Thursday, 19 March 2026

 John PESUTTO (Hawthorn) (14:53): Before the break I was making the point that as part of a very significant reform like this, and as the lead speaker, the member for Lowan, pointed out in her remarks, it is very important that Safe Food Victoria incorporate into its board and senior executive levels people with actual industry and farming expertise and familiarity. We do not want just general bureaucratic experience occupying the upper echelons of Safe Food Victoria, because it is a sector which as we know is crucial.

I also want to echo the point made by the member for Lowan and lead speaker on this side of the house that Dairy Food Safety Victoria has had a record of accruing substantial funds from farmers in our dairy sector, and that money has been used wisely and importantly, we would say, over many years to service the dairy industry. Dairy Food Safety Victoria has already been operating under significant pressure in recent years. It produced, last financial year, an operating deficit of nearly $760,000, and that was a turnaround from the year preceding that of just under $50,000 by way of an operating surplus.

It is already under some existing pressure, and these reforms, it is feared on this side of the house, may provide a temptation to use the available funds, which have been raised off the backs of our dairy farming community, to support other purposes not connected with that sector. That would not only be unfortunate, if it were to occur, but it is something we would steadfastly oppose.

There are just two other points that I want to make on this bill, and they relate, again, to the sensitivities surrounding the efficacy of the reforms being pursued here. We know that the government is doing it not for the reasons of necessarily improving the outcomes – although that will hopefully be a consequence – but because of the dynamics I spoke about at the top of my remarks, which are the financial pressures this government is under, which concern us, because if they lead to poor decision-making, and the sector has pointed this out in its consultations with the government, that is something wholly to be avoided. Let us remember that Victoria constitutes about 3 per cent of the nation’s arable land and yet provides around 25 per cent of the nation’s food. Victoria is punching well above its weight, and the nation depends on us. Whole export-facing industries, which are successful or unsuccessful off the back of our food sector, which is affected by this bill, depend on these reforms actually hitting their target. We will be keeping a close eye on the reforms that are being undertaken to ensure they actually achieve the objectives of removing inefficiencies.

The final point I wish to support is that of the lead speaker in relation to transparency and disclosure around cell-cultivated meat products and plant-derived milk. I note the member for Narracan is a huge fan of plant-based meat and plant-derived milk. I have heard him speak about these products often, and I know he is a huge champion of them. In all seriousness, can I just say that I wholly support what the member for Lowan has said about the importance of the disclosure of these matters. People have a right to know what is in the products they purchase. I want these sectors that are seeing producers providing options for consumers to be successful and to have growing markets, but with that, there are two important points that I conclude on. The first is that they should be subject to the normal disclosure and transparency requirements that should attend the production of these materials from paddock – or lab – to market, as it were. Finally, to ensure that the funding for the work that Safe Food Victoria will undertake is not just conducted off the back of the existing sectors which support this, such as dairy farmers, meat and poultry, it is important that all of the functions of Safe Food Victoria – and those functions will expand over time – are funded by all who are working to produce the food and related products that will support our families and communities right across the country. With those remarks, I conclude by saying I support the bill.

 Steve McGHIE (Melton) (14:58): I rise today to speak to the Safe Food Victoria Bill 2026 – legislation that marks a defining moment in how this state regulates our food safety. This bill is not merely an administrative reform; it is a commitment to the health and safety of every Victorian who sits down to a meal. I love to sit down to a meal regularly, and in particular when I am staying down here for the parliamentary sitting week there are not many nights when I am not sat down to a meal in Melbourne. This is for every business that works hard to put safe food on Australian tables. Just on that, I want to rattle off a few businesses in Melton that are fantastic cafes and fooderies: the Grey Matter Cafe, Bik’s bakery, Urban Punjab, Mac’s Hotel, Golden Fleece Hotel, Melton Country Club, Melton bakery, Buddy Bakery, Morgan’s IGA, Train Station One, Pappa’s Ocean Catch and Melton Entertainment Park. They are just some of the fine locations in Melton that are good fooderies and provide safe food for their customers, and I do frequent many of those businesses. There are many, many more in Melton, and we are very lucky with the diversity that we have in regard to cafes and restaurants.

The way we have regulated food safety in Victoria has for too long been fragmented, duplicative and unnecessarily complex. The introduction of this bill changes all of that. To understand why this legislation is necessary, we must be honest about the system that we are replacing. Victoria currently operates under four separate acts administered by two responsible ministers and regulated by an array of bodies like the Department of Health, the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, Dairy Food Safety Victoria, PrimeSafe and no fewer than 79 local councils. That is not a regulatory system designed for the modern era. It is a patchwork built up over decades, and parts of the patchwork have been very protective of their patches. Each layer is added with the best of intentions, but as I say, some of them have become quite protective of their own patches. But that accumulation has resulted in an architecture that is confusing for businesses, inconsistent for our customers and inefficient for government.

This bill begins to change that. It is the first stage of a two-stage reform program and a key commitment under the government’s Economic Growth Statement to halve the number of Victorian regulators by 2030. The bill establishes Safe Food Victoria as a new consolidated statutory authority. It will bring together PrimeSafe and Dairy Food Safety Victoria, along with relevant departmental functions from the Department of Health, into a single, capable and coherent food safety regulator. The community and stakeholder engagement showed clearly that over 90 per cent of stakeholders support the move to a single regulator. That means that PrimeSafe and Dairy Food Safety Victoria will be abolished and in their place will stand one organisation with one mission, and that is to protect the health of Victorians – that is the most important thing – by ensuring that the food they eat is safe to eat. That is obviously a positive move forward, notwithstanding that the standards here in this state are very good right now, but we will be improving those standards.

No longer will we have two organisations essentially doing the same thing across both sectors. With one authority there is less duplication in regulating safe production and transportation, manufacturing and delivery, monitoring of safety compliance, licensee support, technical support enforcement and working with the minister on matters relating to the industry sector and again keeping Victorians safe. The new authority will be governed by a board of between five and seven members, led by a chair and a deputy chair, and appointed by the responsible minister. It is the intention that the Minister for Agriculture will administer this act, placing Safe Food Victoria firmly within the agricultural portfolio, where its paddock-to-plate mandate is best understood and best served.

Safe Food Victoria will be led by a chief executive officer, appointed by the board, with the authority to build a strong and expert team. Staff, assets and property from existing regulators will transfer to the new entity. Something that I want to be clear about – I know it is a phrase the opposition do not really like to hear, but we do need to be clear about it – is that staff will transfer on conditions no less favourable than those they currently hold. Again, that is about the protection of those workers. The expertise that has been built up over many years within both Dairy Food Safety Victoria and PrimeSafe is an asset to this state, and we intend to preserve all that expertise. There will be no loss of corporate knowledge, and we will build on the incredible foundation that has been established over many, many years. This is a step in the direction of better transparency, retention of critical expertise and clear and consistent information with an overarching focus on health outcomes, and the health outcomes are safer food for Victorians and better health outcomes for Victorians.

A consolidated regulator delivers benefits that reach far beyond the machinery of government. For businesses, it means a single point of contact and a one-stop shop rather than a maze of regulators with overlapping remits. It means reduced compliance costs, less duplication and a clearer regulatory environment in which to operate and to grow. For consumers it means stronger, more consistent food safety outcomes and a regulator that can take a true paddock-to-plate view of the risk and manage incidents with greater speed and coordination. And it brings specialist capability together under one roof – I referred earlier to the expertise from the two agencies that currently exist – rather than just siloing that expertise across multiple agencies.

