Premium Food and Wine Grants Program

Ms COOK (Fisher) (14:50): My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries. Minister, could you inform the house about the soon to be launched Premium Food and Wine Grants program?

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson—Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Recreation and Sport, Minister for Racing) (14:50): I thank the member for Fisher. It's a story about fishing so, Fisher/fishing—it kind of works. Food and wine exports in South Australia are worth $4.8 billion to our economy, and one of our key economic priorities is premium food and wine from our clean environment exported to the world.

One thing we know, talking at markets here in Australia and around the world, is that consumers, more and more, are after certification around the food so we can go out and say, 'It's premium food and wine from our clean environment'—which it is. People want that reassurance that there is some sort of tick of approval from an internationally-recognised group. When it comes to fishing, the highest standard you can get, internationally, comes from the Marine Stewardship Council—an organisation based in Europe and recognised right throughout the world for coming in, looking at the way fishing groups go about their business and making sure it is sustainable in every way and that it looks after the environment.

We already have two fisheries in South Australia: the Lakes and Coorong fisheries that have that MSC tick; and we have the Spencer Gulf prawn fisheries as well that have that MSC tick. In April, I will be meeting with the Marine Stewardship Council at the Seafood Fair in Brussels, and the fishing industry over on Eyre Peninsula have asked if I would go there and check it out because that is the place in the world where you not only get the best ideas for marketing seafood products but also everyone from the industry around the world is there.

One of the problems we have for any industry when they are trying to get a certification is that expense of getting people here to go through the testing regime to make sure that all the boxes that are required are ticked. Today we are going to launch a program with $250,000 in it, with individual grants worth up to $30,000 to help people in the fishing industry get that tick of approval from the Marine Stewardship Council and get that MSC approval.

We will be going out and advising fishing industry people right throughout the state that this is up for grabs and encouraging people to apply for some of this money, because we know that restaurants and seafood retailers right around the world, particularly the people we speak to in Hong Kong and China, are more and more going to be demanding that anything we produce here from the sea has that internationally-recognised tick of approval. If that's the way the international market is headed, we have to meet that market and not be left behind because, as I said at the outset, food and wine exports from South Australia are worth $4.8 billion a year to South Australia. It is an extremely important part of our economy and we want to work side by side with primary producers everywhere to make sure we can help them get their goods to markets right around the world.