Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Agriculture. Will the minister update the House on steps the government is taking to improve country-of-origin labelling so that Australians can better identify where our food comes from?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. Today, more than most days, it is a great pleasure to be able to talk about how this government is bringing forward a form of food labelling which is diagrammatic—properly represented in a diagram so we can see at a glance where the food came from; that is simple to understand; that deals with proportionality, so that what is actually in the package is represented as a proportion; and that is compulsory.

It is important that we do this because we are dealing with other people's money when they go to a shop. They should know where our food is grown, whether it is covered by our FIDO sanitary laws, whether it is covered by our occupational health and safety requirements, whether it has been grown under our labour rates and whether it has been grown, most particularly, to support our Australian farming families and our Australian farms.

This has been an issue that has been flying in the fog for so long that it is going to take this government to land it. The Labor Party obviously had a crack at it. I had a look at their 2011 election promises and at 2007, when they were under Kevin Rudd. In 2007 they said that they would simplify and strengthen food-labelling laws. But they have not had much luck, because I looked at my emails today and there were 22,000 emails there—22,000!—saying that they have not done it and that people are relying on this government to deliver. They realise that the other government failed.

We have been progressing this. We have been progressing it through the green paper and we are progressing it in light of making sure that the Australian people know exactly which country the food they are eating comes from—this is overwhelmingly supported by the Australian people. They also want to know more about the farms that it was grown on. That is why we are changing our Foreign Investment Review Board guidelines, so that we can tell the Australian people clearly about the ownership—who owns what. That is why we are reducing the Foreign Investment Review Board limits from $252 million down to $15 million.

There is also an alternative policy. They want to take it from $252 million to $1,000 million dollars—to a billion. The shadow minister for agriculture—the member for Hunter—said that he would debate me any time, any place. So we gave him a time and we gave him a place—we gave him the Woolbrook hall at 7:30 on Friday night. But he does not want to at any time and any place—he wants it in Canberra during working hours!

That is the whole thing: they are fascinated about this building—they are fascinated about what happens in this building. But they have no fascination and no interest whatsoever in the Australian people.