Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Murray has moved this motion in support of SPC Ardmona, and I think the House is very supportive of that aspiration. I note that there are a range of possible assistance programs available to SPC Ardmona including the Regional Development Australia Fund, the Clean Technology Food And Foundries Investment Program, Commercialisation Australia, Food Industry Innovation Precinct, the Industry Collaboration Fund and Austrade. I encourage both the member and SPC Ardmona to explore those possible assistance programs.

The food and beverage manufacturing industry is a growing and evolving industry. It had over 227,000 employees in 2011-12 and has over 13,000 businesses—nearly 99 per cent of which are SMEs. The government is aware that factors such as the current high value of the Australian dollar, increasing input costs, lack of manufacturing scale in some sectors and retail market concentration have contributed to uncertainty in the industry. Through AusIndustry, Enterprise Connect, the CSIRO, Co-operative Research Centres and the industry innovation precincts, the government has many programs and policy initiatives aimed at lifting innovation, investment and productivity to help our manufacturers overcome the challenges that they face.

As Parliamentary Secretary for Trade, I have become very aware of the good work done by Austrade in promoting people-to-people links. I am also aware of the high regard in which Australian food is held overseas with our reputation for quality. Indeed, I personally believe that food manufacturing in Australia has a very bright future and that we are one of the few countries in the world in a position to export significant quantities of food.

As a part of the $500-million Industry Innovation Precincts Program, the government is investing in an industry-led food industry innovation precinct to create valuable connections across the food industry value chain and help firms build the critical mass, business capability and export readiness needed to take advantage of industry growth opportunities, especially in Asia. For example, a new collaborative centre for food innovation was launched in northern Tasmania on 4 April. It brings together scientists and technologists from the University of Tasmania, the Commonwealth government's Defence Science and Technology Organisation and the CSIRO. The government has invested nearly $19 million into the DSTO Scottsdale facility.

As the member for Petrie pointed out, the government is also providing substantial support to the food-manufacturing industry to transition to a low-carbon future through the $200 million Clean Technology Food and Foundries Investment Program, with $150 million of that program dedicated to the food-manufacturing sector over six years.

Global food markets will remain critical to the ongoing success of our export-oriented food commodity products, as well as value-added processed foods—particularly as a result of Asian economic growth and the government's Australia in the Asian century white paper. The work surrounding that will assist this.

The member's motion talks about safeguard action, and I can inform the member and the House that the government is considering SPC Ardmona's call for emergency safeguard action and will be responding to it. Any emergency safeguard measures would be subject to a Productivity Commission inquiry, and the role of that inquiry is to assess whether there is clear evidence that increased imports are causing or threatening to cause serious injury to the domestic industry.

The member's motion also proposes an anti-dumping investigation. The process for such an investigation is that in an application the Australian industry has to demonstrate reasonable grounds that there is dumping or subsidisation, and it must also demonstrate that it has suffered material injury as a result. If an application is received, Customs and Border Protection has 20 days to determine whether they will begin an investigation. The legislative timeframe for investigations is 155 days, although this can be extended by the minister.

From day 60 of the investigation, provisional measures may be imposed in the form of securities. This occurs where there appear to be sufficient grounds for publishing a notice and where it is necessary to prevent material injury occurring to the Australian industry while the investigation continues.

I point out that the Australian government has boosted funding for anti-dumping investigations by $24 million over the next four years. This additional funding almost doubles the number of investigators working on anti-dumping cases. In accordance with our WTO obligations, applications are treated as confidential until an investigation is commenced, but, afterwards, a public notice is issued. (Time expired)

Debate adjourned.

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