Media Release

AUSTRALIAN Party Member for Kennedy Bob Katter is drafting legislation to require warning labels on imported produce following Biosecurity’s approval for New Zealand apples to enter Australia.

Mr Katter said Australians had the right to know that fruit and vegetables grown overseas did not necessarily meet the same safety and environmental standards as Australia’s.

"The strict standards required of Australian farmers impose higher costs on our farmers, effectively giving our overseas competitors an ‘import subsidy’," he said. "These stringent Australian requirements also ensure that our produce is safe and healthy, clean and green."

Mr Katter welcomed plans by local growers to brand their apples with ‘Australian-grown’ stickers in the continuing campaign against fruit imported from New Zealand.

"But this is not enough," he said.

Mr Katter said the Australian Party had unanimously decided that all produce coming into Australia should be labelled – and apples were an excellent example to use.

"New Zealand has fire blight and therefore often sprays with streptomycin, which is quite rightly banned in Australia. There is currently no warning to Australian consumers and both sides of Parliament should be ashamed of themselves since both agreed to the apples coming into Australia."

Mr Katter said it was not only apples at stake. "No country in the world has to put up with the impossibly restrictive conditions applied to Australian growers. The least we can do is see that consumers get the benefit of such farmer hardship."

Mr Katter said most of the prawns now sold in shops were grown in waters contaminated with sewage – again indicating that all imported food produce should be labelled. "Let the consumer be forewarned," he concluded.