Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

of the Northern Territory Seafood Council. And Senator Brandis, that is his real name—in English! He is an English gentlemen, come to think of it. Mr Fish was arguing for more red tape to benefit his industry. Yes, you hear it right: more red tape. He argued that when mandatory seafood labelling was introduced into the Northern Territory, especially the labelling of country of origin, the industry boomed. It meant that consumers in fish shops, supermarkets and restaurants could clearly see which fish was Australian caught and which was imported, and it boosted not just the volume of locally caught fish that the Northern Territory residents bought but also the price consumers were willing to pay for a product that they considered better, safer and fresher.

The inquiry heard from restaurants, the fishing industry, environment groups, retailers and consumer groups on what was required. It was interesting that the Pubs and Clubs hoteliers association actually said that they opposed it. They had lobbied very hard to prevent it, and they were quite happy to tell the committee that they were wrong, with hindsight—that they actually now think the legislation was necessary and has been a boon for their industry. I think that is really important, because I think we know that the elephant in the room here is that when we look at the politics of bringing in a labelling scheme then potentially if we do not get the industry associations behind it we may see a backlash from potentially thousands of small businesses across the country that are being told they are having unnecessary regulation.

Yes, the fishing industry counts, in terms of the political sphere here, but the Greens would like to see that the Australian public understand that they are doing a good thing by the environment here as well—and that it is essential. It is not just about supporting local jobs it is about supporting marine conservation. It is about getting better results and letting consumers dictate the outcomes that we need to see in our ocean.

It was not a big leap of faith, on the back of such compelling evidence, for the inquiry to recommend rolling out this Northern Territory scheme around the country. Yet, since the release of these recommendations, the parliamentary secretary responsible for fisheries, Senator Colbeck, has come out and said that mandatory country-of-origin labelling would be costly and impractical for the restaurant sector. He said: 'There is nothing to stop food outlet services voluntarily promoting the source of their seafood on menus and menu boards.' Some do but, sadly, very few do. We have to accept, and choosing Mr Robert Fish's own words, there has been a market failure. An efficient market relies on the provision of information. You cannot have an efficient market without information.

We are doing a good first step, in providing information to consumers, with a country-of-origin labelling source. Mr Fish said:

The reality now is that we have demonstrated that there is absolute market failure here and there is a need for intervention. If anyone believes this is suddenly going to be voluntary labelling, they are kidding themselves. Yes, I am asking for more red tape and I think it is necessary.

He gave examples of people rushing into the supermarket, reaching into the freezer section and pulling out crumbed flathead fillets for dinner—I actually saw these when we went to the supermarket in the Northern Territory. The chances are that those crumbed pieces of fish are South American flathead, a species of fish that is not even closely related to the flathead you can catch in, for example, Tasmania's estuaries and bays. We had some really good evidence from a Tasmanian business, Mures seafood, that this kind of flathead is making its way into fish–and-chip shops and is being sold at similar prices to Australian flathead—at a really big margin—for restaurants.

This is a good start. It is a win for consumers, industry and the environment. But we the Greens do believe that we need to build on this platform and ensure the long-term health of the ocean. If we do not, ultimately, no-one will be a winner. We would like to see momentum here, and I sincerely hope there is momentum. My first indications from this morning's debate is we already have some points of difference. We have been down this road so many times before—for decades we have tried to get labelling schemes in place, and we always seem to fail at the last hurdle.

Eventually, I would like to see us have a scheme like the European Union has in place, that is essentially the world's benchmark. We will have the benefit of seeing how that unfolds, seeing the complications and potential issues with that scheme. We can learn from that. This is where we start. We start at country of origin and we look at what the EU is doing.

The Greens and I will be putting up an amendment to this bill to include fish-name standards. We believe it is only a small step towards what we would like to see—in the European scheme—but adding species names to this legislation is very important for the environmental outcome. This is not just a Greens initiative. I want to make it really clear that recently we saw a joint position statement from 17 environmental NGOs who cover the marine environment and the seafood industry calling for mandatory use of an Australian fish-name standard for identification of seafood.

