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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-11-11 Daily Xml
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China Trade

Ms WORTLEY (Torrens) (15:10): My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries. Minister, can you advise if there are any initiatives being undertaken to promote the sharing of South Australia's biosecurity expertise with key international trading partners?

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) (15:11): Primary Industries and Regions is currently undertaking a series of workshops in Shandong Province to talk to people in Shandong about the importance of biosecurity and how we do it so well here, but also to teach people over there things that we have done and things that they might want to introduce into Shandong Province and, wider, throughout China.

It is a two-pronged approach to things. It is reinforcing to China the great phylloxera free and fruit fly free standards that we have here in South Australia and to talk to people about those things that we are very proud of but also to work with them in a global sense to make sure we can all help out each other.

We do the same thing across in Victoria, which is a big threat. As the member for Chaffey knows, having the border right there, with fruit fly, is a threat to us, and we spend about $5 million a year in biosecurity measures just to make sure that we can remain fruit fly free. It is getting harder and harder all the time, with the threat and the number of fruit fly increasing across the border.

The workshops have been on biosecurity, food safety, pest management issues and South Australia's fruit fly program, and the delivering of information to key personnel in the Shandong agricultural department and the industry.

The Premier has forged very tight relationships with the Governor of Shandong and also the Deputy Governor of Shandong, who was out here during Royal Adelaide Show time, and it was terrific to join with the Premier and Deputy Governor as we toured the Adelaide Show and met with agricultural producers and forged those relationships. We know when we do have dealings with China that they are long-term relationships. I congratulate those people on the other side of the chamber, too, who have been working with Chinese people, whether it has been in Shandong or other parts of China and Hong Kong, to develop those. If anyone is heading over there, we are happy to provide as much information as possible to ensure that we can continue to grow those relationships.

Also, the Hong Kong Wine and Spirits Fair was on last week and PIRSA had good representation there, and we know that a lot of deals have been signed already and that winemakers from throughout the state have come back with more leads to follow up. It is very important, once again, that we have people from PIRSA travelling into Asia and other markets to promote the South Australian wine and premium food that we have here, because it is a very competitive environment. We are up against wine producers from all around the world and we want to make sure that we get our fair share as we look to grow our premium food and wine sector from $16.3 billion a year up to $20 billion a year. We will only do that by the government working side by side with the private sector.

Our first international premium food and wine ambassador, Mr Wong Wing Chee, who is a very important and famous chef in Hong Kong, hosted a dinner that just blew people away. It was all cooked with South Australian produce and served with South Australian wine. We have already put in place an invitation to some very high-end buyers and wine collectors to come down here to South Australia so that we can show them in situ our wonderful wine regions. Of course, we have 18 wine regions and, as I look around the chamber, we have plenty of members in here who are very proud of the great wines that are produced from those 18 regions throughout the state.

The SPEAKER: I am afraid the member's time has expired.

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