Wine and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2026

Mr CHESTER (Gippsland—Deputy Leader of the National Party) (17:11): I say, again at the outset, that the coalition will be supporting the Wine and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2026, which was introduced in the House of Reps by the minister in July this year. There are two schedules to the bill. Schedule 1 amends the Wine Australia Act 2013 to allow information sharing with the ACCC.

Schedule 2 amends the Primary Industries Levies and Charges Collection Act 2024. I stress, at the outset, that there are no financial impacts on the budget from the bill before the chamber. No additional costs will be incurred by growers, and, as per the explanatory memorandum, it's on that basis that the coalition supports the legislation as it was presented by the minister.

What it does do, though, is give Wine Australia an explicit function to conduct grape and wine industry surveys, building on the existing national vintage survey. It does set up an information-sharing framework so Wine Australia can pass relevant information on to the ACCC, supporting the mandatory code once it actually starts operating. The bill before the House extends the act's existing civil penalty for misuse of protected information.

It also covers this new ACCC information-sharing pathway. This isn't a new type of penalty; it's applying an existing safeguard to the new disclosure power. It does let ABARES share levy payer contact details with approved third-party contractors to improve participation in agricultural surveys.

I would indicate, on that point, that this isn't a broad new information-sharing power. It narrows an existing restriction, with safeguards requiring third parties not to pass information on further and requiring only the minimum necessary information to be shared. Again, I stress that this bill doesn't change levies.

It doesn't change who pays for them or how they're calculated. It is confined to information sharing and administrative housekeeping. It's important to note that this bill responds directly to the Emerson review.

That was a review undertaken by the former minister Craig Emerson which found grape growers have too little bargaining power against large winemakers and that the existing voluntary code of conduct no longer works and is not fit for purpose. This isn't the mandatory code itself that we're debating today. It does lay the groundwork, though, in letting Wine Australia share information with the ACCC ahead of the code's planned start in January 2027, which I note does have the support of industry.

It does matter in the sense that, with a mandatory code, we are more likely to see fairer commercial arrangements. Fairer commercial arrangements, where there's a power imbalance between grape growers and the end producers, are an important aim of this side of the House and, I would imagine, the government itself. What this bill won't do is address the real problems that the wine grape industry in Australia is confronting right now.

The wine sector is currently carrying around 262 million litres more wine than it can sustainably sell. This is putting enormous pressure on prices right through the supply chain. The 2026 harvest was the smallest in 25 years, yet prices keep falling anyway.

This goes beyond just one bad season. We are talking about a structural challenge facing the Australian wine grape industry, and it’s the growers in the warm inland regions which have been hit the hardest. Some have been unable to find a buyer for their fruit at all.

This is coming in against a backdrop of global wine consumption falling to its lowest level in 60 years, and this is not a problem that I think Australia can fix by itself, but we can make sure our own market is as fair as possible. I say, in addressing the legislation before the chamber, that those opposite need to get out more and talk to growers on the ground throughout regional Australia.

If they got out more and if they actually listened to the concerns of the industry, they would understand the depth and the breadth of the challenges our growers are facing right now. But this government, the Albanese government, is ignoring the warnings of a deepening crisis in Australia's wine sector, which is adding to the social and economic pressures on growers.

I'm not one for exaggeration when it comes to such an important industry, but this is a crisis which the government has been warned about repeatedly. We had industry leaders, in the lead-up to this year's budget, putting forward a $139 million three-year package to address structural oversupply, to help rebuild demand and to support growers and winemakers facing prolonged financial distress.

There's a mythology around the wine industry that it's all fancy vineyards and rich people with tax deductions driving their Range Rovers, having the holidays in the south of France and making money off the public purse through some tax dodge. That is not the reality of the industry, and that is not the reality of the people we are talking about right now in this place.

Growers and winemakers are facing prolonged financial distress and bankruptcy in the face of circumstances which are beyond their control. It is not their fault. It is not their fault that there is an oversupply.