New South Wales and Queensland and most comparable international jurisdictions have made very similar reforms, and obviously the outcomes in those other states and those other jurisdictions have been quite successful. The model that we are implementing is very similar to that. It lowers the cost regulation over time, it improves incident response, as I referred to earlier, and it delivers better outcomes for both the industry and the public, and that is exactly what we want. It is legislation that is quite genuine. There was extensive consultation over the past year. The government conducted more than 60 individual engagements with stakeholders and interest groups, and it is pleasing to see that so many stakeholders and interest groups and people that have an interest in the production and delivery of food and the provision of food and meals and things like that were so engaged with the consultation process. Those people that were involved were small producers, large processors, from local councils, public health bodies, so it was a cross-section of everyone that is involved in this particular area of food production and delivery of food to the consumer through restaurants, through supermarkets and through outlets where people buy and eat and purchase their food. It was fantastic to see that engagement. This all culminated through Engage Victoria in September and October of last year.

Overwhelmingly – 91 per cent – respondents expressed support for the reform. It is great to see that people are on board with it and think that it is a good thing, moving in this direction. That is an incredible result, over 91 per cent. Stakeholders told us clearly what they wanted in a new regulator: clear and consistent food safety information and a genuine one-stop shop for business. That was clearly portrayed through those consultations. They want that ongoing specialist expertise that has been built up over the years to support their local councils and a regulator that will understand the balance between non-negotiable public health outcomes and practical industry engagement, and embedded consultative committees to ensure industry voices are heard and keep an oversight of the changes for the future.

This is an important bill that has been brought to the house. I am pleased that the opposition are not opposing this bill, although I know that the lead speaker referred to the fact that they might put up some amendments in the upper house. But it is an important bill, and I commend the bill to the house.

 Peter WALSH (Murray Plains) (15:08): I rise to speak on the Safe Food Victoria Bill 2026. First of all, those on the other side are saying how this is a great reform. I think the fact that both Dairy Food Safety, which started in 2000, and PrimeSafe, which started in 2003, have been there for effectively 25 years and have done a very good job of regulating the food safety in this state shows that those two organisations have worked really well to keep our food safe. To start off, I would like to put on the record our thanks to all those people who have been on those boards and in the administration of those two authorities to make sure our food is kept safe.

Over my life in agriculture I have known quite a few of those people. Gis Marven spent a long time on the meat industry authority and PrimeSafe as the chicken meat representative. Gis was there for a long time. Gary Hardwick and his wife Vicki both had stints on PrimeSafe and the Victorian Meat Industry Authority – they were abattoir owners at Kyneton at that time – as did Frank Herd, who is an abattoir operator from Geelong. John Watson, a former dairy farmer and head of the United Dairy Farmers at the Victorian Farmers Federation, was chair of that for quite a bit of time. Leonard Vallance, another great, stand-out name from the VFF, was chair of PrimeSafe for a period of time. They did their work to make sure that our meat industry was safe all through that piece of time.

If you look at Dairy Food Safety, Anne Astin was the inaugural CEO; I have known her for a long time, and she did a great job of setting that organisation up to be the success it has been for the last 25 years. So yes, there are changes coming, but I think we need to commend and celebrate the people that did a great job for the last 25 years in keeping our food safe. Michael Taylor, former departmental secretary here in Victoria and departmental secretary for agriculture and then for transport in Canberra, was chair of Dairy Food Safety at one particular stage, as was Des Hore, another Department of Agriculture icon here in Victoria. Grant Davies, a dairy farmer out of my electorate, was chair at one particular stage. All those people worked really hard to make sure that food safety was not an issue here in Victoria. How often do you in your office or I in my office have someone coming and raising a complaint about food safety? We actually do not, because those organisations work well. So yes, there is change, but it is not change because there has been failure. I will come back to why the government might be wanting to make those particular changes.

If you think about food safety from a milk point of view, you might look at the changes to the milk industry from pre the industrial revolution to post the industrial revolution. Pre the industrial revolution small farms and smaller communities were close to where the cows were actually milked, so there was not an issue with food safety with milk. After the industrial revolution, with large cities being built and the milk being transported further – at that time without refrigeration and without pasteurisation – milk was the medium that spread a lot of diseases. There was a lot of work done back in the late 1800s and early 1900s to reduce the rate of infant mortality because of the consumption of cow’s milk, because it was not pasteurised. When pasteurisation was brought in you saw a 30 to 60 per cent reduction in fatalities of infants from diseases that were spread by milk. Pasteurisation had been around for a while, but it was in the early 1920s that pasteurisation was brought in for dairy milk. That led to milk being a lot safer into the future because once it was heated and sterilised, milk could be transported and kept longer through that time. What we are seeing all the time is the evolution in how our food is made safer into the future.

The other thing to note, as I found when I went and researched this, is about that same time the milking machine system that we still have here in Victoria and still have around the world was invented. It isolated the milk straight from the cow into the milking machine system and out into a vat or into a container that kept the milk clean, compared to how cows were milked by hand in the past and there was cross-contamination of that particular milk. There has been a lot of change, but it has been for the better. We talk about issues with food safety very, very rarely. There is an issue sometimes with dairy and with some soft cheeses in particular with listeria, but apart from that I do not think we have had any issues here in Victoria that I can recall to do with a food safety outbreak either with dairy or with meat.

To come to the bill, this legislation puts PrimeSafe and Dairy Food Safety together to form a new organisation. The Victorian Meat Industry Act 1993 set PrimeSafe up, and when PrimeSafe went from being a regulator of the food safety of red meat and chicken to include fish I was in my first year in this place. I can remember some of that debate, and the debate at that time was about making sure that the red meat industry and the chicken meat industry did not cross-subsidise the cost of bringing the regulation of the safety of fish as a food into the legislation. Like other speakers have spoken about, these two, PrimeSafe and Dairy Food Safety, fund themselves by industry stakeholders paying levies. The government does not cover the costs of running these organisations; they are paid for by the industry and regulated generally by the industry and participants from the industry on the boards that oversee management.

There was quite a substantial debate in this place at that particular time to make sure that the fishing industry paid their fair share, and the reserves that have been built up by the red meat industry and the chicken meat industry did not actually cross-subsidise the fishing industry. Bob Cameron, former member for Bendigo West, was actually the agriculture minister at the time and was under a lot of pressure to make sure that money was quarantined, so the fishing industry paid their fair share.

Big is not always better, and I suppose on my reading of the legislation and my reading of the consultation – those on the other side keep saying there were 60 stakeholder engagements, but as the member for Polwarth pointed out, the dairy industry in his electorate did not have any consultations with them – what is missing in this legislation and the explanations, in my view, is if you are going to put these organisations together, if you are going to create efficiencies and it is going to work better as all those on the other side of the house are saying, is there going to be a reduction in fees? What we do not want to have, and this government is noted for it, is the setting up of big bureaucracies, particularly where there is industry levy funding, that industry pays for. If this is going to be an organisation that works better because of bringing them together, and I will take it on face value that both the new board and the new management will make sure it is as effective as possible, we want to make sure there is actually some cost reductions that come out of this too. It should not just be about charging the same or charging more. There should be cost reductions for industry from the efficiencies that are generated out of this. No-one has said that. No-one on the other side has touched on the fact that actually this organisation, because of the efficiencies from coming together, will actually drive some savings for the industry. I would hate to think that the government is going to trade away those savings by making the bureaucracy bigger, because big is not better. We know there are cost pressures on all small businesses and large businesses in Victoria. Because this new authority will be regulating the food safety of the average-sized dairy farm to the big dairy processor, the smaller beef producer all the way to the largest abattoir that exports overseas, it is important that it is efficient and as cost effective as possible for those industries.

