891 ABC Adelaide
12 Feb 2016
Transcipt E&OE TRANSCRIPT
891 ABC Adelaide Breakfast with Matthew Abraham and David Bevan
SUBJECT: Tinned tomatoes.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Let's go to tinned tomatoes and a decision that will be, I think, warmly applauded by Australian farmers who grow tomatoes, I think less warmly received by those of us who buy our tomatoes at the supermarket in tins. Petrol and tomatoes for me, there's a price point, a certain price point for petrol where I'll always top up and for tomatoes it's when I see tomatoes for below $1 a tin, preferably 80, 85 cents I'll buy them- I'll buy a slab of them, I'll buy a dozen at least or two dozen. That's going to end folks. Chris Pyne is Federal Industry Minister and Member for Sturt, good morning Christopher Pyne.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning Matthew.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Now Christopher Pyne, what has been going on with these cheap Italian tomatoes? It's now going to see a tariff imposed on them by you?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: That's right. So we're all in favour of free trade of course, Matthew, but it has to be fair trade and the Anti-Dumping Commission's job is to determine when Australian businesses are being injured by dumping from overseas producers and what the Anti-Dumping Commission has found is that the Italian tinned tomato producers, La Doria and Feger in this case, but all other ones as well about a year ago have been dumping their tinned tomatoes in Australia at cut price rates injuring Australian tomato producers and therefore we are justified to add a duty to Italian tinned tomatoes and that's what we did yesterday which means that we're now competing on a level playing field, rather than seeing our businesses go out of business because of cheap dumped imports.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Okay now this Commissioner Dale Seymour, who's the Anti-Dumping Commissioner, found that all 105 brands of Italian tinned tomatoes sold in Australia are being dumped here unfairly and illegally so you're saying free trade does not mean unfair trade.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: That's right I mean of course we're in favour of free trade and I think Australian consumers fully understand that but we could allow ourselves to be a market where products for everything are dumped here and they might be incredibly cheap but you'll find that eventually we'll have no businesses, no jobs, no growth, no manufacturing but we'll have a lot of old cheap consumer products that no one can buy so obviously the Government wants to protect Australian businesses from being injured and Dale Seymour is the independent Anti-Dumping Commissioner, he's found that yes Australian businesses were being injured illegally and therefore we're going to well, I've acted yesterday to stop it.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Now what will this mean for a price, let's say- now I haven't actually seen tomatoes for 80 cents a tin for quite a while.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: No I think that's a bit of an exaggeration.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: No, no, Chris Pyne, I have purchased them but it hasn't been for- you make a fair point, it hasn't been for a while. Maybe they've seen this coming.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Some of the newspapers said that tinned tomatoes 80 cents a tin, well I haven't seen an 80 cent a tin tomato for a very long time.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: No, not even in the poor part of the Seat of Adelaide.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: [Laughs] No.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: I'm sure David Colovic wouldn't be able to buy them at that price, Christopher Pyne.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Now, now that's another subject.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: I know that, he was your man though Chris.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Now let's not get distracted from tinned tomatoes.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Why not?
[Laughter]
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Stick to the subject.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Stick to the subject, don't mention the war. Don't mention the poor part of Adelaide. Now okay so what will this mean in terms of the price of a can of tomatoes? Let's say Italian tomatoes at the moment.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Yes well a La Doria can of tomatoes will increase by 8.5 per cent because that's the duty we've added and a Feger can of tomatoes will increase by 4.5 per cent so the duty's anywhere between about 4.5 and 8.5 but what will happen of course is that the- they'll have to add those prices but they're effectively- the dumping of Italian tinned tomatoes will stop.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Right okay, so…
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: There won't be any advantage for them to do so anymore.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Alright are they still going to be cheaper than Australian tomatoes?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well SPC Ardmona is the biggest producer of tinned tomatoes in Australia, I'd well guess they'll make some business decisions now. I mean if I was an executive at SPC Ardmona I'd now launch a campaign to encourage people back to my tinned tomatoes on the basis that there was now a level playing field and I think probably the consumer would respond quite well to that but I'm- it's a business of its own, I'm not going to try and run their business as well as being the Industry Minister and the Member for Sturt. I've only got so much time on my hands.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Well you are the fixer you could probably do all three.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: You need to maintain the quality of your decision making.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Exactly.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: And not spread yourself too thinly, Chris Pyne.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Correct I've got lots of things to do.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: You have. The Australian says prices for Australia's competing SPC Ardmona branded tinned tomatoes are about $1.20 each. You just say- let's round off- it's going to be about 8 cents on the La Doria isn't it I suppose, it's around 6 to 8 cents increase in their price.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Probably.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Yeah and the other brand maybe about 4 to 5 cents so they're going to roughly on a parity now.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: You hope so. I mean that is the theory of the anti-dumping laws is that you attach a duty and therefore the Australian businesses and the imported product should be around the same price. Now whether the Italian tinned tomato producers decide to chose other markets is a matter for them. I mean I don't want to increase prices for consumers but my job as the Minister for Industry is also to make sure that Australian businesses aren't being injured by cheap imports. That's what we've done I think the Australian public will be glad of that and of course the other big area where there's a lot of controversy is with the importation of steel and 80 per cent- you'll be surprised to here- of the cases before the Anti-Dumping Commission or the applications for the Anti-Dumping Commission are about steel and I understand that there'll be about three decisions that I've asked them to expedite around steel coming up in the next few weeks because obviously that's important to us in terms of Arrium at Whyalla and also Blue Scope Steel in Port Kembla.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: If you've just joined us you're listening to Christopher Pyne, Federal Industry Minister, he's very well know, obviously not just nationally but particularly in South Australia as a member for Sturt. And he's talking about his decision- well it's a decision firstly by the Independent Anti-Dumping Commissioner, and that is that all hundred and five brands of Italian tinned tomatoes are being illegally dumped here, because of the massive subsidies in Italy, and this is not meant to happen, it's unfair, even in a free trade environment. The prices will rise because Chris Pyne as Minister has now increased the tariff, or imposed a tariff on Italian tomatoes, so it would be roughly in line with the cost of Australian tomatoes. There's a text here saying how many tinned tomato producers do we have in Australia Chris Pyne?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well we have a lot of tomato growers. I think the main tinned tomato producer is SPC Ardmona, there may well be a number of smaller ones, but I think the vast majority of the Australian market would be based around Shepparton in Victoria.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Okay. How is it illegal? What law has been broken is another question here.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well they're the International World Trade Organisation rules, and Australia has signed up to those under various treaty obligations, and we- we're a very good international citizen by the way in terms of the World Trade Organisation. Most countries regard Australia as being one of the most open markets in the world. So if we find that we're being unfairly dealt with then most of the rest of the world will think; well if the Australians think that it must be right, because that would be very unusual for Australia to impose duties that were unjustified. So they're international rules. Now Italy might well take us to the World Trade Organisation tribunals…
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Okay.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: But I'm very confident that we would be successful.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Okay. Chris Pyne somebody- a text here, I think directed at me not you…
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Oh, that sounds ominous.
[Laughter]
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Shall I read it out? Do you want to hear it?
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: I'm full of trepidation now.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: Not much hope when a bloke on a colossal salary refuses to pay 40 cents more to keep Australian jobs; greed.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: That must be you I think.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: It is I think, I think Rob's having a… I think he's effectively saying I'm a cheapskate.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: It's the ABC people with the colossal salaries he must be talking about.
MATTHEW ABRAHAM: [Laughs] That's right.
CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Everybody knows that.