It is not their fault that global wine consumption has dropped. It is not their fault that they are facing the circumstances they are facing. The industry took this package of $139 million over three years to the government.

It sounds like a lot, but, in a budget of $850 billion per year, it's not that much. They took this package to the government and sought assistance with the government for a solution for the 262 million litres of wine in storage, which could possibly be repurposed for fuel use in the future. Sadly, at a time when the government should have been listening to the industry and seeking to reduce the stress facing the industry, the government cut funding for the industry in the budget.

At a time when the industry was putting forward this modest package, the coalition was encouraging the government to consider it, because what we're talking about is a structural change. We're looking for opportunities for growers to be able to voluntarily exit the industry with some dignity and to minimise the economic impact on regional communities. If there's going to be a transfer of land use and if, in fact, there's no longer the requirement for that many grapes to be grown for wine in Australia and there's going to be alternative crops planted, an exit package, a transfer into new products or into new crops with dignity and voluntarily allowing growers to exit the sector, is something that governments have done before with other industries.

This is not unheard of, and it would have been the responsible thing to do by the minister and the government, because we are talking about literally hundreds of smaller growers who would benefit from a very modest package that will allow them, again, to exit the industry, remove any redundant vines and infrastructure and perhaps reuse that land for other agricultural activities.

There are precedents with restructuring industries, like the sugar industry. We saw it with the dairy sector. We saw it with tobacco industries, and the wine sector could return to a long-term sustainable industry if there were a coordinated transition plan put in place.

That is what the coalition is seeking from this government. We're seeking a coordinated transition plan in consultation with the industry, and the industry itself has been very reasonable in its requests. Australian Grape & Wine chief executive Lee McLean has told the Albanese government that growers, winemakers and families are under the types of stress that they haven't seen in generations.

He said: If government delays, the costs don't disappear. They re-emerge as business failures, abandoned vineyards, mental health crises and long-term regional decline. … … … The cost of acting now is modest. The cost of inaction will be far greater and borne by regional Australians least able to absorb it.

In debating the bill before the House today, I call on the government to listen to the concerns of the Australian wine and grape sector and to assist them in allowing the industry to make this transition with dignity. As I said, it was a prebudget submission, it was fully costed. Mr McLean said it was bitterly disappointing for an industry under significant and sustained strain to see any support in the budget.

They didn't ask for a handout; they are asking for support for a transition plan. They were disappointed that the government didn't heed the evidence, that the government didn't heed the warning signs. What did this government do instead?

It cut the Wine Tourism and Cellar Door Grants Program right when the industry could least afford it. So we have an industry under stress, through circumstances not of the growers making, seeking some level of support, a modest level of support over three years for an orderly transition plan, and what does this government do? It cuts just about the last bit of funding that was available to the sector.

It cuts the Wine Tourism and Cellar Door Grants Program. Is it any wonder that, in regional Australia, people are furious with this government. They are so angry with this government.

They know that, after four years, they are worse off. They know Australia is heading in the wrong direction. They have been left behind by a Prime Minister who promised to govern for all Australians and simply doesn't do it.

He had the opportunity in the budget to demonstrate a little good faith with the wine and grape industry, to demonstrate he understood his fellow Australians were under stress, through no fault of their own. But instead of providing a helping hand for these hardworking Australians, to get them through this difficult period in their lives, what does the government do?

It cuts the funding to the very industry that had sought his help, had sought the Prime Minister's help. I say to the government: regional wineries are part of the economic heart of a lot of our communities in regional Australia. This isn't just about one commodity; it's about backing regional Australia more broadly.

In relation to the bill before the House, we believe it is a sensible and worthwhile reform, but that's only one part of the answer. If this government is serious about the future of this industry, then it needs to listen to the growers, it needs to listen to the stakeholders and the representative groups and it needs to back them with real support. It should not keep cutting programs and adding costs to our farmers that they can ill afford.

I thank the House. Debate adjourned. Leave granted for second reading debate to resume at a later hour.