Wine Industry

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (15:24): My question is to the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development. Will the minister provide more detail about the state government's support for wine businesses seeking to re-engage with China, following China's decision to remove its duties on Australian bottled wine?

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (15:25): I thank the honourable member for his question and I am very glad that he is keen to have additional detail—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN: —about this important re-engagement program. As I mentioned earlier—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN: —China's recent decision to remove all duties on Australian bottled wine is welcome news for South Australia's wine industry. It's a significant development for thousands of South Australians whose livelihoods have been greatly impacted in recent years. We know that the past few years have been challenging for the sector. Multiple impacts, such as market disruption, red wine global oversupply, the COVID-19 pandemic and severe weather events, are being felt throughout the sector and across our state's wine regions.

The removal of tariffs affirms the calm and consistent approach taken by the federal Labor government and closely supported by the state government. Following my visit, together with a delegation of wine businesses, to China last month, which followed on from the Premier's visit to China last year, the state government has continued to advocate strongly for our producers while also seeing firsthand the strength of our relationships and opportunity for mutual benefits with our largest two-way trading partner.

Since 2020, Chinese duties on Australian bottled wine had effectively made it unviable for Australian wine producers to export their bottled product to the Chinese market. While trade diversification remains a key element of both federal and state governments' trade policy approach, the state government is also supporting South Australian wine export re-engagement with China through the $1.85 million re-engagement package.

I mentioned earlier that there are five key components of the re-engagement package, being two-way market activation and immersion, promotional marketing and communication campaigns, the establishment of a wine export adviser in country, technical cooperation, and exporter capability building.

It is important to note that the China re-engagement package is a cross-government and cross-industry program that will deliver a suite of activities in support of the wine sector re-engaging with the valuable Chinese market. One component of the package that I particularly like to elaborate on includes the work that will be led by PIRSA focused on deepening technical cooperation between South Australia and China, building on a strong history of technical, scientific and research-based exchanges in the wine sector and across primary industries more broadly.

Our previous collaborations have been disrupted in recent years, and during my visit to China I was fortunate to meet with Chinese wine industry stakeholders and research institutes with an interest in the technical knowledge of wine and viticultural science. I was pleased to see that there is strong interest in renewing those important linkages.

A program of exchange activities will be undertaken to strengthen our collaboration with China through this re-engagement program, and this will deliver practical benefits to industry and research organisations in both markets, as well as building goodwill and trust between industries in both countries.

These partnerships, together with other opportunities facilitated by the Department for Trade and Investment and the South Australian Wine Industry Association, will build mutual benefits for our state and for China moving forward, and I look forward to seeing further positive outcomes for our industry in the months and years ahead.