Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to share with people in Australia at large and in this chamber a celebration of the fact that our new-look Australian Anti-Dumping Commission at last is showing real common sense and a sense of national purpose. The SPC case, which was brought back to them, about the dumping of canned tomatoes—a case which had not been satisfactorily resolved six or so months before—has finally been resolved in the way that it always should have been. In other words, when the anti-dumping action was brought against them, over a hundred exporters of canned tomatoes to Australia—about 98 per cent of those exporters—were found to be dumping product. But the two big ones, who constituted 50 per cent of the market of canned tomatoes into Coles, Woolies and IGA, got off, because it was not considered that the subsidies paid to the Italian tomato growers under the European Union conditions should be part of the consideration.

SPC took that case back and said, 'Of course you have to think about the subsidies paid to tomato growers in Italy, because they bring down the price of the product that then translates into lower prices in export markets.' The anti-dumping authority took that on board and said, 'Yes, you are right.' Those two big exporters are now also going to have anti-dumping tariffs of between five and nearly nine per cent applied. That will mean a more level playing field for Australian tomato producers. We now have to deal with the three-kilo cans, which are apparently not covered by this decision. They are out there still, with dumping.