New regulations for grape products coming into effect today will provide greater protection for Australian wine brands and the reputation of Australian wine exports.
Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, Senator Anne Ruston, said the Wine Australia Regulations 2018 would extend Wine Australia’s powers to protect the industry as it embarked on a transformative overseas marketing effort in the next three years.
“Australia enjoys an excellent global reputation for producing and exporting some of the finest quality wine in the world,” Minister Ruston said.
“This is a reputation worth defending, and the new regulations enable Wine Australia to do exactly that.”
Minister Ruston said Wine Australia now had the capacity to assess whether an exporter was a ‘fit and proper person’.
“There will always be unscrupulous people seeking to make easy money from reputations carefully established and built by legitimate Australian wine producers and exporters,” Minister Ruston said.
“Wine Australia can now ensure the bona fides of potential and existing exporters before issuing export approvals.
“The new regulations will also cut red tape for exporters by halving export certificate notification periods and reducing timeframes from order to export.
“In 2017 Australia’s wine exports reached record levels and with this thriving market tipped to hit $2.5 billion this financial year, the future looks very bright for Australian growers and exporters.
“The Australian Government is supporting this bright future with a $50 million industry support package focused on transformative export marketing, after previously working with the industry and introducing critical reforms to the Wine Equalisation Tax (WET) Rebate.”
The new Wine Australia Regulations 2018 are available at: https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2018L00286.
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