Ben Small (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Electoral Matters) | Hansard source

I will put the wines of Margaret River up against any from around Australia in terms of their quality. In fact, perhaps the only thing better than a summer's afternoon with a crisp glass of Margaret River chardonnay is being curled up by the fire with a glass of Margaret River cabernet sauvignon, as I was just this last weekend. But the grape and wine sector across Australia is in for the fight of its life, and it is indeed high time for the Albanese Labor government to step up, put its money where its mouth is and support our viticultural industry.

My electorate of Forrest ranks as one of the finest wine regions of the world, attracting large tourism numbers to the region every year, not to mention a swag of medals at every international wine show. But it is clear, from speaking to the families and producers on the ground, that times really are tough for this industry. Just last November, Tate Wine collapsed into receivership, and by December its creditors had voted to wind it up. The Tate name in Western Australian winemaking goes back more than 50 years, some half a century, to when their father helped plant vines in Wilyabrup, at the heart of the Margaret River winegrowing region. That family's history in wine is now gone. The receiver himself said it plainly: 'The Australian wine industry is struggling from the structural impacts of oversupply.'

So how has the government responded to an industry which is clearly under pressure? In May's budget it axed, at the worst possible moment, the Wine Tourism and Cellar Door Grants program, the only federal program directly supporting cellar doors and jobs in the wine industry.

In September last year my office was notified that Brookland Valley and Houghton Cellar Door on Caves Road, also in Margaret River, would be closing, with the loss of four local employees accordingly. This just underscores why it is the worst possible time for the government to be cutting support to this industry.

But the scale of this problem isn't just limited to a bad patch. These are structural issues across the country and, to some extent, across the globe. Last year, production outran sales by some 52 million litres. Global consumption of wine is at its lowest since 1961, and the market is tipped to shrink another eight per cent, or some 1.5 billion litres globally, which is, to put it in some context, four times everything that Australia produces in a year. Our producers are lucky to some degree, in that they typically produce premium wine, which has suffered less perhaps than other markets.

But Tate Wine is not alone. Just last week, a video was doing the rounds on the internet of an excavator tearing down grapevines at De Bortoli Wines, something of a household name even in my part of the world. Darren De Bortoli spoke frankly about the decision and said, 'That's the cruelty of it. The old vines produce the best fruit, but they're shiraz, and at the moment shiraz can't find a market.' He's not alone. We've got the 166-year-old family winery Tahbilk, which has been burning vineyards planted in the 1990s—vines its winemaker said were producing very good wine. But that is the simple reality across this industry. This is mortgages, livelihoods and family stories, and the mental health of those families pushed to the brink.

The industry hasn't asked for a blank cheque, though. Australian Grape & Wine has a three-year plan that would cost, in total, $139 million—some $60 million to help growers transition or exit with dignity, $40 million to rebuild export markets, $20 million for wine and regional tourism and $15 million for the mental health of growers in crisis. This is a very modest ask as far as transitional support goes in the agricultural sector or, indeed, any other part of the economy undergoing such challenges.

In the south-west and all over Australia, our growers and winemakers may well be the best in the world. But they're facing worsening conditions, and they need a government that is willing to give them a helping hand. Instead, they've received a slap in the face from a government who has callously cut the only federal grant program that was helping jobs in the wine industry. The government simply can't ignore Australians who have put their hand up and are having a go to produce supply and give back locally. It's time we got behind our wine industry and did the right thing not only in restoring the program that was cut in this year's budget but by delivering on the very modest ask of this industry crying for help.

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