I spoke to one of my abattoir owners today about a very separate issue. But he said yesterday they actually closed their abattoir because they cannot get planes to take meat to the Middle East. So there are some real challenges coming for agriculture right at the moment, with the cost pressures of the war in the Middle East, but also the fact that they actually cannot get product out of Australia. To think that his major abattoir has shut for a day because he cannot get planes to take the meat to the Middle East. That is just the start. No matter what happens in the Middle East in the next few days, it is going to take months and months to get back to normal. So take at face value what the government says about the new organisation being better because they are all together. I would have liked to have seen a review process to actually prove that in the legislation. That is not there. And the last thing in my few seconds remaining, we should not be regulating non-mammal milk. That should not be included in this legislation. It is juice. It is almond juice. It is soy juice. It is oat juice. It is not milk.

 Eden FOSTER (Mulgrave) (15:19): Acting Speaker Farnham, it is always wonderful to see you in the chair. I speak in support of the Safe Food Victoria Bill 2026.

Members interjecting.

Eden FOSTER: He is a friendly face in the chair, one of the only ones from that side, maybe. Anyway, I speak in support of the Safe Food Victoria Bill 2026, an important reform that will strengthen Victoria’s food safety system while also making it simpler and clearer for businesses to operate in Victoria. At its core, this bill is about two very important objectives: keeping Victorians safe and ensuring our food safety system continues to meet the needs of a modern and evolving food industry. Food safety is not something we can ever afford to take lightly. Every Victorian family expects that the food they purchase, prepare and eat is safe. They trust that the systems put in place by government will protect them from contamination, illness and other food-related risks.

At the same time our farmers, producers, manufacturers and food businesses rely on a regulatory system that is clear, effective and responsive so that they can continue producing the high-quality food for which Victoria is well known.

The creation of Safe Food Victoria represents a significant and long-planned step forward in how we manage food safety in this state. It recognises that while Victoria has a strong food safety record, the world around us continues to change, the risks associated with food production evolve over time, the technologies used by industry continue to advance and businesses increasingly operate across multiple parts of the supply chain. The current food safety regulatory system in Victoria is complex. It operates across four separate Victorian acts of Parliament and involves two responsible ministers. Responsibility for regulating food safety is currently shared across the Department of Health, the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, Dairy Food Safety Victoria, PrimeSafe and 79 local councils. Together these organisations oversee more than 100,000 food businesses across the state. While these regulators perform their roles with professionalism and dedication, the structure itself can sometimes create challenges. For businesses operating in the food sector the current system can be difficult to navigate. Depending on the type of food produced and the activities undertaken, a single business may need to interact with several different regulators. In some cases, businesses may require multiple licences or registrations simply because their operations fall across different regulatory frameworks. This complexity has been highlighted through extensive consultation with stakeholders since 2021. Industry groups, businesses and regulators themselves have all pointed to the difficulties created by having multiple regulators performing similar functions under separate legislative frameworks. This fragmented approach can place unnecessary administrative burdens on businesses and can make coordination more difficult when responding to emerging risks.

The Safe Food Victoria Bill seeks to address those issues by bringing greater clarity, consistency and coordination to the system. The bill implements the first stage of a two-stage reform program to consolidate food safety regulators in Victoria. Stage 1 involves the establishment of Safe Food Victoria, a new statutory authority that will serve as the central food safety regulator for the state. Safe Food Victoria will replace both Dairy Food Safety Victoria and PrimeSafe, and it will also take on the food safety regulatory functions currently performed by the Department of Health. As a result, those existing regulators will be abolished and their staff, assets and responsibilities transferred into the new organisation. Importantly, Safe Food Victoria will operate as an independent statutory authority governed by a board and led by a CEO. This structure mirrors the arrangements that currently exist for the regulators it replaces, ensuring that the regulator maintains independence while remaining accountable to Parliament through the responsible minister. The board will consist of between five and seven members, including a chair and deputy chair, appointed by the minister responsible for the act, and the board will also have the ability to establish consultative committees that bring together sector-specific expertise from industry, public health and local government. This structure ensures that Safe Food Victoria will benefit from strong governance while continuing to draw on the expertise and insights of those working within the food sector.

One of the most significant benefits of this reform is that it will allow Victoria’s food safety system to take a truly whole-of-supply-chain approach. Currently responsibility for regulating different parts of the food system sits with different regulators. This can sometimes create difficulties when responding to risks that cut across multiple parts of the supply chain. Safe Food Victoria will take a broader paddock-to-plate view of food safety. By bringing together expertise and oversight within a single organisation the regulator will be better placed to identify risks, coordinate responses and support businesses in meeting food safety requirements. This approach aligns regulation more closely with the way the food industry operates and ensures that oversight remains focused on protecting public health.

Another important benefit of this reform is the creation of a single point of contact for food businesses. Safe Food Victoria will act as a single front door for food safety inquiries, licensing and regulatory engagement. This will make it easier for businesses to understand their obligations and to access advice or guidance when they need it. This is particularly valuable for businesses that operate across multiple parts of the food supply chain. For example, a cafe that produces its own cheese or smallgoods for sale may currently fall under the oversight of several different regulators, depending on the activity involved. Similarly a horticulture grower who packages produce onsite for retail sale may interact with different regulators at different stages of the process. These businesses are often innovative and diversified, but the current regulatory structure can make compliance more complicated than it needs to be. By consolidating regulatory oversight within Safe Food Victoria, businesses will have clearer guidance and a more straightforward pathway when engaging with government.

The current system can also require businesses to obtain multiple permissions when their activities span different regulatory frameworks. A diversified farm business operating a farm gate shop, a cafe and a small food manufacturing operation may need several different licences or registrations, depending on the products they sell. For example, they might require a PrimeSafe licence to process meat products, registration with Agriculture Victoria to produce eggs or berries and registration with their local council to operate a cafe or food manufacturing business. While each of these permissions serves an important purpose, the combined process can become complicated and time consuming for businesses to navigate. Safe Food Victoria will help simplify these arrangements by bringing oversight into a single authority, reducing duplication and providing clearer pathways for businesses to meet their regulatory obligations. Importantly, these reforms do not change the standards businesses must meet to keep food safe; instead they improve the way that those standards are administered.

A consolidated regulator will also strengthen Victoria’s ability to respond to food safety incidents. At present, incident response arrangements differ across regulators, with centralised leadership from the Department of Health but with operational capacity often sitting elsewhere. This can complicate decision-making when a rapid response is required. A single regulator with consolidated expertise and authority will make it easier to coordinate responses and ensure that decisions can be taken quickly when risks arise. In a world where food supply chains are increasingly complex, having clear leadership and coordinated capability during an incident is critical to protecting public health. These changes are really important for food safety, for our communities and for the state of Victoria, and I therefore commend this bill to the house.

 Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (15:28): Acting Speaker Farnham, what a delight it is to see you in the chair. I was getting carried away discussing the food industry with the member for Murray Plains, who I have known for some time, but I am still continually surprised to learn that he knows quite a bit about the dairy industry. I am also surprised to learn that he knew when the automatic milking machine was invented in the 1920s – he was obviously one of the first ones to use it! – and also of his knowledge around PrimeSafe and Dairy Food Safety Victoria, noting that Leonard Vallance, who is a constituent that I will often seek advice from in my electorate, was the chair of PrimeSafe for a while. They do deserve a great amount of thanks, these two bodies that have been around for quite some time, given the extraordinary amount of work that they have done.

