Wine Industry

The Hon. T.T. NGO (15:13): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment regarding wine exports.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.T. NGO: Industry group Wine Australia has confirmed that large amounts of Australian wine were stranded at Chinese ports earlier this year impacting export volumes. My question to the minister is: on his recent trip to China, did the minister make representation to the Chinese government regarding the impact of trade tensions with China on wine exports?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment) (15:14): I thank the honourable member for his question. On the recent trip to China, I did actually meet with Wine Australia while I was there. While they did talk about the issues that were a problem earlier in the year, my recollection is that by and large most of those issues have been resolved—though every now and again an issue will pop up—but I think they have some pretty good relationships. I didn't personally meet with the Chinese representatives. Of course, that's often really a national government to national government responsibility. Minister Birmingham was in China while I was there and I know he had a range of meetings.

Clearly, there are some issues that the federal government continues to raise with the Chinese government but certainly Wine Australia—I spoke to a number of wineries that were both presenting and selling product in China, and none of them raised the issue. Some raised that the issue had been a problem but none of them raised it as a current issue as of today. That's not to say that it could be an issue that I'm not aware of, but it certainly was a problem. Penfolds had some wine held up on the wharf in some containers earlier in the year—not Penfolds but Treasury. There were some issues but, as I said, I don't believe there are any significant issues at this moment.