Grievance Debate

FOOD LABELLING

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (15:14): This grieve is directed to the ministers for agriculture and consumer affairs. I wish to let the house know that I stand here as a proud citrus grower in the Riverland, and this is part of my grieve today. Food labelling has been a longstanding issue in Australia. It impacts on everyone in this country—the farmers who produce the food, the industries that process and sell the food and the consumers who buy the food. It is of particular importance to rural communities like those in Chaffey. Their economies rely on having good domestic markets for their produce in addition to good export markets.

When making their food purchase decisions, Australian consumers increasingly rely on labels for health factors and just as importantly to determine where that food comes from. Given the choice and accurate information, many Australian consumers will choose Australian produce because there is an increasing awareness of the benefits that the choice brings to the national economy and the rural communities.

There is also increasing awareness that Australian food is generally superior, safer, cleaner and greener. It is unfortunate, however, that our current labelling laws allow food to be labelled Australian when the ingredients are in fact sourced from overseas with all of the well-documented health and biosecurity risks that come with it. An excellent example of this is the use of cheap inferior fruit juice concentrate imported from overseas. This can have water added to it in Australia and actually be labelled an Australian product on the bottle or carton in which it is sold in Australian shops.

Such a practice takes money from Australian farmers and rural communities and misleads Australian consumers. As a citrus grower myself I remember very well the days when local growers were receiving as little as $60 per tonne for their high quality Valencia oranges because it was cheaper for juice companies to source concentrate from overseas. It was not a good time for the Riverland citrus industry as production costs were always well above $220 per tonne. This is why I strongly support all Australian primary producers in their quest for truth in labelling.

This issue was recently raised in the story on Today Tonight earlier this month and disappointingly the story on Today Tonight did not focus on the need for accurate labelling that shows which countries food products come from. Instead it shed a very negative light on the process used by juice companies which enables to them to source their fruit from Australian orange growers instead of resorting to cheap inferior concentrate imported from overseas.

This process is known as a septic treatment. Essentially the juice is pasteurised which means it undergoes a heat treatment to kill bacteria and it is then cold stored. It is not all that different from the pasteurised milk we use every day. It is a process that has been used by juice companies in South Australia since the mid-nineties. It is supported by the majority of Australian citrus growers because it enables the juice companies to source Australian oranges when supply is relatively high and to meet consumer demand when supply is relatively low.

It is further supported by the Australian citrus growers because they almost always get a fair price for oranges that end up as pasteurised juice. The process enables juice companies to provide a more consistent quality product to consumers when supplies are low and the process further enables juice companies to manage the supply risk associated with uncertainty about our water for irrigation.

It is disappointing that Today Tonight did not highlight these important points which shed a very different light on the matter. As a result, Today Tonight'sreport represented inaccurate and misleading information in its quest for a sensational story. As a result, the report has severely damaged the very citrus growers that Today Tonight purported to be protecting. I am not alone among the citrus growers who now have thousands of bins of quality Valencia oranges which local juice companies cannot take now because of the consumer resistance. I cannot emphasise enough the damage that this report has done to Australian citrus growers and the rural communities in Chaffey. This outcome should make this issue very clear to Australian consumers and media outlets that report on the use of pasteurised juice.

Time expired.