It is interesting to listen to those for whom the only interaction they have with the food producing industry is when it lands on the plate and they go to eat it – which is great. I mean, that is why we are in business. That is wonderful.

I hope that learning about this bill has opened some eyes on both sides of the house as to how much regulatory burden there is in food production. Amalgamating PrimeSafe and Dairy Food Safety, it has been explained, could streamline the regulatory burden. Let us hope, as the member for Murray Plains said. I made some notes myself: will this reduce costs as far as regulation and levies go? If it increases them, then it defeats the purpose.

I have been having a lot of discussions, as I always do, because I am deeply entrenched in food production. But one thing I hear a lot about is the regulatory burden for anyone that exports and even from the governing bodies, all of them, the amount of paperwork, administration and auditing. I mentioned in here yesterday during one of my contributions – I cannot remember which one, because there are so many – the amount of audits particularly for fresh food – table grapes, stone fruit – anyone that exports around the world has to complete; for example, Global GAP audits, Freshcare audits. Even domestically, Coles, Woolies and all the supermarkets have their own.

Hopefully this kind of streamlining might filter to some others. It is probably federal jurisdiction, but what actually needs to happen with those types of audits and regulation is to streamline all of those audits. These cost 10 to 12 grand each audit, and everyone has to do every single one depending on where you are sending your food. That could be north of 50, 60 grand per season to get into a market, and you need a market. Wouldn’t the magical solution be to amalgamate all those into one and have it covered by Freshcare or Global GAP both domestically and for export to other countries? That is one thing that I am working on, Acting Speaker Farnham, and by the look on your face, you are terribly interested in that kind of work. I know it is not sexy work, but it is practical and will save farmers and food producers a huge amount of money and a huge amount of regulatory burden that they do not want. They do not want to be sitting at a desk doing audit paperwork. They want to be out there producing food and, at the moment, spraying.

We are talking about table grapes. Botrytis is a huge problem now after all the rain that they have had and they need to get spray and go out there and spray. Botrytis, for your information, is a grey mould that affects strawberries, grapes and cherries I think. It is a huge problem. Put on top of that all of the other pressures that farmers are going through at the moment – fuel shortages, because they are shortages; the weather; the cost of water – $550 a megalitre is a huge cost.

We heard the member for Lowan in her lead contribution talk about how we are not opposing this bill at all. We are congratulating the work of PrimeSafe and Dairy Food Safety. But the member for Lowan has proposed to include in the bill mandatory plant-based disclosure. I know this is a large sticking point for the dairy industry and dairy producers. Again, the member for Murray Plains pointed out it is not milk. Almond milk is nut juice. Oat milk is grain juice. Soy might be bean juice, I do not know. But it is not milk, so it should be mandatory that it is disclosed. Even for lab-created meat or plant-based meat there needs to be –

Peter Walsh interjected.

Jade BENHAM: Fake meat. It is fake. It is not meat. It is some other sort of protein. That should also be disclosed on these sorts of products so as not to lead to a misleading product description. I would have thought it was consumer law but certainly a consumer expectation at the very least and a consumer transparency requirement. Transparency is not a huge priority for this government, we know that, but it should be as far as food safety goes, 100 per cent, because we are all consumers of the food industry at some point, aren’t we?

While we are not opposing this bill, it does give me a chance to talk about – because of course local governments look after retail foods, restaurants, cafes and such. I know you have been saying for years now, Acting Speaker Farnham, that a visit to Mildura is due, and yet here we are, still waiting – we are spoilt for choice in Mildura when it comes to restaurants and cafes. Not only are we producing food, but the restaurant scene in Mildura in particular is exceptional, with Stefano’s Restaurant, owned by a very famous TV chef – one of the OG TV chefs and a card-carrying Labor member I think. The Spanish bar and grill is also exceptional. They do an amazing steak. The Province is no longer there, by Matt De Angelo, but it was an amazing Italian restaurant, which I am sure you would have loved, Acting Speaker. Sharp’s Bakery is of course the home of Australia’s best vanilla slice and best bee sting – unpopular opinion, but it is. There is Brass Monkey, Brother Chris and even our pubs in Mildura. The Gateway actually constructed, expanded and redeveloped their pub during COVID, mind you – what a time to be alive and do some pub renovations, during COVID – but the end product was Verde, which uses a lot of local produce. The food that is produced – it is a pub; it is an icon in Mildura – is amazing.

Peter Walsh interjected.

Jade BENHAM: I am getting to Sea Lake. I am doing it geographically, member for Murray Plains. I will take up that interjection. I have not forgotten Sea Lake. In Sea Lake, which is a popular stop for me every time I drive down, because I drive all the time, there is a cafe, restaurant and catering business called The Juke. Ezra and Dylan own The Juke. They used to have the kitchen at the pub. They are no longer in the community-owned-and-operated pub across the road, the Royal, anymore. Ezra and Dylan make the most amazing food. I will put it on the record and say that the bacon and egg rolls at The Juke in Sea Lake are without a doubt the best in Australia. I do not know what he is doing to those eggs, but they are amazing. It has probably got a bit to do with the brioche buns and the amount of butter contained in them, but that is beside the point.

We are so spoilt for choice when it comes to food – not only food production and the fact that we can spend our entire lives dedicated to feeding the world. I said in this place last week, ‘Who’d be a farmer?’ – we would, because we love it. It has never been tougher, and it is only getting tougher, but we love it. This is why we do it: we love it. Not only do we get to produce the food in all aspects: Mallee lamb, dairy – it gets a bit hot right up my way for dairy. Fresh food in particular, grains, beer and wine, dried fruits – we produce it all. And then we have amazing restaurants that can actually put it on the plate. That is why we do it, because we love the food industry in the electorate of Mildura.

 Gary MAAS (Narre Warren South) (15:38): I too rise to speak on the Safe Food Victoria Bill 2026. The bill is about making things easier for our food businesses and safer for all Victorians. The bill marks the creation of a new body, Safe Food Victoria, which is the long-planned merger of our state’s food safety regulators. The goal of the reform is to make sure our food safety regulators are fit for purpose in their important role in keeping our community safe from the various food safety risks that can present. This is particularly important as these risks changes often and require a proactive government to manage them. Our current food safety system needs a refresh to make sure it is up to speed for years to come. The current system is complex and is currently governed by four separate pieces of legislation and overseen by multiple regulators. Under this bill we are streamlining the system and consolidating these authorities. Food safety is such an important part of our everyday lives that we put a lot of trust in, from where we buy our groceries through to who manufactures them and processes the products we buy to the local busy restaurants that are in our communities – it is right across the supply chain.

We must make sure our responsible regulator is strong and adaptive so we can all have confidence in the safety of our food and our food businesses. The bill means simpler processes and greater consistency for Victorian food businesses and the important regulatory functions to get fresh food to market and ultimately to our plates. The bill will implement stage 1 of a two-stage reform program to consolidate food safety regulators in Victoria.

