Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like most Australians, I'm astounded and concerned about the scourge of food fraud and food sabotage occurring in this country, including in my home of Western Australia. Like all of us here in this place, we're concerned with the dreadful crime that is the strawberry sabotage we have witnessed, which is brutalising local industry and harming Australian consumers. Strawberry suppliers, as we have seen, have now resorted to scanning produce for metal contaminants as the crisis of these fruit-tampering cases continues to grow. Western Australian growers have warned that the strawberry industry is on the brink of collapse due to the widespread and shameful strawberry sabotage, which is nothing less than a dreadful crime.

I implore my constituents and all Western Australians to continue to support WA growers by continuing to purchase strawberries that are available and cutting up the fruit before consumption as a precaution. I know it's a hassle, but it is worth it to support the very hardworking strawberry farmers right across the state. Some might also consider going to a local strawberry farm. There are many more than you think around the outer suburbs of Perth and in south-western WA, and it's beautiful in the springtime. Strawberries are in the peak of their season, and you can go and pick them yourself. For my constituents, you could head to Russell Farm Strawberries on Thomas Road in Anketell, enjoy a day out and support your local farmers. This wicked crime of food sabotage is most awful, and the sooner we get to the bottom of it and it stops, the better.

It also comes in the wake of the very unfortunate fake honey scandal we're witnessing in this country. This has the potential to shatter confidence in honey sold in Australian supermarkets. We've all seen the joint Fairfax-ABC investigation which uncovered a startling prevalence of fake, adulterated honey on Australian shelves involving the iconic Australian brand of Capilano. That investigation found that almost half of the honey sampled, sold on Australian shelves and marketed as pure honey, was not honey at all. It proved that our current testing program is behind, compared with global technologies.

What is worse for consumers is, of course, that we don't know what things are in these not-honey products. You are buying an imported blend of something, and you don't know what it contains. It's a terrible shame that large honey companies are driving down prices and tarnishing the good name of Australian honey by utilising cheap imports backfilled with syrup and other unknown substances. I'd like to acknowledge the efforts of Robert Costa, who has paid for the testing of the fake honey on the shelves, and also Jodie Goldsworthy of Beechworth Honey. I'm an amateur beekeeper myself and I know that it takes one bee, through its whole lifetime of six weeks, to make one teaspoon of honey. So, honey is not cheap and we shouldn't expect it to be cheap. If we drive beekeepers out of business with cheap, fake money we endanger nothing less than our whole agricultural industry.