Wine Industry

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI (Leader of the Opposition) (14:24): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Primary Industries on the topic of the South Australian wine industry.

Leave granted.

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI: As someone who lives in a South Australian wine region, I have encouraged action from the minister, her department and the federal Labor government to address what has clearly been a worsening crisis. The minister claimed credit for establishing a working group and for the federal Labor government working to reopen the Chinese wine market. The rekindling of the Chinese market was promoted by the Labor government as being the solution to the industry's needs.

When asked what the government was doing in preparation for the likely adjustment and to preserve the productivity of our regions, the minister said in this place on 1 May:

It is interesting that she says that vine pulls are inevitable: I think there is certainly some active and live debate around that.

In an article in The Australian newspaper on 16 May, Australia's First Families of Wine said the following:

To ensure long term sustainability, the sad reality is that inland and other regional red grape producing vineyards will need to be removed and the industry needs to be drastically downsized by twenty-five to thirty per cent…

Robert Hill-Smith of Yalumba is quoted as saying:

This current state of play is not a market cycle waiting for self-correction, it requires permanent restructuring of supply and capacity.

In relation to the reopening of the China wine market, he said:

The current surplus is approximately ten times the amount of wine sold to China at its pre-covid peak. Furthermore, the market has changed. Wine consumption in China is estimated at about half its pre-covid levels, and the absence of Australian imports has seen the void filled by other international winemakers such as South America and South Africa.

My question to the Minister for Primary Industries is: noting that the chamber has already heard about the wine industry working group, Ethephon trials and the reopening of the China market, all of which are tampering around the edges and not providing much-needed acute assistance, what additional tangible measures can industry expect from the state budget released today to support growers exiting the wine grape industry and ensuring that land is kept productive for the sustainability of our regional communities?

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (14:26): I thank the honourable member for her question. A couple of points to clarify some of the misinformation being provided there: first of all, I don't think there is any time that the member would be able to find on record where I have said that the reopening of the China market was the solution. In fact, on many occasions both in this place and in radio interviews and elsewhere I have said repeatedly that the reopening of China is a significant part of the solution but it is not a silver bullet, or words to that effect.

So that is an incredibly important part; however, the fact that the China market has reopened to South Australian and Australian bottled wine is a great testament to the hard work of both the federal Labor government and this state Labor government in terms of ensuring that the trade relationship with China is restabilised. Where were those opposite during 2020 when the various trade bans and the various tariffs on all sorts of products, all of which affected regional South Australia so strongly—where were they when all of those things were occurring?

The Hon. N.J. CENTOFANTI: Point of order: I said in my question, 'noting that the chamber has already heard about the wine industry working group…and the reopening of the China market'. I would like the minister to answer my actual question.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! It is not a point of order. Minister, please conclude your remarks so we can move on to the next question.

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN: Thank you, Mr President. I would also point out that she referred to the 'worsening crisis', which is certainly the case, but it also begs the question: what was done by the former government? Because this issue has been around for a number of years: it has not just arisen in the last six months, 12 months, 18 months or two years.

The Hon. N.J. Centofanti: Keep going, Clare, I am just going to send this to the wine grape industry in the Riverland and see how they like it.

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN: I would certainly hope that the Leader of the Opposition in this place would send it to other places to acknowledge that their government did absolutely nothing, even though this crisis was emerging back in their time. In relation to the questions around vine pulls, I think what the Leader of the Opposition has said in terms of the debate actually demonstrates exactly what I have said: that there is active debate around the efficacy of vine pulls.

One of the things the national working group certainly reported back on was that they had heard a diversity of opinion amongst wine grapegrowers and winemakers around a vine pull scheme. Finally, the honourable member is asking me to talk about what is in the budget. There is less than an hour before that will be clear.