Stage 1 will see the establishment of Safe Food Victoria, effectively creating a single front door for food safety queries. Safe Food Victoria will be established by mid-2026 and will report to the Minister for Agriculture. The bill will therefore create the new aforementioned statutory authority, Safe Food Victoria. This will replace PrimeSafe as the current regulator of meat, seafood and poultry and Dairy Food Safety Victoria, as well as conduct the food safety regulatory functions currently undertaken by the Department of Health. PrimeSafe and Dairy Food Safety Victoria will both be abolished through this process. Importantly, the health portfolio remains in charge of public health issues and will continue to advocate and progress programs to support issues such as nutrition. The agriculture portfolio and Safe Food Victoria will primarily focus on acute issues, like ensuring businesses produce safe and suitable food, while supporting government initiatives related to chronic public health issues.

Stage 2 will see the development of a new framework for food safety in Victoria. The reforms will streamline regulatory processes and ensure greater consistency across the supply chain – from the paddock right through to the plate. This process is in the early stages but will continue through to 2027. These changes will work to strengthen our food safety system by making it more robust, making it more agile and making it more responsive to effectively manage risk, innovate and work on improvements for the future.

In terms of context, currently the responsibility of food regulation is shared across several government departments, ministers, Dairy Food Safety Victoria and PrimeSafe as well as local councils, and that has created a complex regulatory environment. Rather than four entities regulating over 100,000 food businesses across the state and across the supply chain, Safe Food Victoria will have oversight over the supply chain to ensure food is safe, with support from the departments and local councils, who do the important work of carrying regulations out on the ground right through our communities.

The consolidation of the food safety regulators allows for further confidence for Victorians in the safety of their food. A benefit for a single regulator is that there is improved access to shared data and knowledge systems, meaning that risk can be better identified and managed to protect public health, and a single digital front door for those utilising the regulator, meaning leadership is clearer, permissions are simpler and it is easier to do business. I am sure for food businesses across my electorate of Narre Warren South this will be a welcome improvement. It will reduce regulatory burden for them. Less forms, less duplication and less permissions will be required, with all of this found in the one place. Especially for those small businesses who might not have the manpower to do this type of administration, the reform will mean reduced barriers, all while keeping them up to regulatory food safety standards.

We are talking about better management of more complex businesses which have been covered by multiple regulators – for instance, a cafe in Hampton Park in my electorate that might be producing its own cheese to sell to customers; and improvements to the way incidents are responded to to manage the diverse food safety risks we might encounter and the way responses are set up as well in the case of a complex event – for example, the blue-green algae in South Australia.

A consolidated regulator is successfully used in other jurisdictions. By comparison, in Australia, you see that is already in existence in New South Wales and in Queensland, and just across the ditch as well, over in New Zealand. The reforms outlined in this bill to consolidate the food safety regulator meet the feedback provided by consultation through Engage Victoria with key stakeholders as well. In this consultation, over 90 per cent of stakeholders support the move to a single regulator. The consolidation of regulators is part of Victoria’s Economic Growth Statement that focuses on unlocking new economic growth by removing barriers and making it simpler to do business in Victoria. We are making it simpler, and we are making it more accessible for businesses to do business in Victoria, while maintaining high-quality regulation so businesses can focus on what they do best: creating jobs, fostering innovation and driving economic growth as well. While those opposite do like to talk about the ways they would make things easier for businesses in our state, they do tend to oppose sensible options when they are presented. This is a sensible option. We are not being hypocritical. Our government is busy ensuring a stronger regulator for food safety, while supporting businesses and a strong Victorian economy too.

In conclusion, I would just say that this is a good bill. We know how much the food safety regulator is relied upon right across the state, whether that be for the agricultural and production industry, whether it is for our distributors and manufacturers, whether it is for our retailers, including restaurants, local cafes and of course, our public health sector and all those stakeholders that may lie in between. As I said, it is a good bill. In short, the bill will make this system fairer and smarter through the establishment of the key body Safe Food Victoria, and on that basis, I commend the bill to the house.

 Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (15:47): Acting Speaker Farnham, first I must say there has been a lot of genuine appreciation of you in the chair. I was watching a couple of other members standing up here and giving you a big pat on the back, so well done to you. I get to stand up and talk on the Safe Food Victoria Bill 2026, and we get to talk about the region both you and I come from too, down through the Latrobe Valley and Gippsland and West Gippsland. As we heard from the member for Lowan when she actually led the debate off on the Safe Food Victoria Bill, I think everybody in the chamber realises that we do have to have mechanisms in place to make sure that we protect our food sources and make sure there are regulations that our farmers and our providers of our food and grain right around regional Victoria need to go through to make sure that the products that we are receiving are of quality, which they always have been and always will be, because what our farmers produce is outstanding. We are very lucky here in Australia. We also need to try and reduce the amount of regulation and extra work that our primary producers have to go through to actually get their produce, as we heard from the member for Mildura, not just around the great state of Victoria and interstate, but also overseas. Everything that we can do to streamline what needs to be done, we need to make sure we are doing in this area. As the member for Mildura said, we also need to make sure that we are not putting the extra burden of extra cost on our farmers as we are trying to streamline what needs to happen here.

Obviously, the purpose of the bill, as you would be well aware of, Acting Speaker, having listened to others stand here and talk, is to abolish Dairy Food Safety Victoria and PrimeSafe, the two entities that have been in charge of ensuring that what we move from our paddock and onto our plate is of a very, very high quality.

Down in our region in Gippsland, Acting Speaker Farnham, we are heavily reliant on a lot of dairy and beef farmers in and around there, and up your way in Thorpdale as well we have the world-famous potato farmers. So we do have a lot of primary production down around there. One of my good mates, Peter Ayres, lives out at Flynn. Amongst other things he is a maker of spectacles in his work life, and in his spare time he runs his beef farm out at Flynn. In having a relationship and seeing how hard Peter has to work and the regulation to get his quality beef around Victoria, this is going to make, I hope, his life a lot easier and more streamlined, being able to make sure that what he is producing is still of a high quality. He brings beef here into Melbourne and right around the state. Also they run a wedding venue out at Bonnie Brae, out at Flynn, so there are a lot of weddings in the summertime. To see the set-up of the wedding venue with a working farm – there are a lot of people that just do not realise how much work goes into running that farm, and especially a lot of our city brothers and sisters that travel down really enjoy the experience of being out on the farm in that environment.

Not only do we need to make sure that our food and fibre are secure and safe, but we also need to make sure that the pressures on our farmers are as low as they can be by making structured, sensible decisions here in the chamber. One of the issues, talking about Peter, that he has had of late is transmission lines coming through Flynn and the impacts they may have, thinking about that visual impact for him on his farm with his wedding venue but also the security of making sure that we are not getting rid of that prime farming land. As we spread out around the state – it does not matter if it is here; we have only got to look around the Pakenham area, Acting Speaker, and how massively that has grown over time. That has moved into some prime production area, and I know you and I sat on a committee where we had a look at how we do keep our prime farming land safe and working, because what we do know is the further we move out, the more pressures it does put on costs for the farmers to get their produce into the city. If you are a beef farmer with abattoirs around the place, the abattoirs have actually diminished over time, and these primary producers now are paying a heck of a price for being able to cart their produce to the abattoir so it can come out into the regions and into the city so we can enjoy what they do have to offer. And it is not only if you are a beef farmer or you have got chickens on your farm or eggs or whatever it is, or you are producing milk – our dairy farmers – or the food and fibre that they produce up in and around the Mallee and up into Mildura; there are these associated costs of fuel, as we have been speaking about this week, and chemicals and fertilisers and spraying our crops.

The member for Mildura and the member for Murray Plains have also spoken about the ongoing cost of being able to access water.

Jade Benham interjected.

Martin CAMERON: Was it $550 a megalitre? It is mind-blowing if you go back over the journey of what they have been paying.