I can give you some of those names in seafood, because we are very familiar with them and we have met with them. The Northern Territory Seafood Council has called for the inclusion of fish-name standards. The Australian Prawn Farmers Association has called for the inclusion. The Barramundi Farmers Association of Australia has called for the inclusion of fish-name standards. There is also the Commonwealth Fisheries Association, who cover the commercial-fishing industry. Lastly, we have seen the FRDC, our government department, that has put this together. So we have a broad range of stakeholders around the country who want to add to the country of origin—at least, 'Label my fish; tell me where it is from.' It is not too much information and it is very important.

You do see it already in place for some restaurants. I went to one in Manly, in Sydney, recently and spoke to the proprietor. They labelled the species and where the fish was caught. The guy said, 'I can even give you the mobile phone number of the fisherman who caught it.' That is obviously great marketing for them. They are in a prime position. They can charge good prices for the seafood, to tourists and others. If we had that kind of information we would have a much healthier ocean.

I would like to finish with some quotes from Woolworths and Coles, on this issue of an Australian fish-name standard. It is not often I stand up in this chamber—or anywhere—and congratulate the big supermarkets. In this case, I absolutely will. The big supermarkets are the benchmark. They are leading this debate. You could say they are big corporations and make lots of money and, therefore, they can afford to do this. But they are leading by example. I will read what they said in support of the Greens amendment for fish-name standards—or the substance behind the amendment. They made these statements in a Senate inquiry submission. Woolworths said:

A step to addressing this situation could be to formally mandate the Australian Fish Names Standard and require all parties in the supply chain, including both retailers and food service providers, to comply with the names that the Standard has established. Adopting the Standard would provide a consistent naming system and make a substantial contribution to allaying a potential source of confusion. Woolworths' labelling is already in accord with the Australian Fish Names Standard.

Coles said:

However, we respectfully suggest the Australian Fish Names Standard AS SSA 5300 could be incorporated into existing labelling legislation (such as the Australia and New Zealand Food Standards Code)—

which we debated a little bit here today—

to ensure greater consistency in naming each species of seafood produced or traded in Australia. This is important from both a business and consumer perspective because we have found significant variances in naming of seafood not only by region, State/Territory within Australia, but also globally. For example, snapper in Victoria is a different species of fish to snapper in Western Australia.

Adequate resources will be required to improve fish-name standards to the point where there is a standardised common name to uniquely match each individual species. But my understanding is that we are very close to that, and the Australian Fish Names Standard will be funded by the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation.

We have a situation here where all the key leading NGOs—Greenpeace, WWF, WSA and a whole number of different groups coming together—with industry are calling for at least the inclusion of fish-name standards in legislation. I have the statement here in front of me. I will not read it, because I am running out of time. Let us all come together on this. Everyone on the committee could see just how much sense this made. Pardon the pun. This is good for local business, it is good for the seafood industry and it is good for the environment. It is a good first step.

If you think this is going to be too much for pubs and clubs, and fish and chip shops around the country, it was not in the Northern Territory. A state like my state, Tasmania, would greatly benefit from a similar scheme to promote our local seafood industry. We can always find reasons not to do things. Let us be honest—we can always look at any piece of legislation and say, 'We can find some talking points as to why this should not occur.' This is a long-term strategic decision that we are making here today—that is, to move our industry onto an economically sustainable footing and to move the environment onto a sustainable footing. And we can do it.

Let us take the time we need to for education, but let us not find nitpicking points in the legislation to knock this back. The Australian people would support this—I know the Tasmanian people would support it. The Australian people will just scratch their heads and say, 'Why not? Why can't I have that information when I buy seafood?' It is a no-brainer. Let us do it. I look forward to moving my amendment at some stage and having everybody look at it and at least having that debated, followed by a long-term process being put in place where we can use the seafood industry to lead on country-of-origin labelling in this country.