Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I second the motion. In my home town of Charters Towers, we had the biggest meatworks in Australia. Through the financial collapse of the company and a couple of other issues, we now do not have a meatworks in Charters Towers. But, being the centre of a huge cattle-growing area, we have had meetings with almost all Chinese interests. I was very surprised that, in each case when I said, 'Maybe we should have a quartering works and you do the final processing out'—which is the major labour content—'in China,' in an effort to encourage them to come in, because the amount of capital required is nowhere near as great if we go to quartering, every one of the groups from China said they wanted everything done in Australia. The people who were introducing them to us got us aside afterwards and said, 'If it wears an Australian stamp, they believe it has been hygienically processed. If it doesn't bear an Australian stamp, they assume it has been processed in China, and it may not have been hygienically approved.' The terrible case that happened in China with their baby milk, which was processed in China, led them to buy out the dairy farms in Tasmania and endeavour to get around the problem that way.

I make these points to indicate to the parliament that we have a very good reputation for hygiene in Australia. If you buy something that is processed in Australia, you can count on it meeting the highest of hygiene standards in the world. If the member's legislation does not go through, our reputation will be placed grave jeopardy because I cannot see anything that would stop the initiatives coming out of what is now the Chinese-controlled S. Kidman & Co Ltd. That company has said that they will control all of the chain into China, so I would assume that they would be doing their processing in China, in the way that it was put. (Time expired)

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