I think everyone stands in agreement here that it is good what we are doing, making sure that we are streamlining the process of being able to get our produce from the paddock to the plate. It is fantastic that we are able to do that in here.

But on the flip side, going back to the pressures that are on the farm, we have only got to look at some of our regions right around Victoria, as I said before, with transmission lines coming through, with solar farms going on and batteries, we need to make sure that this infrastructure is going in the right places and not on our good fertile land where we are growing our crops and feeding our cattle, whether you are a dairy farmer or a beef farmer. We need to make sure that we absolutely, 100 per cent have a focus on protecting that prime agricultural land. There are a lot of veggie growers that were close to Melbourne, as I said before, that have just been continually pushed further and further out by our thirst for trying to build houses in Victoria as we try and get that number up. It is a double-edged sword, especially down our way. We know the process of trying to get our produce down here into the city, driving on roads that really are not up to scratch, causing grief not only with fuel costs as we talk about that but also the maintenance costs of our trucks. You have only got to talk to any logistics teams around the place with trucks that are running up and down the roads about their costs of maintenance, whether it be tyres or springs and shocks or even the wear and tear on the engines themselves as they have to slow down and speed up.

We do not oppose this Safe Food Victoria Bill, and we wish it a speedy passage, and I know that we do have a couple of amendments that we are going to bring up in the other place. We are working hard together here to make sure that what we are putting forward here in Parliament in the Safe Food Victoria Bill 2026 is ticking all the boxes, making sure it as good as it can be, because we need to protect our farmers and make their lives a lot easier, and this is the place where we can start to do it.

 Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (15:57): This bill is about making things easier for business and safer for all Victorians, noting the importance of food safety and the vicissitude of risks that can unfold. I do feel a sense of gratitude, noting the high standards that have been maintained in Victoria. It is a credit to the food growers – they must have to use the most meticulous care to be able to deliver high-quality produce that is safe for consumption, all the way to bringing it down to local places such as the great South Melbourne Market in my seat of Albert Park. In my electorate there are just so many cafes and restaurants that if I start to list them, we will be here all night; that is a good problem to have. But I do respect the incredible care that is taken by all those all the way through the system to make sure that we can safely consume the products that are in front of us.

Not that it is relevant to this conversation really, but I have never really had food poisoning in Victoria. Again, I do not think that is luck – that is a credit to all the hard work of all those involved, from the growers right down to food servers and the cafes and restaurants. I have had the odd bad bain-marie; I had a couple in Queensland years ago. I remember I had a turkey sandwich with mayonnaise; I was chewing it and I was thinking, ‘Gee, this tastes awful’, but I kept eating it, which was probably not the most sensible decision to make. That had consequences that flowed on from there, because we know that our senses can sometimes alert us to these things but not always. This is why we are reliant on good regulation, because we may not always make the best decisions. Another food poisoning scenario – and this will be the last one, I promise, because it is not really the most pleasant thing to share – I was overseas and I had another bad bain-marie, and then I was on a train and I remember feeling absolutely shocking. I had some good advice from someone on the train who said – this is not medical advice, by the way – ‘Nina, scull that Coke. You need to get that out of your system as quickly as possible because if you don’t, you will be down for days.’

So I did scull it, and let me tell you, it did work. I am not being disparaging to Coke, but it did bring the matter up. I am sorry; it is not very nice to talk about that. I was down for one day – one day on my back – but after that I recovered and could enjoy the rest of the trip.

What is the moral of the story? The moral of the story is I see good value in high-quality regulation, in strong regulation, when it comes to many things but indeed food safety. And a bain-marie must be kept at just the right temperature. Not only should the food be put in there in the first place in a fresh and appropriate condition, it must be maintained at a good temperature. So having experienced some negative things – and I am sure I am not alone, and I recovered very well – I have absolute respect for the fundamentals that we are seeking to deliver here, because we know that the nature of the risks when it comes to food safety is changing all the time. Status quo is not necessarily the best approach, and in fact taking a proactive approach is really important, and this is what is underpinning the vital reforms that are coming through here.

We know that the current food safety regulatory system is overly complex. I think there are four Victorian acts and two responsible ministers. The system is currently regulated by the Department of Health, the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, Dairy Food Safety Victoria, PrimeSafe and 79 local councils. We have already heard from the member for Monbulk of the problems that arose when she used to have a small business from different councils having different rules, which created undue complexity and which did not necessarily deliver the best outcomes for consumers ultimately. Fundamentally it is important that we are improving the system with the hope that actually we are not only being proactive and being ready for the evolving risks that there are when it comes to the management of food safety but also making it easier for businesses to do what they do so well.

This is why we are consolidating our food regulators in Victoria and creating Safe Food Victoria, which is a long-planned merger of food safety regulators in Victoria, just to be very specific on that point. It will certainly – and this is what is pleasing for businesses, one of a number of benefits – reduce the number of permissions required by businesses, making it easier to do business, and that is what we want to see. Businesses can often conduct multiple activities that do not neatly sit in a commodity-specific framework, which makes sense. Henceforth if we are able to – which we are seeking to do through this bill – simplify those processes, then that has got to be a good thing.

We also note that with this system, in terms of food safety management, there has been extensive consultation. I respect that people can have different views on who should be on X or other board, but I know that there has been extensive consultation on this matter, noting just how important it is and how many stakeholders have a significant and appropriate interest in how food safety is going to be regulated into the future, making sure that there are those practical inputs as required to ensure that truly the goal of maintaining excellent food safety is able to be fully executed.

Certainly as a government we are about making positive future-looking improvements rather than responding to a specific current problem or failure. I would proffer that that makes good sense, because you have to anticipate the various risks that may be in the foreseeable future. Several reviews have identified that while the system is working, there are weaknesses that could lead to problems if not addressed. This includes having many small regulators completing similar regulatory tasks, leading to regulatory inefficiency. I would have thought those opposite would be on board with reducing inefficiency in this space, and I believe they broadly are. They have said that they will support the bill, although there may be some amendments in the upper house, so we will see what that means.

There are also gaps in our current food regulatory system, particularly in regard to novel and emerging technologies and responding to business models which include producing products that span multiple parts of our regulatory system. Acting proactively to ensure the ongoing strength and credibility of our food safety regulatory system is critical to maintaining public health and consumer and market trust in our great Victorian produce.

It is certainly something I feel a lot of pride in; I am sure everyone in this chamber does. We are so fortunate to be able to access so much beautiful fresh produce. I am going to go back to the South Melbourne Market because, honestly, the meat is incredible, the seafood – people flock there for the fresh seafood week on week. It would take a lot of due care to be able to manage all that seafood and make sure that it is safe for human consumption.

I do want to do a shout-out for Rita’s Coffee & Nuts. Rita Karambetsos has been there as a business owner, and I also pay respect to her husband, who passed not so long ago. In true fighting spirit, Rita is continuing her business and produces the most amazing nuts and coffee and chocolates and sweets and beautiful things. Those nuts are super fresh – oh, my goodness. I am just saying, the walnuts are second to none. Anyway, I just wanted to salute her because that business has been there 37 years, and that takes incredible dedication and skill and care for the local community as well, really providing fantastic service. This is not to mention all the other beautiful cafes and restaurants in my area, but I just did want to do a shout-out to her because I know she has been through some difficult times but in true fighting spirit, she is incredibly resilient, and she is continuing – and it is a family business as well – to deliver really lovely products, which I certainly love to consume, and I am sure many locally and from afar are enjoying as well. On that note, I commend these important changes in the bill to the house. I know it is really important to continue the very high standards we have in food safety regulation and also to be proactive in anticipating foreseeable risks into the future.

