Stirling Griff (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—Pets are our friends, companions, part of the family. They rely on us, which is why it's up to us to do the right thing by them and why it's important that the pet food industry is regulated in Australia. These two petitions contain more than 93,000 signatures showing how important this issue is to Australians. More than 81,000 signatures were collected by Christine and Peter Fry, who are in the gallery today. They lost their beloved dog Vincent to tainted pet food. The other signatures were collected by CHOICE. In the past year, hundreds of owners have lost their dogs or have dogs that now suffer debilitating illness after eating what was meant to be premium dog food. These owners put their faith in the pet food industry, believing it was safe to do so and, sadly, the industry and its safety recall systems failed them and their pets.

The parliament now has a chance to fix this issue. Together with the upcoming Senate inquiry into pet food, I trust that we will soon arrive at solutions to protect our much-loved pets.