Wine and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2026

Mr McCORMACK (Riverina) (18:06): When I first came into this parliament in 2010, I proudly represented the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, where so many of the fine wines that Australians drink and Australia exports are produced. Whether it's De Bortoli or Casella or many of the other fine wine producers in that area, as far as the grape industry and the wine industry are concerned, water legislation has been of vital importance.

In recent times—late last year certainly—we've seen De Bortoli, a family generational business, pulling out vines. This is a tragedy. Just today we've seen SunRice issue a media statement in relation to workers that it is being forced to make redundant, particularly at its Leeton and Deniliquin mills.

That is rice; I appreciate the difference. But that is ninety-two people put out of work. Thankfully, 14 of them have been given other jobs within the operation.

But there are still, in all, 78 people who've lost their jobs because of water policy. It's 78 incomes, 78 families affected and the hopes of 78 people—more, in fact, if you count the families—dashed because of poor water policy. When we talk about wine and we talk about the grape industry, the same applies.

Yes, I get that we have a wine glut worldwide at the moment, and that is also an issue. It certainly was brought into focus with the recent issues around the Middle East with the Strait of Hormuz and the lack of availability of fuel. There were suggestions that the oversupply of wine could be turned into biofuels, and this is certainly something that the nation can look to in the future.

It is possible, but the Wine and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2026 is not just about the legislation amending two acts but also, very much at the heart and core of this, about this federal Labor government's water policy. If you go and ask any of those irrigators or any of those grape growers in the Riverina—the old part of the Riverina that I once represented and elsewhere—they will tell you that, but for poor water policy, they would be growing more food for this nation and for this nation's exports.

The member for Nicholls has just entered the chamber. He, like me, understands how keenly water policy is felt in our electorates. He represents Shepparton and many other fine food-producing areas besides.

If you take his electorate and the older parts of the Riverina that were in the Riverina up until 2016—why they're not still is a matter for the Australian Electoral Commission; it's the true geographical and every other definition and meaning of the Riverina, that area Narrandera west, with Narrandera being the gateway to the Riverina, taking in Coleambally, Leeton, Griffith, Deniliquin, Finley and Tocumwal, and I could go on and on—those people are fine Australians.

They went there just after World War 1. They turned what John Oxley, the explorer, described as a 'wilderness that people would never look twice at' as far as being a place to live—'inhospitable', I think, he called it—into a garden of Eden. They were told to go out there with soldier settlements, they were given a bare block with stones and pretty poor soil, and, then, Sir Samuel McCaughey came along, Burrinjuck Dam was built, Snowy Hydro was built later, and there was full irrigation, but not necessarily hydroelectricity.

They converted that area, that wilderness, into something very, very special. What do we do in return? What do we do as legislators?

We say: we're not going to provide you with the water. We're going to buy that water back, and, in turn, we're going to flush it down the mouth of the Murray. Never mind the grape growers, never mind the wine producers, never mind the rice growers.

Never mind those people who grow the world's finest fruit and vegetables. The same is happening in Nicholls. The same is happening in that outstanding member's electorate.

We're not going to continue to cop it. We are not. Somebody has to make a stand.

Our irrigators have, but they are so tired and so bogged down with water legislation, with changes to the act and all the rest, and they get very weary when, once again, they get a water minister—particularly a Labor minister—suggesting that there's going to be another buyback. Buybacks are Labor lazy policy. Labor and lazy are interchangeable because they mean the same thing.

There is a proposal before this nation to buy another 100 gigalitres out to complete the 450 gigalitres of water that then prime minister Julia Gillard promised on the banks of Goolwa in 2012. We've just seen 86 gigalitres taken out of the Murray-Darling Basin system. Eighty-six gigalitres is the equivalent of 34,400 Olympic sized swimming pools taken out of farm production, taken away from grape growers.

Labor, bureaucrats and anybody else who cares to think that this policy is good will say, 'Well, they get paid for it; they get a fair price for it.' So they do. Many of them are dead stressed, thanks to the Labor government. What it means is less local government area production.

Griffith City Council will tell you how much their shire production has been devalued by since the Murray-Darling Basin Plan came into play. The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, that organisation, will be asked to account for every drop of water when we get back into government. They already have 72 per cent of the available water in the Murray-Darling system, so there's only 28 per cent left to grow the food and fibre in a huge area of Queensland, the ACT, New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria.