 Wayne FARNHAM (Narracan) (16:07): I am pleased to rise today on the Safe Food Victoria Bill 2026. I will reference the member for Albert Park’s latest contribution. The South Melbourne Market is a great place. I have been there many a time. It might not shock anyone in this chamber that I think South Melbourne dim sims are probably the best thing in the joint. Look, my body is a temple; it is just built like a pyramid, unfortunately.

Paul Edbrooke: The temple of doom!

Wayne FARNHAM: On occasion it can be. But I really want to go back to the member for Murray Plains and his contribution. I actually really do enjoy listening to the member for Murray Plains. He is very experienced in this chamber, and he has great life experience as well. He talked about our milk sector and when the automation of milking machines came in in the 1920s. As the member for Mildura referred to, he was there for that leap forward in technology in the milking industry. There was another time in this chamber when the member for Murray Plains was speaking, again on experience, and that was when the Prahran Mechanics Institute bill came in in 2024. The Prahran Mechanics Institute existed from 1896, and the member for Murray Plains had good experience there too. I always enjoy listening to the member for Murray Plains.

Jade Benham: There is one person in here who can do that, Wayne, and it’s not you.

Wayne FARNHAM: He will live. He will be fine. But look, essentially this bill is about streamlining PrimeSafe and dairy food safety in the state. Again, the member for Murray Plains said some really good things in his contribution, and that would be that if we are going to streamline this process to make it easier for farmers and to make the processes easier – and this side of the chamber actually hopes that works, we really do – in doing so, costs need to come down.

It is very, very important for our farmers that we ease the pressure on them because at the moment they are under the pump. The farmers in this state feel like a punching bag for the state government at the moment with everything that has been pushed on them with the emergency services levy – I think that is coming in on 1 July this year for farmers – and with compulsory acquisition of land for renewable projects and transmission lines, not to mention all the natural disasters they have had to go through with fire, flood, drought and buying in water at $550, what was that –

A member interjected.

Wayne FARNHAM: $550 a megalitre, which puts a huge, huge burden on farmers. I do feel for our farming community at the moment, and every member that is part of a farming community will tell the same story in this chamber. It does not matter whether you come from Narracan, Morwell, Gippsland South, Gippsland East, Mildura, Murray Plains or Euroa – and Lowan as well – in any of these areas in this state the farmers are telling the same story, but we on this side of the chamber feel as though the government is not listening to the farmers. So if this bill actually streamlines processes and makes things cheaper, then that is a good thing. But I do agree with the member for Murray Plains when he picked up that this should be reviewed. We have had two bodies in this state, PrimeSafe and Dairy Food Safety, that have done an incredible job in the time that they have been in place. They have done a good job. And yes, they may be outdated now but they may not. This is why the review is important. This is where, if we had the review in place, we could gauge the effectiveness of this bill for our farming communities across the state. I think it is very important. It is something the government should really consider.

If I look at my area of Narracan, which takes in West Gippsland and Gippsland as a whole, we produce about 20 per cent of Australia’s dairy. My area is high in dairy, high in beef and high in produce, so my area is actually what this bill is about. I look at my area and what they are going through at the moment, particularly with the BESS projects, the battery energy storage system projects, that are taking up prime agricultural land with no consultation with the community. The people developing these projects have to go through a community consultation process, which is literally a tick and flick – they turn up at a hall for three hours on a Sunday and go, ‘Come and see us.’ But they turn up from 4 to 7. What are dairy farmers doing from 4 till 7? They are milking cows, so it does not give them the opportunity.

My community is actually very concerned about these BESS projects, especially if they catch on fire. You talk to the people doing the developments, and they say, ‘We have an internal mechanism for the battery. If there’s a fire, it puts it out.’ But they are not talking about the external effects when you build a BESS project in a bushfire overlay area. My electorate has been subject to pretty severe bushfires, especially in 2009 and 2020. The community is rightly concerned that those batteries are not protected adequately. The reason they are concerned, especially about the ones in Shady Creek, is because about a kilometre and a half down the road as the crow flies is the Fonterra milk-processing plant. When we are talking about food safety, if these batteries catch alight and there are fires from the north – and predominantly in my area when the wind is from the north in those very hot conditions, that is when we are most at risk – that toxic smoke will go straight into the Fonterra milk-processing plant. We are talking about food safety in this bill. I have asked the minister on numerous occasions not to allow these BESS projects to go ahead in these areas, for that reason.

The fact that they can remove an overlay and put a BESS project in there is not great, in my opinion – and that is any overlay. It could be a bushfire overlay, it could be a cultural heritage overlay, it could be a flood overlay; it is the fact that they can remove them. But particularly these two in Shady Creek are really in the wrong location.

I was talking to a couple of my producers today, and I was talking to a producer out at Thorpdale about the war in Iran and the effect that is having on fuel prices at the moment. At no point in time am I blaming the state government for the war in Iran – do not get me wrong – but we have to think of implications, and I think every government probably in this country has been negligent in never preparing for the worst when it comes to fuel. And who does it affect first off? Our primary producers – it is always our primary producers. This producer in Thorpdale – and I know the member for Murray Plains will know these people – is Durkin transport. Durkin transport supply all the brushed potatoes for Woolworths throughout the state. They do an enormous amount of kilometres, you can imagine, across the state, and at the moment their fuel bill has gone up $50,000 in a week – $50,000. Currently today they only have seven days supply.

Obviously with everything that goes on in the agricultural sector, even for a big producer like Durkins, $50,000 in a week in lost revenue is an enormous hit. Now they have got to try and renegotiate to get that money back, and this is the problem. This is where I think governments have failed: we really do not prepare for the worst when things happen. As I said, I am not blaming the state government at all for the war in Iran, but I think any government in this country should have a contingency plan so that when we get to stages like this in the state there is a plan to go forward so our food can still hit the plate, because if our farmers cannot harvest, if they cannot seed, if they cannot milk and if they cannot transport the milk, everyone in the state suffers. I think it is incumbent on government going forward that they actually do have a plan.

As previous speakers have said, we do not oppose this bill. There will be amendments in the other place; those amendments will come forward there. But in the meantime the government should start looking after the farmers.

 John LISTER (Werribee) (16:17): When it comes to food safety, we cannot just let it brie. I am really fondue of regulatory reform being more efficient. You cheddar believe it. In talking about the Safe Food Victoria Bill 2026 and our work to bring Dairy Food Safety Victoria and PrimeSafe together into a single regulatory authority, I think it is particularly important in the context of this week, as we have been talking about regulatory reform, to reflect on how this will make things more efficient when it comes to keeping the community safe, also guaranteeing industry viability and also encouraging innovation as well.

This is particularly important for my community. A lot of people think that Werribee is just all housing, but it is not. Werribee is still one of the key agricultural centres when it comes to innovation in both dairy and grains. Quite literally in the middle of Werribee is what used to be called the State Research Farm, which from 1912 led innovation in research around pulses and wheat. At one point 90 per cent of the wheat grown in Victoria had its genetic origins from breeding programs at the State Research Farm. They pioneered practices around artificial insemination and IVF, particularly for the meat industry. They also had innovations in dairy technology down there, including around spreadable butter, which I do not think any of us could live without now; flavoured yoghurts; different types of flavoured milk; and different types of ice cream. The State Research Farm is now in a different phase. We are moving towards having some of those existing tenants, like the Gilbert Chandler dairy innovation centre, Melbourne University and their faculties of agriculture and veterinary science, and the CSIRO down there on Sneydes Road, as anchor tenants for what will be the future East Werribee precinct. We want to have this high-quality manufacturing and innovation happening there, particularly – and something I am particularly passionate about – in the food industry.

