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Video Health warnings for wine: Labor MP

Labor MP Leon Bignell is proposing health warnings for wines that were produced using vast amounts of river water in South Australia.


IAN HENSCHKE, PRESENTER: The southern suburbs are always a key election battleground. Two shots were fired there this week. Plans to extend the southern expressway and another proposal for the wine industry from local Labor MP Leon Bignell. He argues that inexpensive bulk wine from New South Wales Riverina district is unsustainable, damaging both the health of the river and the reputation of Australian wine. Leon Bignell is proposing putting health warnings, like those on cigarette packets, on wines produced using vast amounts of water from the river.

SIMON ROYAL, REPORTER: At a basic level, growing grapes is about turning water into wine. And for many winemakers around McLaren Vale that starts here.

KYM DAVEY, COMPANY DIRECTOR WINEMAKER: So, this is the hub. From here we pipe the water at pressure throughout the district.

SIMON ROYAL: Every second, 300 litres of recycled water pours from Christies Beach sewage plant into the Willunga Basin's water company's repumping pond. Kim Davie runs both the company and is also a winemaker. He says 5 billion litres of this water a year is pumped to 120 growers throughout the region and for the majority, it's their sole source of irrigation.

KYM DAVEY: This is a district that's relied on the Murray or on, in fact, the groundwater, that the industry wouldn't have grown as it has and for us to be successful on an international stage, we need a certain amount of critical mass as well. So not only has this water given us some growth and some critical mass but it has ensured that we're able to meet quality standards over the last four years of drought. And to be honest, without this water, this industry here, in this district, would be in big trouble.

SIMON ROYAL: The 10 year old water project has a fan in local MP Leon Bignell. He won the seat of Mawson from the Liberals in 2006 and it's the Government's second most marginal seat. He's a fan of the wine too.

LEON BIGNELL, MP FOR MAWSON: Well here, we call it turning shit into Shiraz but it is not shit Shiraz it's very good, it is a fine drop.

#Red, red wine...#

SIMON ROYAL: But a recent trip to London has left Leon Bignell worried about the future of water and wine. He saw an ad in the Sunday Times offering a dozen Aussie reds he says from the New South Wales Riverina for less than $100. In a parliamentary report Leon Bignell says the water used to grow that cheap wine should have been left in the river.

LEON BIGNELL: Its worth more to us in the river here and flowing down to the Lower Lakes than it is to be bottled up, packed off and sent halfway around the world to be sold at that price. They're using too much water, it's not sustainable.

BRIAN SIMPSON, CEO RIVERINA WINEGRAPE GROWERS: We take water from the Murrumbidgee River not the Murray system and water used sufficiency in our region is one of the better ones in terms of the inland regions in Australia. In an ABARE report comparing McLaren Vale to the Riverina our average growers use 4.7 mega litres per hector, in the McLaren Vale they use 4 mega litres per hector, so a tenfold variation as claimed in the document is so far from the truth, it's embarrassing.

SIMON ROYAL: The MP counters the Murrumbidgee system is part of the Murray Darling Basin and McLaren Vale growers insist they average less than 2 mega litres of irrigation water a hectare, if it's used at all. But leaving aside the 'he said, she said' of who uses what, the local MP wants to force a change in how much river water is used to irrigate vines and he's proposing to do that through consumers.

LEON BIGNELL: When I saw that ad in the Sunday Times and walked through bottle shops and looked at some of the labels from the Riverina that they were selling dirt cheap over in the UK, I thought well maybe we need to put a health warning on there. We do it on cigarettes here around the world and so we look after the health of people, how about we look after the health of our river which sustains so many people along its length and put a warning on the bottle that this is unsustainable wine.

SIMON ROYAL: Are you serious?

LEON BIGNELL: I am serious. I don't know if we need to get to that but just the threat of bringing it in will make people change their practices.

KYM DAVEY: I think that's an interesting point of view. I would promote the more positive side of our sustainability, in our region.

SIMON ROYAL: Infuriated, rather than interested is the reaction of Brian Simpson, the CEO of the Riverina Wine Grape growers. He makes the point that many South Australian wines are also irrigated with Murray water, so the unsustainable label would apply to them.

BRIAN SIMPSON: For the Riverland, which is 50% of that state's production, should be very concerned about these comments going into State Parliament of South Australia.

LEON BIGNELL: I don't think you'll find it in Clare and the Barossa and I think most people in the Riverland would be under this sort of level. And I'm talking about...

SIMON ROYAL: Sure, but if they weren't?

LEON BIGNELL: Yes, there would be fair warning, you'd have to..any sort of system, you have to give a few years warning.

SIMON ROYAL: The suggestion has also divided opinion here. The Liberals water spokesman Mitch Williams says a litre of wine takes the same basic amount of water to produce, wherever the water comes from.

MITCH WILLIAMS, LIBERAL MP: If somebody's suggesting that water that comes naturally from rain fall in a place which is fortunate enough to have a high rain fall, as opposed to somebody irrigating changes something fundamental about the reason why somebody would buy a bottle of wine, I think is nonsense. I think, to be quite honest, I think this is a desperate act by somebody who wants to play politics.

SIMON ROYAL: It's fair to say that the wine water warning label suggestion has given winemakers around McLaren Vale something of a chuckle. It's also fair to say they had are not rushing to back the idea publically and buy themselves a fight with other wine regions. But behind all of that headline grabbing stuff though, people are saying the Australian wine industry must have a debate on just where and what its future is. And one of those people is wine writer and critic Phillip White, who says it's all about quality and sustainable water use.

PHILLIP WHITE, WINE WRITER CRITIC: I think the wine industry is at a very, very crucial watershed the like of which it has never seen before.

SIMON ROYAL: He believes Australia, including SA's Riverland has pursued a strategy risking both the river and the wine industry.

PHILLIP WHITE: The whole push to make cheap wine for the overseas market was wrong and the quicker we face it the quicker we remove about 40% of the national vineyard, the better it will be for small, responsible, high quality producers.

KYM DAVEY: In many international markets, Australia is now not the flavour of the month wine, so things are tough out there.

SIMON ROYAL: The Riverina though argues just as passionately, there is no future without it.

BRIAN SIMPSON: We service a market called the popular premium that is at least 60% of Australia's wine grape exports. In terms of international competitors we need to be competing with them, such as Chile and Argentina and South Africa. Regions such as the inland regions in Australia are competitive in those areas and we need to keep them alive and productive.

SIMON ROYAL: Surprisingly though, there is some middle ground in all of this and it's here in Chester Osborne's old unirrigated vines. It's not his market but the McLaren Vale winemaker believes there should be a place for everyone.

CHESTER OSBORN, MCLAREN VALE WINEMAKER: Look, I think we can still compete very, very well at this stage in the cheaper area and I think there's still going to be a place there for that all the time.

7.30 South Australia