Thursday, 19 March 2026

 Iwan WALTERS (Greenvale) (16:47): I rise to speak on the Safe Food Victoria Bill 2026, which we are returning to. It has been, I think, good to listen to a number of contributions both on this bill but also on the mental health amendments which have come back to the house from the Council. I do want to talk about the Safe Food Victoria Bill specifically. It is a really important bill. It is a bill which seeks to safeguard the entire supply chain of food production, distribution, sale and retail in Victoria through the restaurant trade, through cafes and through food retailers of all stripes. It is a bill which I think will improve the regulatory frameworks within which so many food manufacturers and food distributors who serve Victoria’s northern suburbs work. I am very conscious that we are home to – and indeed the Preston electorate is also home to – a significant concentration of Victoria’s food manufacturers and distributors who rely upon the primary produce grown by communities in the seats of members across this house.

The intent of this bill is to simplify what are presently very complex administrative and regulatory arrangements for farmers, for distributors, for manufacturers and for retailers. With four separate acts, two responsible ministers, a system that is regulated by the Department of Health, the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, Dairy Food Safety Victoria, PrimeSafe and 79 separate local councils, these arrangements self-evidently, I would argue, are administratively complex and challenging for entities within that entire supply chain to navigate as they seek to contribute very significantly to Victoria’s economy, while also ensuring that the produce that they grow, transport, manufacture, process and sell is safe at every step of that journey. I want to thank the Minister for Agriculture for the exhaustive consultation that has been undertaken in the context of this bill, because of the number of entities and the number of dimensions of that supply chain.

That consultation is important. It is really important to get a bill of this complexity right, because the safety of food is absolutely paramount. And I will come to proven risks to the broader economy when entities and when jurisdictions get things like food safety wrong.

But I want to speak briefly about the importance of the food sector to the broader Victorian economy, both up and downstream, as it were. If you look at areas like your own hinterland in north-west Victoria, broadacre farming, the food bowl of Victoria in a literal or perhaps metaphorical sense, it is a very significant economic driver as well as a food production area. In total, exports from the food sector are worth over $20 billion to the Victorian economy each and every year, and that number is growing. It reflects the extraordinary productivity of Victorian farmers, the way in which innovation has been embraced on-farm, both in that kind of broadacre farming sector but also the diversification that farmers have engaged in perhaps in areas of Victoria further away from Sea Lake, where there is higher rainfall, where there is that capacity to undertake things like dairying and to move into – I think someone mentioned Meredith Dairy earlier, in another contribution – those kinds of value-adding in the context of agriculture creates that economic dividend to our state which both employs Victorians but also enables us to provide exports and contribute to the national balance of payments and to the things which keep our entire economy and society prosperous and viable.

I also am mindful of the regional tourism dimensions as well as obviously exports – regional tourism can in and of itself be perceived of as an export if somebody is visiting Australia from another part of the world. But if we think about particularly regional economies where very high-profile restaurants, for example, have established themselves, places like – I have never been to them, but I am well aware of them, Acting Speaker Lambert, you are probably much more au fait with these things than I – but Brae in Birregurra and restaurants like Stefano’s up in Mildura, which are obviously well-regarded restaurants but predicated upon the presence very nearby of locally grown, world-leading and, crucially, safe food. There is a risk therefore to that entire supply chain and to those local economies if we do not have a regulatory framework that is fit for purpose.