Making sure that we have a regulatory body that is what you could call a one-stop shop when it comes to food safety is particularly important. It is important because not only have we had the innovation in Werribee around those different types of food products but also we grow the products themselves. Just across in my learned friend the member for Point Cook’s electorate, in Werribee South, which I have to say is spiritually still attached to the electorate of Werribee, 10 per cent of Victoria’s vegetables are grown – 85 per cent of it is cauliflower, 53 per cent of it is broccoli and 34 per cent of it is lettuce. Also we still have egg production in the Werribee electorate just on Bulban Road at Casaccio Egg Farms, which is a huge local operation supplying IGAs and Foodworks across Victoria. A lot of food production is happening in Werribee.

We have always been at the forefront of technology. Down at the CSIRO, I recently went on a tour late last year and got to see some of those different innovations that they are doing, particularly around manufacturing. $50 million has been put into this facility down there. Again, it is one of those anchors in that future innovation down at East Werribee. Not only are they doing things around how to manufacture certain products and how to package certain products but they are also doing a lot of work around safety and screening of products, something that will feed into the work of Safe Food Victoria, which we are looking to establish with this bill. The other thing about the East Werribee precinct, especially at the Melbourne University campus, is they do a lot of emergency screening for potential biohazards like bird flu, foot and mouth and all those other sorts of nasty diseases that organisations like PrimeSafe and soon-to-be Safe Food Victoria look out for. That work is being done down at Hoppers Lane and Princes Highway. I see the member for Point Cook has arrived for my contribution. He loves this part of the world.

Mathew Hilakari interjected.

John LISTER: Werribee South’s spiritual home is the electorate of Werribee; I knew that would get a rise out of him. I have to say it is particularly important, as we are looking at having this consolidated food safety regulator, that it is not just about the retailers or the food manufacturers that we have across the western suburbs. It is also about giving those industries that one-stop shop to go to for all that advice, that professional industry knowledge that has been developed through Dairy Food Safety and PrimeSafe over the years, to bring it closer together with those functions of the Department of Health, particularly around some of those nasty diseases that are being detected down at East Werribee. Strengthening our food safety system, making it more robust to manage that risk, is something that we are doing down at Werribee and we will be able to work in with Safe Food Victoria.

Fostering innovation and continual improvement – like I said, in Werribee we have developed a lot of stuff down at the research farm. Flavoured milk – there is quite a journey around flavoured milk, particularly a lot of the work around maintaining the safety of UHT flavoured milk. If anyone’s a fan of Nippy’s, they did a lot of development down at the CSIRO around the safety of their UHT products. Although they are a South Australian company, I would always welcome them to be manufacturing in Melbourne’s western suburbs, and I am sure they are watching this right now.

But it is too important to our society, food safety, to take a reactive stance. Having a one-stop shop where we can have this sort of work with research bodies like CSIRO and the University of Melbourne and the dairy innovation centre means that we are able to keep ahead of any emerging problems in the market. This is something that is already happening in terms of having this single regulator in places like New South Wales, Queensland and New Zealand, which obviously relies extremely heavily on agriculture for its GDP.

When I was doing a little bit of research into this on the train the other day I was looking at a graphic representation of the current regulatory authorities that we have got when it comes to food. I was trying to think of a situation. I want to start a food truck in Werribee. Where do I have to go? At the moment I am going through council. If I want to sell fresh salami that I make, I need to make sure that I go through PrimeSafe to get the authority to be able to store it with the refrigeration requirements and things like that. If I am selling cheese that has been developed – in partnership with the dairy innovation centre in East Werribee – then I need to make sure that I go to Dairy Food Safety Victoria to get advice and the authority to be able to sell that. It is quite an effort.

I spoke earlier this week about meeting with local businesses, particularly through the Committee for Wyndham and talking about that regulatory environment and how difficult it can be to navigate. If I was looking at this mind map of different regulatory authorities just to be able to open a food truck, I would be totally putting it off. That is why it is important to have these single bodies, these one-stop shops. Of course this does not preclude the role of local council. The work of organisations like Wyndham City Council in enforcing food standards is particularly important, and I appreciate the work that they do, and so is the work that is done through the Department of Health when it comes to the human health interface and ensuring that that is still there. This does not preclude some of those arrangements, but what it does do is make it more efficient, as it is in one place.

Having an efficient regulator at the moment means we have four primary regulators, which equals around two CEOs and executive staff in different departments, four separate IT systems, 17 board positions and four separate sites around Melbourne that they operate out of. One of the regulators currently works out of Camberwell, which is interesting. It is not renowned for its food production, but I am sure it is a very convenient location to be having public servants. Having this new body cuts those duplicative elements of the regulatory system, improving efficiency without cutting frontline staff, because we know that what comes with those frontline staff is decades of experience in the food industry. Having that as part of a new body, with new branding and a new organisation behind it, will be particularly important. I commend this bill to the house.

 Josh BULL (Sunbury) (16:27): From listening very intently to the very fine member for Werribee, there is certainly no chance at all that I can top that contribution. It was a very good contribution on what is an important bill, and it gave a sense of the member for Werribee’s understanding of the complexity that comes with food safety in this state. The range of entities that are involved with the management of food safety is something that the member touched on. When you look at the detail and the provisions within this bill, the fact is that there are four existing acts, two responsible ministers and regulations that are enforced by the Department of Health, the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Change, Dairy Food Safety Victoria, PrimeSafe and 79 local councils. That is something that is really important and has been reflected on through the debate that has run this afternoon.

I understand we have got some other business to deal with. My intention will be to keep the contribution relatively short, but I do want to take the opportunity to thank the ministerial offices for the way that this has been brought to the house. My understanding is that there has been extensive consultation that has formed part of the delivery of this bill. Engage Victoria had 123 responses and 2579 visitors, and of the 123 responses 93 per cent of the submissions were supportive of the planned efforts to improve the food regulatory system. What I think has been well canvassed through the debate this afternoon is the continual improvement function of the bill and the government’s position, not just when it comes to food safety but when it comes to all of the bills that come before the house, and the sense of ensuring that we are continually updating and continually improving and providing legislation that is fit for purpose. Having legislation that is fit for purpose and that deals with the practicality of being on the ground and making sure that food safety is well supported is, first and foremost, important for consumers, but also important for small businesses and large businesses and all of those people that do terrific work in this space.

Acting Speaker Lambert, I am sure you have countless examples, as other members do, of opportunities and engagement that you have had within your community when it comes to food safety. I think what is important, in the context of mentioning the engagement that has been done on this bill, is making sure that we are providing for that fit-for-purpose legislation. It is really, really important. We are continuing to deliver that as we go forward, and making sure that we are doing that is really important. I want to acknowledge the work that has been done by the minister and the ministerial offices in bringing this to the chamber. As I said, there is no possible way I can compare to the member for Werribee and his fine contribution, and some other great contributions on this side of the house. With those short comments, I happily commend the bill to the house.

 Danny PEARSON (Essendon – Minister for Economic Growth and Jobs, Minister for Finance, Minister for Government Services) (16:31): I move:

That the debate be now adjourned

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.