Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Of course, I have a strong interest in the wine industry. It is a vital employer in many of the regions that overlap my electorate, particularly the Barossa Valley and the Clare Valley. It also spills over into manufacturing in the bottom part of my electorate: there is a labelling plant in Elizabeth and a bottling plant just outside Gawler, between Roseworthy and Freeling. So it is a big employer in my area. It is a big exporter and it is a vital part of the state economy. South Australia in particular has a lot of skin in the game when it comes to the wine industry. This is very important legislation for the wine industry. Only on the weekend, I was at Seppeltsfield with Nicole Hodgson, the tourism manager there, and the Minister Assisting for Tourism, Don Farrell, talking about some tourism grants that will transform Seppeltsfield Winery—a very famous winery in South Australia and a great place to visit. If the Deputy Speaker ever wishes to come to South Australia, I am sure we will put on a good show for him. There are, of course, many other good wineries around the place. I have, on occasion, gone and talked to Mitchell Taylor of Taylors Wines; my friend, Simon Pringle of Mitchell Wines; and Peter Barry of Jim Barry Wines about the wine industry. They have all been voices in my ears about this very important industry.

This legislative package contains three bills that provide the mechanism to implement the merger of the Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation and the Wine Australia Corporation to create a new statutory authority, the Australian Grape and Wine Authority. Those three bills are the Grape and Wine Legislation Amendment (Australian Grape and Wine Authority) Bill 2013, the Primary Industries (Customs) Charges Amendment (Australian Grape and Wine Authority) Bill 2013 and the Primary Industries (Excise) Levies Amendment (Australian Grape and Wine Authority) Bill 2013. These bills as a package wind up the GWRDC and Wine Australia, and transfer their assets, staff and functions to the authority. The authority will commence on 1 July 2014 and will undertake the functions of the two aforementioned bodies without a change in structure to the amounts of the levies that currently fund both bodies.

This whole process was set off in August 2012 when the Winemakers' Federation of Australia and Wine Grape Growers Australia lodged a formal submission requesting the government agree to merge the GWRDC and Wine Australia. They are the peak bodies for the industry, in winemaking and grape growing respectively. They are important bodies. They are bodies that are listened to by government and they are representative of industry and, certainly, of the regions I represent. So, obviously, the government took their wishes to heart. Their proposal to create a single new authority to undertake the existing functions of the current authorities without a change to the structure of levies is an important one. The industry argued that a merged authority would enable important links between investment initiatives and enable the functions of those two bodies to be better realised under a whole-of-industry strategy.

Those major benefits, principally, are the alignment of strategy, better service delivery and administrative efficiency gains. They are important things for any industry. It is not a secret that the wine industry is confronting the same struggles that the manufacturing industry across Australia is struggling with—that is, the very high cost of the Australian dollar, which is a penalty for exporters; and the emergence of our currency as something of a safeguard currency in the current world economic situation, with some 19 central banks now holding our currency. That has made the dollar persistently high, despite commodity prices coming off, and that is a very serious issue. Obviously, the only way to combat that is through high-skill, high-value exports. That is the only way you can deal with a sticky dollar, a high dollar. This single, new authority will help the industry to combat those sorts of challenges, and it is reflects the realisation that the interests of grape growers and winemakers are inextricably linked.

Both industry associations undertook a consultation process, provided information on the merger to levy payers, had a series of public meetings and got letters of support from the state and territory regional associations and the major wine companies who are representing this industry. The government has noted in its Rural Research and Development Policy Statement that combining the R&D and marketing functions in one organisation can lead to some synergies, helping research programs and the like.

This is a good bill. It does what it sets out to do: it helps the wine industry, it creates some synergies and efficiencies and a better alignment of strategy for the industry and it creates a recognition that we are all in this struggle against the high dollar together. There is a mission to, if you like, reinvent the wine industry as a higher value industry than it has been. It is still a high exporter, and I am always encouraged when I talk to people like Peter Barry up at Clare. He is a winemaker who saw this coming a long time ago, changed his strategy and is now providing jobs and export income for his company but also for this nation. I know that the minister for education, Peter Garrett, is a big fan of Jim Barry Wines. A great friendship has been spurned between the minister for education and Peter Barry, and that is no bad thing.

Mr Husic interjecting—

Created, I should say, not spurned. That is right. Thank you to the member for Chifley for helping me! It is a real friendship. This is a good bill and I commend it to the House.

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