification does not go to funding the sorts of activities that they are directly involved in. Of course it does. They are taking us for a ride if they expect us to believe anything else. If we want to cut the head off the hydra that is extremism in this country, we have to identify where the funding for it comes from. Believe it or not, there is a lot of domestic funding that is channelled into extremist organisations in this country and internationally. I can find the links.

The other aspect of it is that we have to, I think, be a bit stronger about the legitimisation of certification schemes. Senator Dastyari said our export certification schemes are much more robust than the domestic ones. As it stands now, I can set up an organisation called the Halal Authority. I can come up with a fancy logo and go around to any shop in the country and say: 'You know what? You should be paying me $500 to use my logo. Here's the rubber stamp for it.' That is effectively how it is regulated at the moment—it is not regulated. Of course it is very easy to use coercive tactics in those sorts of environments by saying, 'Unless you take my stamp I am going to call you an Islamophobe or a racist or a bigot,' or anything else that wants to come along with that. We are seeing areas where there should be no certification but people are having to pay for certification. We have even got evidence that red wine spare ribs produced in Australia had halal certification on them. It is absurd. Compare and contrast that with, say, the kosher certification schemes, where if it is water or something like that they do it for free—it is not a money-making enterprise. In 1982 we had a royal commission into this halal certification stuff, and they said that it should be operating as a not-for-profit entity. I agree with that 100 per cent.

I want to finish on this: Senator Dastyari made, I think, a very valid point. There were fourteen hundred and something submissions made to this inquiry—it is a matter of importance to many Australians. I regret that some of those submissions were inopportune. I thought they were out-and-out wrong, and it did not befit a Senate committee to publish some of them. But it does highlight that we have an issue in this country and that we have to deal with it. One of the best ways to deal with stuff is to shine some light on it and gain some clarity. I regret the fact that Senator Dastyari came under personal abuse with this—though not from me; I abused him to his face when I disagreed with him. There was a lot of email traffic through which he suffered a lot of personal abuse simply because he was chairing the inquiry and he did not agree with it. I know there are many people listening to this, and I will stand here and say that Senator Dastyari did not agree with the premise of this inquiry, but after reaching an accommodation and an understanding he came along with the inquiry and participated as cooperatively as he could, and as I would expect as an interested senator. So for him to be abused because of his ethnic background or his historical ancestry is, I think, outrageous, and it is absolutely wrong. So I will stand with him in that.

I thank the Senate for this inquiry. It has opened up a whole new line of inquiry that I think needs to be undertaken—that is, the use of charitable organisations to fund extremists and proscribed organisations right around the world.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the same topic, I want to commend the work of my colleague Senator Bernardi in this area. I have not had an opportunity to read all of his additional comments on this report and, while I myself am a member of this committee, I was unable to attend the public hearings on this inquiry. But I do want to commend his work, because halal certification is an area I have some personal experience with and it is certainly an area that requires some degree of reform and greater transparency in the accreditation of the accreditation of certain providers and halal certification bodies is certainly an area that requires some degree of reform and greater transparency.

It is an extremely important area for our red meat industry in particular, which I have been involved in in past careers. It is important for our market access. Obviously, our red meat industry is sometimes on the front line of diplomatic efforts through the world because it sells meat. The companies I have been involved with have sold meat to pretty much every country in the world bar Cuba and, in that respect, they probably have more contact with different countries around the world than some of our diplomatic corps would in any one year. So they understand the need to respect local practices and the need to modify what they do to get access to other markets. The frustration they have in that attempt to do that—a good-faith attempt—is that there are often bottlenecks in the system that require certain Australian red meat operators to deal with individual halal certifiers. There are a range of certifiers that are accredited by the Australian government for export, but sometimes—given market, customer or national preference—there are only a limited number of certifiers in this area.

I credit the work of the Economics References Committee in exposing some of what can only be described, at the very least, as anticompetitive practices. The committee has recommended greater transparency and oversight of these areas. That is something that could not only bring greater competition and transparency to this industry but also be of great help and assistance to our red meat industry in gaining access in a cost-effective and competitive way to overseas markets. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.