Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to invite all in the building to a special evening of food and festivity in the House tomorrow night. Many of you will have eaten some of this particular product. This week it is time to acknowledge a locally owned global food business exporting a great Aussie-made icon to the world. That food is, of course, rice—more specifically, SunRice. The SunRice history dates back to 1950 and the establishment of a single rice mill at Leeton in my electorate in the Riverina in New South Wales. Today the company supplies almost 50 countries from operations across Australia, the USA, the Middle East, the Pacific and Papua New Guinea. SunRice exports 80 per cent of its Australian rice crop in an average year, generating revenues of almost half a billion dollars. With government support, they have an opportunity to grow the market in South-East Asia, China and Europe.

Australia's rice industry is the main source of income for over 5,000 people, 700 direct employees and around a thousand rice growers across regional Australia. Our rice growers are the most efficient in the world, using less water and achieving higher yields than global competitors. Our economy can thank companies like this, with Australian agriculture being the largest contributor to national GDP growth. I hope you can join me—as the member with just about all of the rice in Australia grown in my electorate—as well as SunRice's chairman, Laurie Arthur, and the CEO, Rob Gordon, to celebrate SunRice's success as an Australian-owned global food business exporting Australian rice to the world.