There's only 28 per cent in the Riverland, in the areas that the member for Nicholls represents, in New South Wales, in the northern and southern connected systems, in South-East Queensland and western Queensland too. But most of the recent buyback as part of that 450 gigalitres came out of the southern connected system. It always comes out of the southern connected system.

Always. It's the people I represent and, often, the people the member for Nicholls represents who are hit the hardest. Now, this bill, as I say, amends two acts.

The first is the Wine Australia Act 2013, which will give Wine Australia an explicit function to conduct or arrange grape and wine industry surveys—fair enough—building on the existing National Vintage Survey, to set up an information sharing framework so relevant information can be shared with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and to enable a mandatory code of conduct for wine grape purchasers be made separately under the Competition and Consumer Act of 2010 intending to commence on 1 January next year.

The amendments to the Primary Industries Levies and Charges Collection Act 2024 allow authorised ABARES staff to share levy and charge information, including some personal information, with contractors such as mail houses to improve response rates and data quality for ABARES and agricultural surveys, plus a minor technical fix to the secretary's rule making power.

Now, I note that the member for Kooyong has moved a amendment, seconded by the member for Mackellar. Always be wary when those two, or any of the teals, start putting in their pious amendments. Always be on guard.

They were just in the House talking about gambling, and you should have seen the looks they were pulling when the Prime Minister was saying there's nothing wrong with having a bet in Question Time today. They've had their say about vaping and smoking, and they like to have their say about everything. I mean, seriously.

If we followed the teals' way, we wouldn't be able to have a bet. We wouldn't be able to have a drink. In a liberal democracy, those who choose to smoke—I don't—wouldn't be able to have a smoke.

They are just anti everything most Australians like to do. Mr Repacholi: Hear, hear. Mr McCORMACK: I hear 'hear, hear' from the member for Hunter.

But a sensible balance has to be reached. There has to be. And we as legislators can't just keep banging Australians on the head and forcing more regulation on them.

We as legislators also need to be reminded often of the role that has been played, is being played and will continue to be played by those people who don't wear suits, who work the land, who roll their sleeves up, who don't mind getting dirt under their fingernails, who actually grow our food to help this nation and many others. If they choose to grow grapes, almonds, fruit, vegetables, whatever the case might be—whether it's west of Narrandera or whether it's in some of the grape growing areas and wine producing areas in the Riverina electorate I now represent including: Tumbarumba; Hilltops, which is centred on Young; Gundagai; and Cowra as well as Murrumbateman and the Yass Valley—then we should be applauding them and doing everything we can to help those people.

There's nothing wrong with people having a tipple. There's nothing wrong with people getting in the car and driving out of the nation's capital, going to one of those little cellar door wineries, having a taste on the weekend and having a good time, maybe even having a bet at the Yass Picnic Races if they want to. It's totally unhealthy, but if they choose to have a smoke, well, so be it.

They should be able to without the teal's telling us, 'Oh no'. Smack on the wrist. 'You can't do that.' You can't do that? Goodness gracious.

What's Australia coming to? Tumbarumba has around 300 hectares under vine, about 20 family owned vineyards and an annual crush of roughly 3,000 tonnes. Tumbarumba is known for its world-class, internationally acclaimed chardonnay and pinot noir.

The Gundagai and Hilltops areas produce shiraz, cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay, and it's good, and we applaud them. Murrumbateman and the Yass Valley have a number of globally recognised brands and local hidden gems. Shiraz, riesling and cab sav are the main varieties, with proud brands of Clonakilla—who wouldn't like a glass of that right now?—Helm and Eden Road located in the Riverina boundaries that I now proudly represent.

Wagga Wagga—of course, my hometown—is also home to the National Wine and Grape Industry Centre at Charles Sturt University. Plus, CSU has its own commercial winery and offers a wine science degree. But, as I said at the outset, high water prices and the lack of availability of water are huge problems for the wine sector.

They are. These are permanent plantings that need a secure and stable water supply. Can we have confidence, member for Nicholls, in the Labor government providing that?

I think not. Mr Birrell: None whatsoever. Mr McCORMACK: None whatsoever, he says.

And he's right. And there's very little that the member for Nicholls and I disagree on. I don't think there's quite anything that we disagree on.

Certainly, when it comes to making available the water for our wine growers, for our great producers and for our irrigators and farmers in general, we should be doing everything in our power as legislators to make the water available, to make their futures possible. If we don't, we're going to suffer as a result, and we'll have to rely on imported products to stock up.

And that would be to our eternal shame.