I think very particularly about the litany of failures that has beset the British economy and the British food sector over recent decades. I was living in the UK as a very young person when the BSE, the mad cow outbreak, first really became known, and the human impacts of that in the form of vCJD, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease I think, from memory, were incredibly pernicious both to humans and life and livelihood but also to the British beef farming sector. It decimated that sector. It saw exports onto the continent of Europe and other parts of the world fall off a metaphorical cliff with a huge impact upon rural economies and rural communities, such as the one that I was living in as a very young man. But the effects of that impact on the British beef sector have been long-lasting. There remains a taint in regard to British beef that continues to bedevil agricultural economies and rural communities in Britain to this day. It remains also a significant public health challenge because of the way in which vCJD manifests and may continue to manifest in people many decades after they have been first exposed to that bovine disease. Initially, vCJD can manifest as mild symptoms of MS, and it becomes very difficult for clinicians to diagnose that disease. The reason that is so challenging from a public health perspective is because, obviously, in the context of blood transfusions, people may give blood, and that is a carrier for that incredibly dangerous and ultimately irrevocably lethal condition. It is why I have only, along with many hundreds of thousands of other Victorians, been very recently able to actually give blood in this state, because of that enduring risk.

I return to why that is important. If you do not have proper control over the supply chain – if governments abdicate that responsibility and if they do not get the regulatory frameworks right – then you have farming practices, as took place in the UK, where effectively you had cattle cannibalising other cattle in the form of the feedstock that was being supplied to them, and that then led to BSE taking root and to vCJD becoming a challenge in the human population. With no diagnosis fundamentally until after somebody who has vCJD has died, whereupon their brain can be interrogated, that is not a position we want to be in. It is obviously an extreme example in some respects, but it is one that I think speaks to the real dangers of not having appropriate regulatory settings in the context of food safety. I also recall, when living in the UK more recently, the horsemeat scandal, which was enabled as a consequence of horsemeat entering the supply chain because of lax labelling and lax food standards which remained problematic in the UK. This undermined consumer confidence in prime meat production more generally and again had a massive impact on farm gate prices and on the rural communities which depend upon them.

As I have sought to articulate, it is important to get these settings right, and that is why the consultation that the minister has undertaken was really important to avoid unforeseen consequences but to make sure that there is a clear process should issues in the context of food safety arise. There will be one point of contact for farmers, food distributors and retailers so that they do not have to navigate that complex web of multiple regulators, of 79 councils – of a multitude of different regulators having a part to play in something which we all rely upon as consumers, as people who eat food, and as people who rely upon a Victorian agriculture sector that is, as I say, generating over $20 billion of exports a year. We need to get this right for the entire supply chain, and I think this bill goes a long way to doing that. I commend it to the house.

 Pauline RICHARDS (Cranbourne) (16:57): I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this very commonsense bill that ensures not only that we look after the food bowl, which is so important to our community, but that with the creation of Safe Food Victoria we are representing a long-planned merger of food safety regulators. People may not know this about Cranbourne, but being an interface with other parts of Melbourne, we have really important asparagus farmers and other people who are providing agricultural and food goods into the Melbourne market. This is an opportunity for me to thank the many people who work particularly at our asparagus farms and some of the other suppliers that are in my electorate and are at the edge of Melbourne. As others have done, I am going to take the opportunity not just to reflect on the important role that our farmers play, especially the ones in the area near where I live and in the community that I represent, but also I am conscious of the role that they play in making sure that in our cafes and restaurants in the places where our community comes together we can rely on a safe and secure food supply. I know we have got restaurants like The Amazing Grace in Cranbourne, somewhere that people come together and really enjoy time with each other and enjoy the conviviality of Adam Sadiqzai, who is a great host.

Emma Vulin interjected.

Pauline RICHARDS: Yes, the member for Pakenham knows Adam well, and he has always made us feel welcome. I am always grateful to have the opportunity to experience the fresh produce as well as the hospitality that are on offer at The Amazing Grace. So many of our restaurants in Cranbourne represent the diversity of our community. The Afghan Star is certainly a meeting point and a place that I always make sure people come and spend time. Fresh food that the people of Afghanistan have brought to Melbourne and to Cranbourne in particular is what makes us so much stronger.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The time set down for consideration of items on the government business program has arrived, and I am required to interrupt business.

Motion agreed to.

Read second time.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The bill will now be sent to the Legislative Council and their agreement requested.